The new year is in full swing, and musicians across the city are already bringing us heaps of great records. The Scene’s music writers have 10 new recommendations for you, some of which date back a couple of months — add ’em to your streaming queue, pick them up from your favorite local record store, or put them on your wish list for Bandcamp Friday. The promotion in which the platform waives its cut of sales for a 24-hour period is back on Feb. 3, and many of our picks are available to buy directly from the artists there, too.
Margo Price, Strays (Loma Vista)
In January, just a few months after publishing her outstanding and unflinching memoir Maybe We’ll Make It, singer-songwriter extraordinaire Margo Price released her fourth solo record Strays. She wrote a substantial portion of it with creative and life partner Jeremy Ivey, and brought her longtime band to Jonathan Wilson’s studio in Topanga Canyon to record it — leaning a little more toward ’60s-vintage psych rock while never cutting out country, folk and soul. As Price told The New York Times’ Melena Ryzik, writing has been a way to turn vulnerability into a source of power, and you can hear that from Strays’ opening salvo of “Been to the Mountain” through its closer “Landfill.” STEPHEN TRAGESER
Josephfiend feat. Alo*, Praying for Good Days (Mudbyfiend)
Hearing three tracks in under six minutes is something I’m used to on the first side of a punk 7-inch. Josephfiend, a key member of the Black City rap crew — who among many other things has produced lots of work for OGTHAGAWD and released a strong batch of singles with Kaby and Lul Lion as the trio Wednesdays — takes a similar approach with Praying for Good Days, his EP featuring Alo*. Every bar feels crucial, and the title track introduces what feels like an even bigger story with crispy beats, murky bass lines and eerie piano that’s right out of the first scene in a Hollywood thriller. P.J. KINZER
Find Praying for Good Days on your favorite streaming service, and follow Josephfiend on Instagram for updates.
Brendan Benson, Low Key (Schnitzel)
From the opening power chords of his excellent new album Low Key, Brendan Benson reminds us he is a practitioner of power pop of the highest order. The six originals and two covers — Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line” and Nasty C’s “All In” — feature exquisite arrangements and inspired performances, all courtesy of Benson himself with one exception: the horn arrangement and parts by John Mark Painter on “Whole Lotta Nothin.” Although not necessarily a concept album, the lyrical themes are connected in a way that makes it feel like one. Benson addresses some of the issues an artist faces — failure to meet other people’s expectations, isolation, lost love and the fleeting nature of life on the road — with an artfully ironic and humorous detachment that makes this must-listen music for fans of pop and rock. DARYL SANDERS
Find Low Key at your favorite record store, on your favorite streaming service or via Benson's website.
Soot, Talons of Empathy (self-released)
A couple of weeks ago, Jordan from Diarrhea Planet shot me a text about “one of the most legit Nashville rock records” he’s heard recently. That’s high praise, and Soot’s Talons of Empathy absolutely lives up to it. Known as Lacquer before “a silly French DJ” threatened them over the name rights, Soot takes the alt-rock group firmly into metal territory. Opening tracks “Plainswalker” and “We Say I Love You” are cool, culty jams that recall desert stoner rock like Queens of the Stone Age. But it’s “Oxendine” that’s been ruling my stereo all month long. The contrast between jagged guitars and an almost monk-like vocal drone pulls you into a gripping world of thrash. There’s a lot going on in this record — we haven’t even talked about “Honey,” a gorgeous eight-minute epic that plays with post-rock discordance. It’s an impressive debut, and one that’ll be shredding our speakers for a good long while. LANCE CONZETT
Thee Kave Crickets, Easily Excited! (self-released)
Thee Kave Crickets’ Easily Excited! features nine concise tunes — none of the songs hits the three-minute mark — anchored by the winningly snide vocals of songwriter Jerome Frederick. Easily Excited! plays with the conventions of Kinks-meets-Buzzcocks rock, and I hear traces of Wreckless Eric and glam on exemplary tunes like “Closer” and “I Just Might.” The album also hints at punk — nearly every track sports guitars that sound a little frayed, like curtains in a cheap motel room. What distinguishes Easily Excited! from the stylized efforts of several thousand superficially similar garage bands is Frederick’s vulnerability, as you’ll hear in his superb “Better Than Me.” Wreckless Eric, not to mention Dave Davies, would be proud. EDD HURT
*repeat repeat, Everyone Stop (self-released)
The day after Thanksgiving, *repeat repeat released a magnum opus of sweet-and-sour post-’90s power pop — 27 tracks clocking in around 90 minutes, also available as one continuous track. Many of the tunes were released as singles dating back to mid-2020; combined, they form a compelling look back on surviving your 20s. Amid zinging hooks and propulsive grooves shot through with guitars that sound ready to bite, principal members Jared and Kristyn Corder put their anxieties in perspective and tell off people who wasted their time. “Adult Friend Finder” may be the most poignant piece, looking at how difficult it is to maintain friendships when you’re past young adulthood. STEPHEN TRAGESER
Peace Police, 2022 (Between the Waves)
Lyrics don’t have to work as poetry for songs to intrigue, delight or provoke — and sometimes, the end result seems forced and watered down. Not so for Francesco Ferorelli, the singer-songwriter behind Peace Police. Over fingerstyle guitar, he sings about holding onto hope through trying circumstances — or in some cases, having your hope totally ground away — in literate lines that linger, with bitterness and weariness unadulterated: “The desert’s thirsty / I can hear it pant / It whispers, ‘Lie down, lover / I understand / Come soak into me and vanish / Like water through sand.’ ” STEPHEN TRAGESER
Tropical Gothclub, Tropical Gothclub (Third Man)
Tropical Gothclub is Dean Fertita, the uber-talented multi-instrumentalist best known as a member of Queens of the Stone Age and The Dead Weather, and as a sideman with The Raconteurs, Jack White, Brendan Benson, Iggy Pop and Beck. Tropical Gothclub further establishes Fertita as one of the most innovative figures in rock. Although some of the ideas that went into this record have been around for years, Fertita started working on these recordings in earnest during the pandemic with the help of co-producer Dave Feeny. The result is 11 tracks of inventively seductive, left-of-center rock featuring monster riffs, funky rhythms and memorable lyrical hooks that reflect Fertita’s wry views on the absurdity of love and life. DARYL SANDERS
Faster Is Faster, Yes to Everything (Reel to Real Takes and Mistapes)
Like many Nashville musicians who make music in the ambient realm, multi-instrumentalist and composer Dillon Smith does a lot more than just convey a mood or create an atmosphere with his instrumentals. Even without lyrics, you still get the impression of narrative arcs and action, like you’re listening to the score for a film that only he can see. Like the photo on the cover — a slightly blurred black-and-white snapshot of what looks to me like a family in an airport — Yes to Everything tells fascinating stories with its limited palette, letting the shades of gray do the talking. STEPHEN TRAGESER
Jim Skinner Blues Trio, The Blues Is a Bitch (Feisty)
The music on Nashville-by-way-of-Chicago singer Jim Skinner’s The Blues Is a Bitch is so understated that its starkness — Skinner plays bongos throughout, which lends the record a certain antic quality — becomes a statement all its own. Skinner moved to town in 2010, and recently he’s been playing shows at Brown’s Diner that reveal him as a rough-and-ready blues shouter. The Blues Is a Bitch waves a mojo hand at the standard tropes: Skinner sings about driving down Highway 61 and the perils of being someone’s backdoor man. In the title track, Skinner travels to his bank, where he learns “the computers are down,” and makes it back home in time for breakfast in bed. Bassist David Simms and guitarist David Jones keep things swinging in minimalist fashion on a set of ready-made tunes with a reason to exist. EDD HURT
