Waxahatchee, Brittany Howard, Vampire Weekend, and more
MOLLY MATALON
The year is starting off with some great new releases from beloved indie and alt-rock heroes, must-hear singer-songwriter LPs, welcome returns from metal veterans, and more. Plus, we’ve got some updates on albums we hope we get before 2024 is out.
CHRIS HORNBECKER*
The first new Sleater-Kinney LP since 2021’s Path of Wellness is one of their rawest and most intense of the band’s almost 30-year run. Songs like “Needlessly Wild” and “Six Mistakes’ recall the primal punk-rock urgency of S-K classics like Dig Me Out and The Hot Rock. While they were working on the album, singer-guitarist Carrie Brownstein lost her mother and stepfather in a car accident. “The whole tone of the album changed when the accident happened,” Tucker recently told Rolling Stone. “It was a real experience of loss. And I think that touched all of the songs.”
EMMIE AMERICA*
On Green Day’s 14th LP feels like something of a return-to-form for the trio, who drifted a little too far into pop territory on 2020’s Father of All Motherfuckers. The songs can recall anything from Ramones to REO Speedwagon, and the band states its mission to reestablish themselves as some of rock & roll’s top survivors on the propulsive title track: “We are the last of the rockers/Making a com-mo-shun,” which they punch up with some Pete Townshend guitar stabs. With Dookie co-producer Rob Cavallo on board, they mostly accomplish their intent.
SAM PETTS-DAVIES
A Light For Attracting Attention, the 2022 debut album by the Smile, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s side band with drummer Tom Skinner, was a low-key affair that allowed them to stretch out a jam minus the grand expectations that always meet a Radiohead release. The pair and drummer Tom Skinner are back with Wall of Eyes, another engrossing LP of rich musical interplay and, on the eight-minute highlight “Bending Hectic,” the explosive apocalyptic catharsis few other bands can deliver with such force.
BOBBI RICH*
On her first album in five years, Howard continues to venture into sonic playgrounds far removed from her days in Alabama Shakes. There are forays into borderline EDM (“Red Flags”), a bit of Maya Angelou, and songs, like the jagged title track, that deal with a recent breakup and a relationship that followed. Leading the charge throughout it all is a voice that’s grown more assured, potent and fiery over the years.
MURIEL MARGARET*
Nashville singer-songwriter Madi Diaz, who toured with Harry Styles (and even became part of his backing band), will return next month with her excellent LP Weird Faith. The album blends Americana, folk, and beer-sipping porch rockers — and includes a gorgeous duet with her friend, Kacey Musgraves. “Madi has a really pleasing way of keeping everything conversational,” Musgraves tells us. “My favorite kind of songwriting.”
OLLY CURTIS/FUTURE PUBLISHING/GETTY IMAGES
For his fifth solo album, Dino dude J Mascis recorded 10 creaky-voiced confessionals, this time with full drums and electric guitar solos. The three What Do We Do Now songs that have come out so far show Mascis’ ability to write catchy, freewheeling songs that seem to pour out of him. “Right Behind You” finds him strumming an acoustic guitar with pauses for him to sing about feeling surprised about how far he and a friend have come all while his (overdubbed) electric guitar wails behind him. He makes it sound so easy.
BELLA PETERSON*
“You can try to out run all the pain you come from / That would be a real mistake.” Laura Jane Grace sings on the title track from Hole In My Head. Avoiding hard truths has never been much of an option for Grace, who has been making fearless politically-tinged punk-rock for over 20 years, going back to her days fronting the great Florida band Against Me!. The tone on Hole In My Head is at once raw and reflective, whether its on self-searching folk tunes like “Dysphoria Hoodie” or the Fifties-tinged rock & roll of “I’m Not A Cop.”
TOMMY KHA*
Lead single “Alibi” is just one of many moments that show the forthcoming followup to Life On Earth is the most directly personal and poignant collection of songs from Alynda Segarra (see “Snakeplant,” the memoiristic showstopper Segarra has been performing live for the past few years). After the five-year wait between their last two albums, Hurray for the Riff Raff has once again teamed up with Brad Cook (Waxahatchee) for this collection of songs that will stand amongst Segarra’s finest works.
JONAH FREEMAN*
MGMT made their first since 2018’s Little Dark Age with producer Patrick Wimberly, who has worked with Beyoncéa and Lil Yachty, among many others. It’s a warm, trippy reminder of the psychedelic alt-pop beauty the duo manufacture with such ease, often delivered with earnestness and a tender touch. They get assists on the album from collaborators like Christine and the Queens and Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never.
GRIFFIN LOTZ FOR ROLLING STONE
Mannequin Pussy built a passionate underground following with their excellent albums Romantic and Patience, and they’re seriously upping their game with the excellent new I Got Heaven. The band’s viscwral explosiveness hasn’t been toned down a bit, even as they keep evolving as songwriters, The album comes with a couple stellar hardcore tantrums, but it’s songs like the magnificent title track that set a tone of heroic noise grandeur they build on throughout the LP.
KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES
Since selling out arenas with Iron Maiden, flying airplanes, fencing, and writing books don’t already take up all of his time, Bruce Dickinson has recorded his seventh studio album, The Mandrake Project. In addition to the cutting, Maiden-esque “Afterglow of Ragnarok” and an alternate version of Iron Maiden’s “If Eternity Should Fail” (titled “Eternity Has Failed” here), the album features eight other new songs the singer wrote with longtime collaborator, producer and guitarist Roy Z. Oh, and Dickinson has created a comic-book series to complement the album.
NATALIE PISERCHIO*
A retro-rock band with a punk-rock heart, Sheer Mag can often suggest Thin Lizzy by way of the Minutemen, channeling Seventies riffs and swagger without a bit of distance or irony. Their latest Playing Favorites has some of catchiest street-rock they’ve ever put on record, all driven home by powerhouse singer Tina Halladay, who balances toughness and empathy in a way that would make both D. Boon and Phil Lynott proud. The Philly band stretches out in less expected ways too, like the disco-rock highlight “All Lined Up.”
ED COOKE*
In the early 200s, the Libertines were one of the funnest bands in the world, thanks to the bruised tunefulness of records like their classic debut Up the Bracket and the sloshed hijnx of rakish frontman Pete Doherty. They kicked off the run up to first album in nearly a decade, All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade, with the sharp single “Run Run Run,” and followed it with the more morose “Night of the Hunter.” They say the rest of the album is inspired by topics as intriguing and varied as nuclear war and Queen Elizabeth.
MEL BUTLER*
Seven years after the Reid Brothers’ last album, the Jesus and Mary Chain have recorded another collection of too-cool-for-school rockers with titles that wink at popular culture (“The Eagles and the Beatles,” “Hey Lou Reid”) and themselves on “Jamcod” — an O.D. on their own buzz-saw guitar. The group self-produced the record — Glasgow Eyes (their eighth overall) — at a studio that belongs to fellow Glaswegians Mogwai. “Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens,” Jim Reid said. “We went in with a bunch of songs and let it take its course.”
JAMES HODGES*
Two years after their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Judas Priest — heavy metal’s longtime defenders of the faith — return with their 19th album, Invincible Shield. The lead single, “Panic Attack,” shows that the electrical charge that fueled songs like “Breaking the Law” and “Painkiller” still runs through them, and the steely “Trial by Fire” shows that power ballads still work in metal if they’re accompanied with a enough weighty, distorted guitars and church bells. And on both songs, Rob Halford still screams for vengeance with the best of them.
ALEX LOCKETT*
It’s hard to imagine Jack Antonoff has much left in the creative tank when he’s done co-writing with mega-stars like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, and others, But his most recent album with his band-project Bleachers teams with charming pop-rock. Songs like “Modern Girl” might be straight-up Bruce Springsteen cosplay, but Antonoff delivers every moment of hand-me-down majesty with pop wit, emo heart, and his own unique melodic touch.
MARK SELIGER*
Anyone who’s seen the video for the funk-rap “TK421”–where we see Kravitz wake up (nude, ‘natch), shower and get dressed to rock–knows he’s still his uninhibited self. His 12th album also stays true to basics: He recorded it at his home studio in the Bahamas, played most of the instruments and gave one of its songs the uber-Kravitzian title “It’s Just Another Fine Day (in this Universe of Love).” As usual, he confidently bounces between riffy rockers, old-school soul and lascivious techno-pop that remind you of bygone pop eras.
“We’ve always been an island unto ourselves,” says Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson (right).
ROSS HALFIN*
A few years ago, the battling brothers Robinson, Chris and Rich, patched up their ongoing differences enough to form a new Black Crowes and hit the road. Apparently they’re getting along so well these days that they could even stand to be in a recording studio together. The band’s first album in 15 years, the ten-track Happiness Bastards revives the band’s retro-boogie and adds a new wrinkle: a duet with country singer Lainey Wilson in “Wilted Rose.” Behind the boards is producer Jay Joyce, who has albums by Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Cage the Elephant and others on his resume.
St. Cloud, the last album album from solo project from Alabama-born singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield, was a modern Southern roots masterpiece in the vein of classics like Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. She’s back with the equally masterful Tiger’s Blood., on which she gets assists from pals like drummer Spencer Tweedy (son of Jeff) and singer-guitarist MJ Lenderman from the great band Wednesday. Lenderman appears on the LP’s heartbreakingly beautiful first single “Right Back to It,” an early taste of a record that feels like it’s going to be one of 2024’s landmark releases.
Remember when rock stars would prematurely announce their retirements but then come back? Crow did the album equivalent with 2019’s Threads, when she said she was done making records. But starting with “Evolution,” a new song triggered by how freaked out she is by AI, all she wanted to do was have some songwriting fun again. Working once more with producer Mike Elizondo, she’s returning with a nine-song album, and if we’re to guess from the single “Alarm Clock,” it nicely harks back to her pop-bounce period of the late Nineties and early ‘00s.
LORNE THOMSON/REDFERNS
The London duo, which specializes in commentary-heavy noise punk with outsized guitar riffs, will return with the 10-track Humble as the Sun this spring. The first single, “He’s a Man,” is a typically wry — and funny — takedown of male complacency, as frontman Bobby Vylan sings about “just another day in the life of a big dumb man.” According to Kerrang, the singer has said the LP is “for the underdogs, the ones who come out swinging and those who refuse to be defeated in the face of injustice, and aims to remind listeners that anger is a fire that can be harnessed and put to use.”
JIM HERRINGTON*
Ohio Players, out April 5, is named after the classic funk band who also originated from the Keys’ home state. The album may not be that danceable, but its expansive pop isn’t merely blues, either. Inspired by DJ sets around the country, where they spun some of their fave records, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney worked with collaborators like Beck and Dan “The Automator” Nakamura to make as close as they’re likely to come to a soul record, down to a cover of William Bell’s “I Forgot to Be Your Lover.”
SCOTT LEGATO/GETTY IMAGES
In 2019, Robert Smith told Rolling Stone that the Cure had recorded its 14th studio album — and first since 2008’s 4:13 Dream — but that he wanted to revise the songs. “I can’t just think, ‘Oh, that’ll do,’” he said. “It’s kind of hard because I’m measuring the songs and the whole thing up to Pornography and Disintegration, in particular, and Bloodflowers, maybe, too, to a degree.” At the time, he wanted to call the album Live From the Moon, but as of 2022, he was calling it Songs of a Lost World. “It’s got artwork, it’s got a running order, it’s almost done,” he told NME that year. “They’re so slow because of vinyl, but it might come in September. I’d rather it just came out. I can’t stand the anticipation.” Maybe 2024 will finally be the year.
DANIEL KNIGHTON/GETTY IMAGES
It’s been five years since Slayer called it quits and nearly a decade since they released their final album. So imagine how many razor-sharp riffs and morbid lyrics the band’s guitarist, Kerry King, has been holding onto for his debut solo album. He hasn’t yet revealed an album title or a release date, but slayer drummer Paul Bostaph has said he’s worked on the album and King recently called the music “an extension of Slayer,” chances are good he didn’t start writing cowboy ballads.
SACHA LECCA
In addition to a solo tour, Nick Cave spent much of 2023 writing Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ upcoming 18th studio album. Although he hasn’t announced anything about it yet, he has teased it as something outside of the traditional definition of “rock.” “There’s a lot of energy in the new record, but it’s not done as a rock & roll group, by which I mean guitar-orientated music,” he told Rolling Stone last year. “Warren [Ellis] and I have been looking for ways to create music that has that kind of visceral energy about it. … We’re just looking at different ways to get to the emotional core of what I’m trying to write about.”
JUSTIN SHIN/GETTY IMAGES
Las year, Vampire Weekend released a live LP accompanied with a newsletter written by drummer Chris Tomson in which he offered an update on the band’s next album. “Ezra [Koenig] took a raga singing lesson with Terry Riley in rural Japan and wrote what he considers to be 7 of his all-time top 10 best songs.” He added, “LP news by the end of the year. It’s close to done and I feel like it just might be our best yet. 10 songs, no skips.” The band has since confirmed the album will be out this year, with no official release date set.
GRIFFIN LOTZ FOR ROLLING STONE
In 2023, HAIM celebrated the 10th anniversary of their beloved debut Days Are Gone with a deluxe reissue, but it’s been three years since their excellent 2021 album Women In Music Pt. III. When asked about a new album during a BBC radio interview last summer, the trio didn’t get too specific, responding, “we’ve been working with some cool people.” Though they don’t have any official plans yet as to when they’re next LP will be out, they’re looking to start releasing new music sometime later this year.
DANNY CLINCH*
It seems pretty clear that Springsteen will roll out some type of album this year, although it’s unclear which of his several projects in the works it will be. He’s apparently following up Only the Strong Survive with a second collection of R&B and soul covers; keyboardist David Sancious, who’s worked with Springsteen on and off since the Seventies, recently said the record may include as many as 18 tracks. Will that come first—or will the long-delayed Tracks 2 box arrive, the one that Springsteen recently said would include “five unreleased albums” from the late Eighties and Nineties?
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