Best of What’s New

A busy last week with two back-to-back concerts and time-consuming related posts, unfortunately, left me no choice but to push back this latest installment of my weekly new music revue, which usually runs on Saturdays. All featured songs appear on albums, released last Friday, June 17.

Foals/Wake Me Up

British rock band Foals were founded in Oxford, England in 2005. From their AllMusic bio: Foals emerged in the late 2000s with an off-balance indie rock influenced by catchy new wave, math rock, and atmospheric post-rock. It proved a successful formula; their first album, 2008’s Antidotes, reached number three in their native U.K. Over the next decade, they developed a distinctive balance between jittery dance rock and spacy atmosphere on albums such as 2013’s Holy Fire, 2019’s Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, and 2022’s Life Is Yours. The group’s current core lineup includes co-founders Yannis Philippakis (lead vocals, guitar, bass), Jimmy Smith (guitar, keyboards) and Jack Bevan (drums, percussion). Wake Me Up, credited to all three members, is the lead single of the above-mentioned Life Is Yours album. While it’s not in my core wheelhouse, the tune’s funky groove drew me in – reminds me a bit of INXS.

Hank Williams, Jr./Rich White Honky Blues

Randall Hank Williams, professionally known as Hank Williams, Jr. or Bocephus, is an American singer-songwriter and the son of country legend Hank Williams. During his childhood, artists like Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino and Lightnin’ Hopkins, visited his family. Not only did they turn out to be major influences, but they also taught young Randall various music instruments. Already at the age of 8, four years after his father’s death, Hank Jr. performed his old man’s songs on stage. In 1964, he made his recording debut with Long Gone Lonesome Blues, one of his father’s classics. By the mid-’70s, Williams, Jr. had stopped covering his dad’s songs and started to develop his own style, establishing himself with his 26th studio album Hank Williams Jr. and Friends. Williams, who is now 73 years, has released more than 50 studio albums to date. Here’s the title track of his latest, Rich White Honky Blues, a tune he wrote. The blues album also features various covers of songs by the likes of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Lightnin’ Hopkins. After I had seen this album, there was no way I was going to ignore it!

Alice Merton/Loveback

Alice Merton is a German-born English-Canadian singer-songwriter. From her Apple Music profile: Merton was born in Germany, but she soon moved with her family to the United States. They later relocated to Canada before returning to Germany, where Merton finished high school. After a move to England, she again landed in Germany to begin studying songwriting. Before releasing “No Roots” [her 2016 breakthrough single – CMM], Merton contributed to the 2015 album The Book of Nature by the German duo Fahrenhaidt. After an EP in 2018, Merton released her full-length debut, Mint, in 2019. Described by The New York Times as a “rousing take on centrist 1980s pop with a disco tempo and the faintest texture of Southern rock,” Mint reached No. 2 in Germany and No. 3 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart in the US. Merton has described her influences as a mix of opera, indie-rock bands like The Killers, and the English singers Florence Welch and Sam Smith. This brings me to her new album S.I.D.E.S. and the opener Loveback – definitely a leap for me, musically speaking, but there’s something about it, and it’s okay to push beyond your comfort zone every now and then!

Fastball/Real Good Problem to Have

My fourth and last pick for this Best of What’s New installment is from the latest album by Fastball, The Deep End, which I almost missed. For the longest time, I had only known The Way, the group’s cool breakthrough single from February 1998. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I explored the Texan band’s music in greater detail. You can read more about it here. Fastball were formed in 1994 in Austin by Tony Scalzo (vocals, bass, keyboards, guitar),  Miles Zuniga  (vocals, guitar) and Joey Shuffield (drums, percussion). Remarkably, that same lineup remains in place to this day. The Deep End, Fastball’s eighth studio album, sounds great, based on what I’ve heard thus far. Here’s a sample, Good Problem to Have, written by Zuniga. Ironically, the title nicely describes how I increasingly feel when it comes to artists who are new to me: There are many more than I have time to explore!

As usual, following is a Spotify list that includes the above and some additional tunes.

Sources: Wikipedia; AllMusic; Apple Music; Discogs; YouTube; Spotify