New Music Reviews (7/17)

Each week, Music Director Don Yates 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 Anohni and the Johnsons, Palehound, Haviah Mighty, and more. 

Anohni and the Johnsons – My Back was a Bridge for You to Cross (Secretly Canadian)
The fifth Anohni and the Johnsons studio album (and first in 13 years) is an impressive set of soulful chamber-pop inflected at times with gospel, fiery psych-rock and other styles, combining moody keyboards, guitars, horns, strings and more with her tremulous vocals and lyrics revolving around environmental devastation, loss, mortality and oppression.

Palehound – Eye on the Bat (Polyvinyl)
The fourth Palehound album from Brooklyn-based artist El Kempner is a strong set of expansive, ‘90s-influenced indie-rock combining sinewy guitar riffs and an abundance of sparking song hooks with sharply crafted lyrics of love, heartache and loss.

Haviah Mighty – Crying Crystals (Mighty Gang Inc)
This Toronto artist’s second official album is a potent set of expansive hip hop inflected with R&B, Afrobeats, amapiano and other styles, combining moody keyboards and a variety of beats with her elastic vocals and personal rhymes of desire, heartache, loss, healing and renewal.

PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying (Partisan)
This British artist’s 10th album is an often-powerful set of brooding, sometimes folk-tinged avant-rock combining a dark, imaginatively textured sound with her falsetto-laden vocals, haunting melodies and often-cryptic lyrics steeped in the dialect of her native Dorset in southwest England.

Claud – Supermodels (Saddest Factory/Dead Oceans)
This Brooklyn-based artist’s second album is a well-crafted set of hook-filled indie-pop with bright synths, fuzzy guitars, often-bittersweet melodies and lyrics of heartache, isolation and growing older.

Little Dragon – Slugs of Love (Ninja Tune)
This Swedish band’s seventh album is a solid set of R&B-tinged electro-pop with floating synths, gentle rhythms, feathery vocals and breezy melodies.

Disclosure – Alchemy (Apollo/AWAL)
This British brother duo’s fourth album is a back-to-basics release with no features and no samples, combining propulsive UK garage, house and drum ‘n’ bass rhythms with shimmering synths, smooth vocals and soaring song hooks.

Julie Byrne – The Greater Wings (Ghostly International)
This Buffalo, NY artist’s third album is an often-poignant set of atmospheric folk-pop that was completed shortly after the death of her musical partner Eric Littmann, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 31. The album features a hushed, intimate sound combining fingerpicked acoustic guitar, strings, piano, synths, harp and more with her dusky vocals and lyrics of love and loss.

Snooper – Super Snooper (Third Man)
This Nashville band’s debut album is a potent blend of frenetic post-punk, raw garage-punk and other styles, featuring 14 mostly short songs with buzzing guitars, noisy synths, caffeinated rhythms, perky vocals and catchy song hooks.

Lifeguard – Crowd Can Talk / Dressed in Trenches (Matador)
This young Chicago band’s latest release pairs their 2022 EP Crowd Can Talk with their latest EP Dressed in Trenches for a potent full-length of often-bracing post-hardcore with jagged, squalling guitars, knotty rhythms and sledgehammer song hooks.

Alaska Reid – Disenchanter (Luminelle)
This LA-via-Montana artist’s debut album is a well-crafted set of indie-pop inflected at times with folk-pop, grunge and other styles, combining shimmering synths and moody guitars with her hushed vocals and wistful melodies.

Local Natives – Time Will Wait for No One (Loma Vista)
This LA band’s fifth studio album is a solid set of psych-tinged indie-pop with an impeccably produced sound (courtesy of John Congleton), combining sparkling synths, atmospheric guitars, piano and more with lush harmonies and lyrics revolving around getting older.

(Various) – The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake (Chrysalis)
This double-album tribute to the British folk legend is a fairly diverse set ranging from faithful interpretations to dramatic recastings of Drake’s songs.

Nana Benz du Togo – AGO (Komos)
This Togolese band’s debut album is a magnetic recasting of voodoo music combining buzzing vintage keyboards and lively polyrhythms made with homemade percussion with soulful call-and-response vocals.

Cornelius – Dream in Dream (Warner Music Japan)
This Japanese artist’s seventh album (and first in six years) is a well-crafted set of breezy dream-pop inflected with jazz, R&B and other styles, combining shimmering synths, sleek guitars and occasional theremin, woodwinds and other instrumentation with wistful melodies.

Night Beats – Rajan (Suicide Squeeze)
The latest Night Beats album from Texas-born, LA-based artist Danny Lee Blackwell is a well-crafted set of cinematic psych-rock inflected with dusty desert-rock, funk, R&B, dub and other styles, combining atmospheric guitars and keyboards with hypnotic rhythms and dreamy melodies.

Temple of Angels – Endless Pursuit (Run For Cover) 
This Austin-bred band’s debut album is a solid set of goth-tinged dream-pop with shimmering guitars, often-driving rhythms, soaring song hooks and lyrics of love and loss.

Grouplove – I Want it All Right Now (Glassnote)
This Atlanta-based band’s sixth album is a well-crafted set of hook-filled pop-rock with a massive, stadium-ready sound combining guitars, keyboards and more with group vocals and soaring melodies.

Golden Features – Sisyphus (Foreign Family Collective)
The second Golden Features album from Australian producer Tom Stell is a solid set of propulsive electronic grooves combining house and techno rhythms with occasional vocals and soaring melodies.

Calibro 35 – Nouvelles Aventures (Record Kicks)
This Italian band’s latest album is a cinematic blend of psych-rock, funk, prog, jazz and other styles, with an atmospheric sound combining guitars, keyboards, strings, horns, woodwinds and more with often-dramatic melodies.