Stream every standout album released this Friday with The FADER’s weekly roundup.
Every Friday, The FADER’s writers dive into the most exciting new projects released that week. Today, read our thoughts on Maria Somerville’s Luster, Nazar’s Demilitarize, and more.
Maria Somerville: Luster
Maria Somerville’s new album Luster digs deep into the idea of what happens when you stop yearning for home and find yourself back in the area that raised you… Whether she is swimming through the caves of the Atlantic coast (“Garden”) or handling wild strawberries (“Violet”), the physicality of Ireland pushed to the forefront of the songs. “Corrib” is perhaps the most overt love letter and takes its name after a local lake. “Up,” meanwhile, imagines healing a broken heart by burying it in the peat of a nearby field. — David Renshaw. Read our interview here.
Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp
fib: Heavy Lifting
Philly indie rock band fib play fast and hard, with songs that slalom through time signatures and transitions to create a rollercoaster-like sensation. Heavy Lifting is their second album and their first since signing to Julia’s War, the label run by They Are Gutting A Body Of Water’s Douglas Dulgarian. It’s a remarkable step up, packed full of urgent melodies and post-punk intricacy. Vocalist and guitarist Gage Nelson, together with guitarist Damien Nicholson, bassist Logan Adam and drummer Charlie Libby Watt, attack songs like “PS” and “Mutuals” with real vigor, creating a chaotic feeling akin to a high speed chase. Elsewhere, such as on “Dotted Line,” the band adds a thick groove to their arsenal. The overall result is an album that feels both comfortingly steeped in tradition while also being alive with possibility. Not many bands nail such a high-wire act. With Heavy Lifting, fib just joined the party. — David Renshaw
Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp
Nazar: Demilitarize
Nazar knew he wanted to sing for Demilitarize. His vocals are Auto-Tuned and whispered, their delicateness inspired by Sampha, James Blake, and brash weirdness of SahBabii. Gone are the geopolitical concepts of [his 2020 album] Guerilla; Demilitarize brings Nazar’s own humanity to the fore, his loves, struggles, self-pity, and poetic braggadocio. The cybernetic streak of his previous album remains, but there’s blood pulsing beneath the steel and steam of the music, its melodies blooming and curdling at a rate similar to &&&&&-era Arca. — Jordan Darville. Read our full interview here.
Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp
Deerhoof: Noble and Godlike in Ruin
“Love to all my savages,” Satomi Matsuzaki sings at the start of Noble and Godlike in Ruin. It’s an opening bar that would feel more at home on a Future track than on Deerhoof’s 20th LP. But Satomi sells it, dragging out each syllable over birdsong, brushed symbols that rustle like leaves, and an acoustic guitar chord strummed with controlled fanaticism. The song, titled “Overrated Species Anyhow,” is a two-minute vamp that kicks off a largely upbeat album about the ongoing decline of our society into the worst kind of chaos. The rest of side A features a manic plea for friendship from a sparrow that includes the incredible lyric “Thought of me as electric meat”; an appropriately awkward track about a mutually robotic relationship; a brief memo in which Satomi requests that the listener raise her “like a pretty buttercup”; and a dirgelike number about a woman who “asked for a pair of wings so she could marry the crow,” punctuated by industrial dissonance. The back half is slightly less stacked, but the ecstatically mathy “Disobedience” and the swarming, brassy “Who Do You Root For?” are heavy hitters. And “Immigrant Songs,” the record’s closer, is an all-timer. Like all of Deerhoof’s best songs, it’s disarmingly vulnerable and constantly surprising, finishing with an extended instrumental outro of untamed drum fills and oceans of distortion. — Raphael Helfand
Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp
Wishy: Planet Popstar
Wishy’s debut album, Triple Seven, was influenced by a shared love of The Sundays and My Bloody Valentine, all ’90s guitar distortion mixed in with sickly sweet melodies. The Indiana band’s latest offering, the Planet Popstar EP, takes the sun-soaked nature of their full-length debut and cranks it up to 11, leaning away slightly from the Kevin Shields of it all and towards early 00s guitar pop and electronic flair. The Ace of Base-referencing “Fly” is infinitely catchy and reminds me of a Sheryl Crow song, while the acoustic guitar-based “Over and Over” is addictive, stripped-down jangle-pop. The vibrant electropop of “Chaser” sounds – and I promise I say this in the best way possible – like a reimagined Owl City song. Wishy’s music always sounds nostalgic for a feeling, be it love and loss and whatever’s in between, the perfect precursor for summer. — Cady Siregar
Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp
Other projects out today that you should listen to
Beach Bunny: Tunnel Vision
Bells Larsen: Blurring Time
Coco Jones: Why Not More?
d4vd: Withered
David Longstreth: The Legend of Ochi (Original Soundtrack)
Djrum: Under Tangled Silence
Eliana Glass: E
Emma-Jean Thackray: Weirdo
Fatboi Sharif & Driveby: Let Me Out
Fly Anakin: (The) Forever Dream
Gloorp: Gloorp ’Em Up
Goose: Everything Must Go
Jensen McRae: I Don’t Know How but They Found Me!
Maria Usbeck: Naturaleza
The Moonlandingz: No Rocket Required
Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas: Totality
Niontay: Fada