Today's Hotness: Black Hearted Brother, The Young Leaves, Ancient Babes

>> It's the sound of getting hit full on in the face by a massive, iridescent ocean wave. It's the kind of unbridled sound that Neil Halstead fans have been waiting to hear again since the 1990s, as his musical path in recent years has taken him to more spare, serene and folk-oriented places. It's the new song from Black Hearted Brother, "(I Don't Mean To) Wonder," a dizzying debut track from an ensemble that features not only former Slowdive and Mojave 3 fronter Halstead, but also former Seefeel member, Locust proprietor and Mojave 3 producer Mark Van Hoen and Nick Holton, who has helmed a project called Holton's Opulent Oog and produced Halstead's 2012 solo collection. The three-piece will release Oct. 22 a long-player via the legendary American indie Slumberland titled Stars Are Our Home, and if the murmured attack of "(I Don't Mean To) Wonder" is any indication, it will be an amazing collection. The song's foundation is a simple cycling guitar riff, drenched in reverb and shuddering under wavering tremelo, a riff that comes and goes and forms something of a chorus around a mumbled lyric that radiates with delay and winds itself up into the titular oath, promised again and again and again. Epic is not an overstatement, and, in fact, may be an understatement. Stream the song via the embed below. Slumberland as yet is not taking pre-orders for the full-length, which contains 12 songs, but there is an email sign-up at this page where fans can get on the list to get the information first. So get with that, once you've gotten your head back together. Black Hearted Brother is planning a U.S. tour.



>> Seeing The Young Leaves' relentlessly engaging and Husker Du-channeling live set in May left us incredibly eager to hear what the band would do next, and finally we've been gifted the hook-heavy title track to the Holliston, Mass.-based indie punk trio's forthcoming third LP Alive And Well. Attentive readers will recall the song "Alive And Well" is a fist-banging anthem that was released as a single in 2012, backed with the banger "The Love Song;" the b-side isn't in the track listing for the forthcoming LP, so you're going to want to track that single down, if you haven't already. Also, while we're on the subject, it's not clear to us whether or not the single version of "Alive And Well" from Bandcamp is a different recording than the LP version you can hear via the Soundcloud embed below, but they both rock serious face so you should spend the next several hours A/B-ing them and slam-dancing in your kitchen while your roommates are trying to sleep, because fuck those roommates, right, they need to loosen up and have some fun. Another fuzzed-up rocker from the full-length is available to stream via the YouTube; check out "Drowning Pool" right here. Alive And Well will be released by Baldy Longhair Records Oct. 1 on 12" vinyl and cassette and as a digital download. The vinyl LPs will be offered on media colored "sea blue with beer haze, swamp green with sea blue and bone splatter, swamp green with purple and bone splatter and black," according to an email. The cassette release will also include a six-song demo EP titled Pond, Puppy, Bench Boy Demos. The Young Leaves formed in 2006; in addition to a few singles the trio has also released the full-lengths Big Old Me (2007) and Life Underneath (2010). The Young Leaves open a sick bill Friday night at O'Brien's in Boston that also features I Hate Our Freedom, an act featuring former members of Texas Is The Reason and Thursday, so if you somehow recover from tomorrow night's Whirr / Nothing / Soccer Mom show, that's where you need to be. In the meantime, stream "Alive And Well" until someone in your house throws a punch.



>> Depending on where you are, or where you've been, for a while there it felt like summer had stalled out. But after some less than desirable weather phenomena -- at least proximal to Clicky Clicky's West Coast compound -- summer has reestablished itself, and, yes, we've got a song for that. Try on for size the awesomely titled and echo-laden slow jam "Malcolm X In The Middle" from Vancouver, Canada's Ancient Babes. The brief but cinematic tune establishes a cool, thoughtful electro foothold within a soft dream pop atmosphere. Amid the enveloping reverb on the snare hits and vocals, and tastefully simple guitar lines, reside elements of shoegaze, as well. Chillwave? Maybe. But the arpeggiated synth work and downcast groove evoke a worldly strain of au courant digital popsters -- think French artistes such as M83 (circa Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts) and College. Stepping back from the analysis, we also like that that band doesn't take things too seriously. Aside from the title of this song, there's also the following question at the band's Facebook outpost: "What were the babes like in ancient times?" Damn good question, damn good... The gentle, transporting march of "Malcolm X In The Middle" is well-suited for the delightfully lazy days we're all chasing, if not experiencing; stream or download the song via the embed below. Lastly, while it doesn't reveal much about the band personnel beyond the name Samuel, Ancient Babes' Facebook page does offer a very amusing list of band interests there that we think is worth a glance. -- Edward Charlton

Review: Johnny Foreigner | You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving...

Johnny Foreigner's guitarist and primary songwriter Alexei Berrow in September summed up the Birmingham, England-based noise pop titans' forthcoming, six-track EP as containing the loudest and quietest songs it has ever recorded. This may be true, but Mr. Berrow's mild description minimizes the completely enveloping moods the music evokes, downplays the exciting developments in songwriting captured in the collection, and only hints at the aural and stylistic variety of You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm. The second half of "The Wind And The Weathervanes" is towering and anthemic and atmospheric, weaving together feedback, strings and crashing percussion. The aggressive "Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives" points affirmatively in the direction of scene contemporaries Calories as well as hardcore legends Texas Is The Reason. The beautiful, droning closer "Yr Loved" flickers futilely, like a candle drowning in a pool of its own wax, and recalls earlier Smog. "Elegy For Post-Teenage Living (Parts 1 and 2)" is two different songs sewn together, opening as a familiar Johnny Foreigner guitar pop anthem but ending as a light, Dismemberment Plan-referencing dance pop nodder.

Despite Berrow's assertion here in September that the release lacks a theme, the lyrics persistently reflect narratives about letting go and trying to move on (or, pretending to let go and pretending to try to move on). While it perhaps incorrectly posits linearly chronological songwriting, the theme fits nicely, actually, at the end of the sequence comprised by Johnny Foreigner's two full-length recordings: Waited Up Til It Was Light was generally about Birmingham, and Grace And The Bigger Picture was generally about being away from Birmingham and the personal joys and fractures that result. You Thought You Saw... would seem to more closely examine the fractures and contextualize them in a world that has kept going in spite of it all.

It says something about the unchecked creativity and prolificness of Johnny Foreigner that the EP (which at one point carried the working title There When You Need It) doesn't contain what are arguably the best tracks it has released this year to date: the stunning demo version of "With Who, Who And What I've Got" has been freely available for download since May, and the bottomlessly poignant "199x" was given to only the couple dozen fans who ordered plush ghosts as part of the Exorcism Project. That the threesome didn't feel the need to include the two as-yet-unalbumed tracks on the EP underscores that Johnny Foreigner continues to somehow perfect more songs than it has the time and energy to market via what is the (largely dying) traditional music business model. And there is still more unalbumed songs waiting in the wings: fans who submit photos for use as part of the unique, crowdsourced sleeve art for the EP will receive a download code for the track "JFNV" (according to the band "it's pronounced nihonjin no tame no yakei"). Two more tracks grace a split single with labelmates Stagecoach; Alcopop is already taking orders for the single here, and it contains Johnny Foreigner's new "True Punx" and the band's cover of Stagecoach's "45."

Alcopop releases You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm as a 12" later this month, but the collection has been available for weeks via digital music storefronts serving North America in an effort to capitalize on Johnny Foreigner's just-ended tour here supporting incendiary Cardiff collective Los Campesinos!

[buy the EP from EMusic | ITunes]

Johnny Foreigner: Internerds | Facebook | YouTube | Flickr

Today's Hotness: It Hugs Back, Revelation Records, Henry Rollins

>> Letting go is hard to do. Especially when one of your favorite bands makes a groundbreaking recording, and then follows it up with something unexpected and dramatically different. Fans of the mercurial and chameleonic Lilys know what we are talking about. And to a certain extent we felt the same way when Dustin Reske of '90s dream pop heroes Rocketship left the world of sunshiney guitars to explore a more electronic palette. Last week we found something that filled the crater of certain unmet expectations whilst minding our own business listening to WMBR's delightful Breakfast Of Champions radio program. And that something is the latest single from It Hugs Back, "Work Day," the video of which we've embedded above. The Kent, England-based quartet's new single certainly reminds us of Rocketship, although in exploring its back catalog over the weekend it is notable that there is even a touch of Mission Of Burma to be found among the band's four prior singles. It Hugs Back isn't easily pigeonholed, however; "Early Evening" opens as an acoustic ballad that gradually gains steam and transforms into a light chime-studded rocker with overtones of Sufjan Stevens and Gastr Del Sol. "Work Day" was released by 4AD Sept. 29; 4AD and Too Pure, which put out the band's first four singles, merged in June. Another single is in the works, and both it and "Work Day" will appear on a planned 2009 debut full length release on 4AD. It Hugs Back's first four singles were collected up in April on The Record Room, which was issued on CD and in a limited-edition canvas bag, but can also be downloaded right here at EMusic. Highly recommended. Here's the A-side to its first single, the sold-out "Lights In The Trees," which was initially released by Too Pure in October 2006.

It Hugs Back -- "Lights In The Trees" -- "Lights In The Trees" b/w "Soft Spot"
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[buy It Hugs Back records from the band here or EMusic here]

>> Speaking of EMusic, there was a recent notable addition to the digital music storefront's offerings, the Revelation Records catalog. Revelation pretty much cornered the market on New York Hardcore and the bands that sought to continue its legacy. Among its titles are astonishingly good releases that every fan of heavy music should own, including the crucial first Texas Is The Reason single [link]; Youth Of Today's final and un-eff-withable "Disengage" single [link]; and Burn's chillingly awesome self-titled EP, featuring "Drown" [link]. Noticably absent? The first Shelter record, which featured Ray Cappo backed by members of 76% Uncertain.

>> We don't get IFC on our living room lightbox machine. But if we did, we can only think of one thing we'd watch on it, which is Henry Rollins' talk show. This month IFC is rolling out three new episodes of "Henry Rollins: Uncut," including a show looking at New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a show capturing Mr. Rollins doing his talking show in Northern Ireland and a show during which Rollins tours a South African Township. Clips of all three shows, as well as a heralded show filmed in Israel, is combined with clips from Rollins doing his spoken-word bit live in an amusing 20-minute video you can watch right here. If you've see Rollins on a recent talking date (we saw him in 2006) some of the stuff late in the video will be familiar to you. That said, his story of meeting his idol Ted Nugent is one of a few that is easy to watch over and over and over. And it has historical import, as Mr. Nugent's teetotaler status was a direct inspiration on the straightedge hardcore movement.