Each week, Music Director Don Yates (joined this week by DJ Alex) shares brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP's rotation. These reviews help our DJs decide on what they want to play. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from Yard Act, Silverbacks, Anxious, and more.
Yard Act – The Overload (Zen F.C.)
This British band’s debut album is an excellent set of spiky post-punk with angular guitars, springy, sometimes funk and disco-inflected rhythms, spoken vocals and razor-sharp, often-sardonic lyrics skewering consumerism, gentrification and inequality. — DY
Silverbacks – Archive Material (Full Time Hobby)
This Irish band’s second album is an impressive set of hook-filled post-punk combining angular guitars, fidgety rhythms, keyboards and occasional other instrumentation with alternating lead vocals and often-sardonic lyrics reflecting pandemic life. — DY
Anxious – Little Green House (Run For Cover)
This Connecticut band’s debut album is a promising set of emotive, hook-filled pop-punk with buzzing guitars, punchy rhythms, anthemic song hooks and lyrics revolving around growing up, measuring relationships and acceptance. — DY
Lilblackkids – Planet of the Blues (Part One) EP (Epistrophik Peach Sound)
Lilblackkids is the new project of LA-based artists Georgia Anne Muldrow and Keith Rice. Their debut EP under that name is a potent blend of hip hop, funk, soul and psych-rock, combining fuzzy psych guitars and atmospheric keyboards with alternating vocals and a variety of propulsive rhythms. — DY
Pedro The Lion – Havasu (Polyvinyl)
The sixth album from this Seattle band led by David Bazan is a potent set of brooding, mostly lowkey indie-rock combining an often-spare sound with lyrics reflecting on Bazan’s emerging adolescence during the short time he spent living in Lake Havasu City, AZ when he was 12, with the songs ranging from depicting awkward stabs at love and feeling like an outsider to the redemptive power of music. — DY
Reptaliens – Multiverse (Captured Tracks)
This Portland duo’s third album is a well-crafted set of psych-tinged indie-pop with jangly, atmospheric guitars, often-propulsive rhythms, ethereal vocals and breezy melodies. — DY
Cloakroom – Dissolution Wave (Relapse)
This Northwest Indiana band’s third album is a potent blend of shoegazerish space-rock and haunting doom metal, featuring an atmospheric sound combining rumbling guitars, ghostly harmonies and dreamy song hooks. — DY
Fred again.. – Actual Life 2 (February 2 - October 15 2021) (Atlantic)
The second solo album from this British producer (aka Fred Gibson) is another sharp set of emotive electronic-pop anthems that continues to find him fusing house, R&B, garage, grime, and pop to sublime effect. While Actual Life 2 carries a slightly more melancholic tone than his euphoric debut full-length album, it's another powerful display of his ability to combine earworm vocal samples with dynamic productions for a cinematic, propulsive, resilient sound. — AR
Tanya Tagaq – Tongues (Six Shooter)
Produced by Saul Williams and mixed by Gonjasufi, the latest release from this Inuk artist is an often-powerful set combining haunting, industrial-tinged soundscapes with her dynamic throat singing and fury-filled lyrics aimed at oppressors. — DY
Logan Lynn – New Money (Kill Rock Stars)
This Portland artist’s latest album is a well-crafted set of New Wave-influenced electro-pop with bright synths, propulsive rhythms and buoyant melodies. — DY
Artsick – Fingers Crossed (Slumberland)
The debut album from this Oakland band led by Christina Riley is a solid set of ramshackle indie-pop with fuzzy guitars, energetic rhythms and catchy song hooks. — DY
Boy Harsher – The Runner (Original Soundtrack) (Nude Club/City Slang)
This Northampton, MA duo’s latest release is a soundtrack to their new horror film of the same name. The film’s soundtrack is a potent blend of dark post-punk and electro-pop, alternating between ‘80s-steeped songs and some cinematic instrumentals. — DY
Jake Xerxes Fussell – Good and Green Again (Paradise of Bachelors)
This Durham, NC artist’s fourth album is a beautifully crafted set of acoustic-oriented folk combining his intricate guitar picking, gentle vocals and wistful melodies with occasional pedal steel, horns, piano, strings and more. — DY
Erik Walters – Erik Walters (self-released)
The debut album under his own name from the Seattle artist behind Silver Torches (and also the former frontman for The Globes) is a well-crafted set of moody folk-pop. — DY
Bawrut – In The Middle (Ransom Note)
The debut full-length album from this Madrid-based producer is a transportive set of cutting-edge electronic rhythms and globally-minded, club-tinted, vocal-laced electronic-pop cuts that find the versatile producer blurring genre boundaries, utilizing different languages, and infusing his colorful sound with an intoxicating worldly flavor. — AR
SUGARFUNGUS – Letting Go, Moving Still EP (self-released)
The debut EP from this emerging Vancouver, BC-based outfit is an impressive set of dreamy indie pop bolstered by their confident blend of warm synths, bright guitar lines, and groovy beats with ethereal vocals and catchy hooks. — AR
Each week, Music Director Don Yates shares brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP's rotation. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from Earl Sweatshirt, FKA twigs, Bonobo, and more.
Each week, Music Director Don Yates (joined this week by DJ Alex) shares brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP's rotation. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from The Weeknd, Fine Place, Shay Hazan, and more.
Each week, Music Director Don Yates (joined this week by DJ Alex) shares brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP's rotation. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from Dijon, Ovlov, Muzi, Ben LaMar Gay, and more.
