MELOMANIA delivers these great eight musical Easter eggs to your baskets
Tell your Mom "Happy Easter" for us. Share the music you like with your family!
THEE HEADCOATS - Irregularis (The Great Hiatus) [LP/CD](Damaged Goods UK)
It would be far too easy to judge woozy, bluesy, howling Garage Rock on a curve compared to everything else. It is authentic? Hell yeah, it is. Returning after a 23-year interregnum, Billy Childish and Thee Headcoats prove to be as vital as they were when they unleashed the classic “Heavens To Murgatroyd!” on SubPop in 1990. The difference here is that in the wake of The White Stripes (who borrowed heavily from Thee Headcoats in the beginning,) Punk+Blues+Garage is a winning combination. The single “Full Time Plagiarist” even dares to address everyone lifting from the Blues. Nonetheless, “Irregularis” is almost violently alive. “Thee Headcoatitude” is a pounder deserving a spot closing an episode of “Barry.” (like companion band Thee Headcoatees’ use of “Davy Crockett.”) The lingo is all here (deerslayer hats, hounds, Snagglepuss, and more.) “Tub’s Help Out” is a brilliant mostly-instrumental rave-up with a swinging beat. While the Bo Diddley-esque “Oh Leader Do We Dig Thee” is both blistering and simple. In the end, that is the magic of Thee Headcoats. When they are inspired to bang out some raging-hot bluesy howlers (the Yardbirds-ian “The Baker Street Irregulars,”) the only question should be - does it Rock? If so, it fits perfectly with everyone else that followed in their wake.
BABAGANOUJ - Jumbo Pets [LP/CD](Coolin’ By Sound AUS)
This Brisbane quartet creates some lovelorn Punky Pop with both a real edge and a real heart. Like Ex-Void and Mamalarky, these are songs of romance backlit with neat melodies (“Dag”) and clever turns (“Tears Me In 2.”) However, they do not shy away from well-sculpted waves of buzzy guitars and near-Power Pop aesthetics. Under Mikey Young’s production, “Jumbo Pets” is raw and very 1984. The latter is really to their advantage when they pour out their emotion on “Loveworn” and the C86 glow of “Every Inch of Your Love.” However, their closest comparison in writing tends to be early Nineties Lemonheads. “I’m Just Gonna Have To Get A Cab To My Car” and “Not Allowed To Be Happy” could work with both a full band or just jangling acoustics. Finally, Babaganouj even try out some late-Eighties hypno-shoegaze on the Psychedelic whirl of “She Wears Velvet.” “Jumbo Pets” is loaded with surprises and provides the three with a thrilling start.
AFFLECKS PALACE - The Only Light In This Tunnel Is The Oncoming Train [LP/CD](Spirit Spike Island UK/Redeye)
Manchester may be ready to experience another surge thanks to the promise of this new addition. Afflecks Palace does two things right from the start: they avoid the speak/sing that has plagued UK music for the last two years and they find their own starkly constructed but deep driving sound. There is not much to the bracing “WAKE UP!” However, given their careful alteration of both jangle arpeggios and tense Bloc Party-esque strumming, it bursts to life working one riff against the other over their consistent rhythm section. At their best, the songs feel light like Stone Roses but with heavy tom-driving grooves (“Dancing Is Not A Crime” which even slips in some Johnny Marr-esque guitar chime.) Even though their true single “Holidays” is lyrically slight, they wind from a mid-tempo verse to a double-time Punk (but soft around the edges) riff that smartly worms its sunny way into your brain without “announcing” itself. Harmonies, weird shifts, and the overall Punk underpinnings could make Afflecks Palace the new Happy Mondays spiked with the latest Turnstile.
HEATHER WOODS BRODERICK - Labyrinth [LP/CD](Western Vinyl/Secretly/AMPED)
As a singer behind Sharon Van Etten and many others, Broderick’s voice continues to develop into her tool of expression. Several songs here (most notably the sweeping single “Blood Run Through Me”) could easily enthrall with wordless, melodic singing. Broderick, the cello player, has used the long, languid notes of that instrument to shape her own singing. When multitracked all over “I Want To Go,” Broderick pulls everything down to a single voice and organ for its thrilling end. Like her 2022 mostly-instrumental album “Domes” reconfigured as a Pop album with commercial potential, “Labyrinth” consistently challenges your expectations (the First Aid Kit-with-synths-esque “Crashing Against The Sun”) while entrancing you with her warmth, simplicity (“Tiny Receptors”) and avoidance of similarities to other Pop.
YAEJI - Like A Hammer [LP/CD](XL/Redeye)
With Yaeji’s bilingual singing and EDM-meets-Trap mentality, “Like A Hammer” is a bit like if Bjork made club bangers. The real strength of “Like A Hammer” is its ability to sound otherworldly and still gritty and Earth-bound. “Fever” is a blazing Trap track. Loops build on top of loops and Yaeji’s rhyming creates the most hypnotic rhythm to go along with your Hip-Hop head nod. That monotone M.I.A-esque chorus line is everything. The single “Pass Me By” sounds most like her last work “What We Drew.” However, even its familiarity is altered by Nineties-like huge beats. Yaeji’s tracks are so minimal (“With A Hammer”) but rip into licks that are unavoidable (“Done (Let’s Get It.)”) With hooks that stick (the opening of “Away X5,” and the midpoint of “Happy”) here is hoping that a few of today’s Pop stars give her a shot at helping make an indelible single or two.
MODEL CITIZENS - NYC 1978-1979 [LP/CD](Modern Harmonic/Redeye)
Comprised of three different recordings, New York’s No Wave scene of the late, late Seventies receives an artist who best follows their mapped-out patterns of development. The John Cale-produced EP is a manic representation of this combination of throwback Sixties sounds (that Farfisa and two female lead singers) and the jumpy, nervy clipped delivery of No Wave. At a scant four songs, the Cale production helps pull the energy out of the maddening/danceable “Shift The Blame.” While the twin female voices (let’s face it - also in play at the same time by The B-52’s) are the draw, it is the marimba that gives Model Citizen both melody and its most identifiable sound. The energy of Hurrah! in 1979 (and the raw energy of Max’s 1978) seems to point the band in the direction of coiling their riffs and functioning more around their potent rhythm section than the singers. While the differences between versions are not exactly necessary for examination, the real take home is how well they tighten up their songs in so little time.
KARL HECTOR & THE MALCOUNS - Sahara Swing [LP](RSD Essentials/NowAgain)
Karl Hector aided by Jay Whitefield (Whitefield Brothers and Poets of Rhythm) and a handful of crack session musicians skilled in both Funk and African music put together this album in 2008 to relive all the musical roads Hector had previously traveled with The Heliocentrics. “Sahara Swing” reconfigures African polyrhythms into classic Funk/breakbeat styles. “Jabore Pt.3” is a classic Seventies slow roll with Latin accents (think Beastie Boys’ “Looking Down The Barrel of A Gun” with some bass clarinet.) The version of “Mellow” is simultaneously tough and yet ethereal (all those bird sounds.) “Sahara Swing” is a record that wants to sound like other records. Thomas Myland’s synths regularly emulate Sun Ra in the Seventies (“Followed Path.”) “Psycles” throws out mean Funk beats, bongos, and organ blurbs, but it is the off-tempo cowbell that really gets the blood flowing. “Debere” cranks up the pace (and some brilliant snare fills from Zdenko Curulija) to remind you of Fela Kuti. While “Rush Hour” not only uses the driving Fatback beat, but a massive B3 sound and Gospel accents. “Sahara Swing” is never the same record twice.
SUNROT - The Unfailing Rope [LP](Prosthetic)
New Jersey’s Sunrot carves out a dangerous place between Sludge, Screamo, and Black Metal on “The Unfailing Rope.” The actions of a battering ram are simple in nature, just pound away at it until you break through. Following the brilliant pastiche/noise opener “Descent,” the epic “Trepanation” emerges from what resembles blown speakers before finding its frightening lumbering riff. When it finally gets up to Stoner-esque Sabbath speed, Sunrot slows it down to half-time leaving each iteration to feel like another bomb is going off in slow motion. The harrowing “Gutter” pushes its riffage forward like seizures before erupting into a Kyuss-esque chug and a Faith No More-ish dissonant swell/build. Once vocalist Lex Santiago’s bloodcurdling yowl weakens, Thou’s Bryan Funck and Silver Godling’s Emily McWilliams step in to effectively make the two-minute-long fadeout seem weirdly ethereal. Once Sunrot discovers their true strength as interweavers of Metal’s sub-genres (“Patricide” with Blake Harrison has a call and response that is unreal,) they are going to be truly dangerous.
We sincerely hope that this was time well spent. We thank you for reading, listening, subscribing, and most of all supporting the artists listed here. Thank you.
This week saw Hattiesburg’s longtime music venue The Thirsty Hippo close its doors after 23 years of bringing this city a wide selection of music and providing local artists with a springboard to refining their craft. This wall-to-wall 23-hour-long list attempts to collect all the artists the club brought us.
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