Abby Sherman – The Weight

Take a load off, Abby… Wait, wrong “Weight,” sorry. This “The Weight” is an original song by Vermont singer-songwriter Abby Sherman, a heartfelt acoustic ballad with nary an appearance from Miss Moses or Crazy Chester. Sherman’s been dropping another killer single every few months for a while now, presumably (hopefully!) leading up to another record.

Coyote Reverie – Lotus Leaf

Hip-slash-trip-hop duo Coyote Reverie’s debut album Imah is positively stuffed with quotable lines. But, to pick out one that just jumped out at me, from the song “Lotus Leaf”: “I solved the riddle of the universe once / And I got it done before I served lunch.”

Craig Pallett – Light in the Sky

The album Sugarhouse (very Vermont title) offers a slice of energetic and adventurous jazz from composer and trumpet player Craig Pallett alongside guitarist Mohammed Nazam and saxophonist Michael Morera. The second track, “Light in the Sky,” sees the guitar and sax take center stage in an aggressive duet that veers into hard-rock territory, with keyboards and the occasional synth burble in the background.

Days on End – Carved Away

The title Decade sounds like a greatest hits record (perhaps because, for someone else, it was a greatest hits record). But for pop-punk trio Days on End, it’s a new EP, and an extremely catchy one at that. For fans of so-called “emo revival” bands like Modern Baseball who want something new to make your voice hoarse screaming along to, Days on End will fit right in.

Eric George – Joe Hill

Folkie goes punk…again. Singer-songwriter Eric George usually operates in a Woody Guthrie vein, but, for the second time in recent years, he’s turned to the Bad Religion template. His political passion hasn’t changed, though: He’s still singing about folks like union organizer Joe Hill, who also inspired songs by Phil Ochs and Joan Baez. His take is currently just much louder than theirs.

Jobu & Rico James – $ Vs Earth

On “$ Vs Earth,” rapper Jobu goes hard against climate change obstructionists and capitalism in general. Near the end, he even glancingly echoes the knocked-up-the-earth opening of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain.” When world leaders meet in Scotland for the climate summit in a couple weeks, it’s probably too much to hope they’d keep some of these messages in mind.

Lightcrusher – Coursing Through Black Veins of Earth

Would you believe me if I told you “Coursing Through Black Veins of Earth” by the band Lightcrusher was a peppy folk-pop song inspired by Taylor Swift? Yeah, it’s not. It’s extremely heavy and tormented metal by the sort of band whose name is so stylized on their logo as to be almost illegible. But the guitar riffs are furious, the drummer plays like he’s outrunning the devil, and the lyrics – well, who knows what exactly he’s shrieking, but it sounds cool.

Lily Seabird – Bug

“I’m just a bug underneath your shoe,” Lily Seabird (real name Lily Seward) sings on “Bug,” off her terrific debut album Beside Myself. The melody jumps around in surprising leaps – I imagine this would be a tough karaoke track – but Lily carries it through all its twist and turns, leading to a wonderful Dinosaur Jr.-esque squalling guitar solo.

Wool See – Hail Ratmaa

The first of a couple Halloween-themed selections, “Back To The Lodge” comes from Wool See’s spooky new beat tape Woolloween Vol. 3. As he writes about his first no-vocals album, “‘Tis the season for mischief and mayhem and beats! Woolloween Vol. 3 is a fully instrumental album to smash squashes and horde gourds to.” Extra kudos on the best cover art of the month.

The Young Love Scene – Psychology

The Young Love Scene’s Gordon Goldsmith channels the great monkey band Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution (unintentionally, perhaps) in his new Halloween-themed music video for “Psychology.” The music, though, sounds less like ’60s-rock chimps and more like Jimmy Eat World meets The Ramones, catchy rock with a strong sense of hooks.

Check out previous best-of-the-month lists here.

The post The Best New Songs of October appeared first on County Tracks.

Black Fly – Sign 2

Over a propulsive synth hook that recalls M83’s “Midnight City,” Black Fly’s Joseph Rittling delivers a catchy electro-post-punk song that grows and grows into something epic.

boys cruise – The Owls

On “The Owls,” punk trio boys cruise deliver an homage to Twin Peaks twice as loud as anything David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti put on the soundtrack. Read the lyrics at Bandcamp if you can’t make ’em out through the distortion to see how many Peaks references you can catch (with a side of Edgar Allen Poe thrown in for good measure).

Bow Thayer – Earthling

Bow Thayer moonlights in a Sun Ra tribute band, so no surprise he’s talking about Zen and Earthlings. Recordings under his own name don’t veer too near Sun Ra’s freaky jazz, but, in their own folk-rocking way, they are plenty cosmic.

Dave Richardson – Apology to Mouse (Recently Deceased)

A chipper folk song by a bearded dude about a mouse sounds a lot like Raffi. Except Raffi wouldn’t have killed the mouse. “Apology to Mouse (Recently Deceased)” is equal parts humorous and earnest, with verses like: “If I could talk and you could listen / I would have tried employing reason / But there’s just no getting through / I took no joy in ending you.”

Eric George – Blue Plate Special

Singer-songwriter Eric George’s jaunty “Blue Plate Special” probably isn’t a deliberate bid to get himself booked on the roots-music NPR show of the same name, but, if it is, it’s not a bad gambit! Then again, the BoDeans released a song called “Jay Leno” some years back and, try as the publicist might (ahem), it did not in fact get them booked on Jay Leno. The fact that the song was about a horrible murder probably didn’t help.

Fate – Sierra Leone

The “oh-whoa-whoa”s that underpin this track remind me of “Viva La Vida.” And there’s where the Coldplay comparisons end. Fate delivers a dark and claustrophobic electro-industrial production that sounds like it should soundtrack some paranoid-dystopia movie trailer.

Giovanina Bucci – Go Easy

Giovanina Bucci channels a slow southern-soul groove on “Go Easy.” Dusty in Memphis feels like an obvious sonic touchstone, and, as if hitting those marks wasn’t impressive enough, she’s a visual artist too, painting an impressive mural in the music video.

Glenn Weyant – first

The first of a couple of solo-guitar pieces in this month’s playlist. The second is quiet and meditative. This one, most decidedly, is not.

Hellish Form – Shadows With Teeth

Props to Hellish Form to committing to making everything about their album as metal as possible. I don’t mean the music itself – thought satan knows it certainly is – but everything from the metal band name (Hellish Form) to the metal album name (Remains) to the metal song titles (“Your Grave Becomes A Garden,” “Ache,” “Shadows With Teeth,” and “Another World”). Okay, they lost the thread a little with that last one, but the hooded-figure-in-graveyard artwork more than makes up for it.

Ivamae – The Reality of It All

Ivamae brings some powerful Sinéad O’Connor energy on her new single, from the spare and mesmerizing vocal to the occasional noisy eruptions all the religious imagery in the music video. Vermont music fans have been waiting on Ivamae’s debut album for years and this, the first single off it, sounds like it will be worth the wait.

Jesse Taylor Band – If You Want Me

Jesse Taylor’s last EP Ever-changing featured song titles like “Disaster,” “Come Down,” and “Blue, which tells you the general lyrical mood. One song bemoaned a failed long-distance relationship, another detailed a streetside confrontation with an ex’s new partner. Things are looking brighter on new single “If You Want Me,” on which she puts the ’90s rock sonics to the side for a sprightly acoustic number.

Kat Wright – Take Me With You

“Take Me With You” is about wanting to run away and join the circus. And not just any circus. Wright and her two compatriots are singing about the beloved hippie institution Bread and Puppet Theater, based in their home state of Vermont. So when you hear Wright suddenly harmonizing about “slick capitalism” and “slippery rhetoric,” the connection might make more sense.

Lowell Thompson – Blood Season

“How many fingers are you willing to give up?” singer-songwriter Lowell Thompson asks in his new single “Blood Season.” It’s a very Neil Young and the Stray Gators vibe (minus the honeyslides…I assume), country-rock with some real grit. Love the guitar-and-piano duet coda.

Ula Blue – Hang Up the Phone

This jazzy Lana Del Rey-esque piano ballad comes with a powerful story, via Ula’s Bandcamp:

I started ‘Hang Up The Phone’ on a flight from someplace I can’t remember to Ottawa, Ontario. I had just gotten off of the phone with my dad for the last time. He was unable to talk or move after complications with stage 4 stomach cancer, so my mom put the phone to his ear. In that moment, any words I could say felt meaningless and all I could tell him was to ‘hold on and be strong’ like so many times he had told me.

As I sat crying with my face pointed out of the window so as not to disturb the stone clad businessman sitting next to me, I pulled out my keyboard and looking out at the land and sea disappearing into transient shades of pink, purple, and blue, I recorded the piano part that you hear as the intro to this song.

It would take me over another year to finish it as I have poured so much of my grief into its expression. Now that it’s done, my grief will shapeshift and mold itself into my next project. I don’t want to rely on songwriting to allow me to feel, but I come to recognize that it is in so many ways a gift and not a burden. It is a way of showing the beauty in the most heartbreaking moments of life. It is my form of acceptance.

Zachary Melton – Northland

Do you still need something to come down from that distortion assault of the first solo guitar piece? Well here’s the second, and it is much more calming, drawing on the greats like John Fahey and Glenn Jones – not to mention a whole new crop of talented artists – as does his entire album of the same name.

Zesty – Tarantino Flick

“Tarantino Flick” brings some Outkast energy, especially when Zesty switches into an Andre 3000-esque affected drawl.

Check out previous best-of-the-month lists here.

The post The Best New Songs of April appeared first on County Tracks.

In the endless year-end debate about to rank or not-to-rank, I generally fall on the to-rank side. Putting some albums on and not others is already subjective, so why not go full bore? But I do find that things get increasingly arbitrary the further down the list you go. There is a difference in my mind between #2 and #3. But between #22 and #23? No, not really.

So this year I’m wimping out and doing a compromise: 30 albums, #11-30 unranked, and then the ranked Top Ten at the bottom. A method sure to satisfy no one! Seems appropriate for 2020.

Amelia Devoid – Puddle

If the photo on the album cover isn’t enough of a clue on what format this electronic mix should best be enjoyed, the two track names should give you a hint: “side a” and “side b.” Sure enough, a cassette is available for $6 on her Bandcamp. But even for those of who have not jumped aboard the tape revival train, this ambient reverie is worth immersing yourself in.

Anachronist – Stay Late

Shades of Uncle Tupelo dot this roots-rock quintet’s Stay Late. More than shades at times. Like their alt-country forebearers, Anachronist mostly keep it loose and relaxed, but can get loud when necessary.

Barishi – Old Smoke

I’m pretty sure the opening line of Barishi’s ten-minute song “Blood Aurora” is “Lord of the darkness,” but singer Graham Brooks growls so ferociously I can’t quite make it out. Does that sentence offer enough clues what genre we’re talking about? For their first album in four years, the Vermont metal titans worked with Inter Arma producer Mikey Allred. Though hardly easy- or even medium-listening, Old Smoke has enough going on to potentially sell non-metalheads (present company included) while providing plenty for the death metal kids to thrash to.

Benjamin Lerner – Clean

Clean is, at times, a harrowing listen. Writing a rap autobiography that recalls Eminem’s Recovery with less Rihanna and more piano (but better than Em’s collab with Elton), Benjamin Lerner – Irving Berlin’s great-grandson, working in a very different genre – pulls no punches detailing his experiences with addiction and recovery. It’s a powerful and moving listen. Even when he dips into metaphor, as on the epic “Dan and Dave,” he makes his message crystal clear by the end, in lines that double as a mission statement for the entire album: “If you ain’t figure it out, my friend is Dan and I’m Dave / Story’s as true as it could be, only the names have been changed / I don’t do this to embarrass or disgracefully shame / A former friend of mine and point out the mistakes that he made  / I do this so other addicts who are escaping their pain / Don’t end up rotting in a cell or being a name on a grave.”

Bleach Day – As If Always

If you follow certain music writers on Twitter, “indie jam” was all the rage last year. Vampire Weekend got real noodly on their latest album, and trippy acts like Chris Forsyth and Cass McCombs managed to get weird while still attracting as many hipsters as hippies. Bleach Day’s debut album As If Always continued the trend. They’re not a jam band by any stretch, but they’re psychedelic enough you could imagine them blissing out on these songs for ten minutes live.

A Box of Stars – Museum of Light

A Box of Stars’ tracks sound so fragile that a stiff breeze might knock them over. Whispered vocals and just-so layers of guitars and synths create sonic Fabergé eggs you get more out of every time you listen.

Brand New Luddites – Terms and Conditions

One song on Brand New Luddites’ album features the sound of a cannon, like AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock.” The title of their song includes “Rock” too – except, in this case, the “Rock” refers to a game of rock paper scissors. That’s kind of Brand New Luddites’ vibe in a nutshell, loud brawny rock about ridiculous subjects. There’s a complicated backstory about them being an “anti-robot” band fighting with their “archenemy” robot band The Tsunamibots (who also release albums), but you don’t need to follow all that to pump your fist. Just don’t let that fist get covered by paper.

Eric George – Lily Died for Love

Lily Died for Love is a concept record about the Harry Potter series. If you’re a superfan, I’m sure you’ll get tons of references. But I’m not, and it doesn’t matter (“Lily” is Harry’s mother, I remember that much). Eric George presents ten engaging folk-rock songs packed with hooks. If you want to listen while fighting a basilisk, be my guest. Yes, I had to Google that.

Guest Policy – Four Year Bend

On Four Year Bend, Guest Policy pull from a wide array of genres from indie-rock (“Bend”) to funk (“Shake It (Till You’re Crazy)”) to R&B (“Gonna Go Find It”). That may sound disjointed, but the duo hold the entire sonic array together with gorgeous lilting vocals and tight production. Practically every song indicates a different genre they could pursue exclusively, but I hope they keep exploring them all at once.

The Leatherbound Books – These Were the Days

Mumford and Sons went radio-rock. Of Monsters and Men went electro-pop. I don’t know what The Lumineers are up to. For anyone missing that brief movement of insanely catchy folk-rock dominating pop music, The Leatherbound Books have you covered. Foot-stompin’ hootenanny pop songs aren’t the only sonic tool in their arsenal, but a song like “Long Road Home” makes you wanna “Ho!” and “Hey!” one more time.

Madaila – Madaila

Mark Daly originally planned to release four EPs this year, based on the cardinal directions. The first one, West, made my Best EPs of 2020 list. The second was supposed to be sunny pop, which Daly said didn’t feel right after the George Floyd murder and subsequent upheaval. So he pivoted to this self-titled album. That backstory probably makes it sound heavy and dark. It’s not. Political concerns crop up in the lyrics, but the music finds him embracing his upbeat dance-pop side. It’s his “Dancing in the Dark”; super poppy on the outside, darker when you look below the surface.

Oldboys – Moon Music

The instrumentation is bluegrass, but the vibe is ’90s slacker-rock, from Pavement to Smashing Pumpkins (some versions of the album even feature a cover of Nirvana’s “Breed”). The vibe comes through not just in the lyrics – I don’t know how old these people are, but the apathy feels very Gen X –  but the music. A melody like “Cockeyed Suzie” sounds like it could come from an early Beck album – if Beck played with fiddles and mandolins.

Quiltro – Quiltro

I didn’t get a chance to write about Quiltro’s album earlier, so I’ll use what the band’s Mike McKinley told me here when I asked him to tell me more about this instrumental album blending post-rock and electronics and jazz: “I remember interviewing Ray Paczkowski many years ago, and while I was trying to uncover where his (mostly) instrumental trio Vorcza fit on the music spectrum, e.g. how does this fall into the jazz world? What kind of scene digs this music? He kept coming back to a very humble, ‘I don’t know, man, it’s just our music. I don’t really know how else to describe it or explain where it fits in.’ At that time, I sort of understood what he was saying. But now I fully understand it having this experience with Quiltro. It’s chemistry that makes it work. Since it is instrumental music, it lends itself to having a heavy visual component. And at times it [feels]l like a soundtrack to a dystopian sci-fi film, navigating the darkness while looking out for hope.”

The Röse Parade – Hyena Dream Machine

Hyena Dream Machine sounds like all the Prince albums smashed together. And not just the classic ones either. The weird ’90s genre experiments? The girl groups? His band with all the members of The Time not named Morris Day? They’re all here. Even the band name – that umlaut feels very Prince. That’s not to indicate that this is some mere pastiche (he does spell out “you” in the song titles, after all). Prince made all these different sounds over the course of decades; even he never had the audacity to draw from them all at once.

Rough Francis – Urgent Care

The seven songs on Rough Francis’ Urgent Care blast by in an unrelenting 19 minutes. The long-reigning Vermont punk band brings in heavy doses of Nuggets-era garage rock, delivering some of the catchiest songs of their career without taking their foot off the gas for a second.

Seamus Egan – Welcome to Orwell

Veteran Irish musician Seamus Egan, best known for leading the band Solas, recently moved to Orwell, Vermont. “Welcome to Orwell” forms a centerpiece of his first solo album in 20 years, Early Bright. If you like Irish music, he’s an expert purveyor of it, bringing original songs to old sounds. But if you don’t know a damn thing about Irish music, that doesn’t matter; Early Bright never feels like you need to do homework to understand its easy charms.

Steve Davie – Come See Me On The Moon

Many albums, even good ones, don’t have strong narrative hooks. For the average listener, that doesn’t matter, but as a writer it makes things tricky. “Good songs recorded well” doesn’t make for much of a headline. But occasionally a gift drops in your lap. And how’s this to grab you: “If Pete Seeger sang only about outer space.” Veteran folk musician Steve Davie recorded an entire album about the moon, getting extremely specific about what life might be like for a colony out there. It’s a bonkers concept, but expressed via supremely mellow and inviting music.

Western Terrestrials – Back in the Saddle of a Fever Dream

Western Terrestrial’s album has country music in its DNA. That’s not just a metaphor; Roger Miller’s son produced it and George Jones’ daughter sings on it. They even cover Billy Lee Riley’s Sun Records classic “Flying Saucer Rock n Roll.” It’s country music through a classic-rock filter though; I hear as much Warren Zevon as Waylon Jennings. Plus there’s a very prog-rock lyrical theme of outer space running throughout (hence that “Flying Saucer” cover).

The Wormdogs – Hey Thanks

You know freak-folk? How about freak-bluegrass! On Hey Thanks, The Wormdogs get weird and wooly with traditional banjo-and-fiddle music, living inside the tradition while gently poking fun at it. In “Old Time Song,” they send up the traditionalists – and their own lack of bluegrass bona fides – with verses like, “Don’t get me started on the Blue Ridge Mountains / I’ve never been there / I’m from Vermont / And I don’t leave the state all that often.”

Wren Kitz – Early Worm

One hates to crib directly from the promo materials, but, to be honest, the record label’s Bandcamp description kind of nails it: “Moon-waxin’ full-length of spacial guitar action, molten fuzz-folk, feedback ballads, patient psychedelia, and other adjacent territories.” The strange and warped Early Worm touches on all of that, sometimes in the space of a single song.

The Top Ten

10. Community Garden – Don’t Sweat It

Post-punk is not known for being cheery. The chorus of what might be post-punk’s most iconic song sings about being crushed by a double-decker bus. But Vermont trio Community Garden deliver the most unlikely of combinations: upbeat post-punk. “Don’t Sweat It,” says the title track. “Brush It Off,” another encouraging title. Or how about “Be Honest” – that’s just good advice! Don’t Sweat It offers a rare post-punk album that’s made more for celebrating with friends than sitting in a dark room alone. Though, as this year would indicate, it works for sitting alone too.

9. The Beerworth Sisters – Another Year

The Beerworth Sisters are not, actually, sisters. They’re in-laws, but The Beerworth Sisters-in-Law doesn’t really roll off the tongue. No matter, from Brothers Everly to Gallagher, being a band with your actual sibling doesn’t usually work out (though maybe it’s just brothers that are the problem). Another Year, the wonderful new album from the “Sisters,” draws on old folk traditions without sounding dusty and dated. “Lord Take My Sorrow” or “Mourning Dove” sound like pieces that’ve been kicking around the American songbook for decades, but are, in fact, originals.

8. Eastern Mountain Time – Seven

There are seven songs on Eastern Mountain Time’s new album, just pushing it over the cusp of our six-songs-is-an-EP definition. He even typed it Seven, as if to rub in delivering the bare numerical minimum to jump lists. But sometimes less is more, as he surrounds earlier single “Darker Now” – one of my favorite songs of 2018 – with a collection of slow and raw Americana ballads. The vibe channels Neil Young’s ditch era, with some of the most expressive and wounded singing of the year. He also put out a rarities and outtakes collection this year which, while it would really be pushing the limit to call it an “album,” is worth checking out too (and not just because he recorded a Dire Straits cover for my other site).

7. Ben Patton – The Swan, For Instance

Song for song, there are few writers working today better than Ben Patton. Writing across rock, pop, and what, for lack of a better genre, I’ll call old-timey showtune, he writes songs that sound so classic you have to Google to make sure they’re not covers of something from the ’50s or ’60s. He went full-Broadway on his last album, but returns to a typically eclectic mix on The Swan, For Instance, bringing in humor on the self-deprecating “What a Shame About Benjamin” and a true songwriter’s sign of romance on “I Wanna Buy a Piano with You” (sample lyric: “A diamond wedding ring’s just a rock / And wedding vows are only talk / His and hers towels, what does that prove? / But pianos are heavy and a bitch to move.”)

6. The Bubs – Cause a Fuss

Here are a few samples from the lyric sheet for Cause a Fuss: “Intro with pirate vocals.” “Weird oohs section.” “Whyyyy???!!!” The Bubs’ songs do have lyrics, sure, but the full-throated yells that pepper most of them best embody the supersized band’s chaotic-good energy. The vibe is The Polyphonic Spree after a dozen Red Bulls. They’ve long had one hell of a live show, and, against the odds, bandleader Ethan Tapper managed to harness that frenetic insanity in recorded form. The songs are every bit as loud and fast and holler-along-with-able as they would be in concert, but his songwriting helps them stand up even without the spectacle of ten people hurling themselves about the stage. (That being said, do yourself a favor and watch a live video).

5. Francesca Blanchard – Make It Better

One of many difficult questions musicians faced in 2020: Do you release your new album, even if you can’t tour it? Francesca Blanchard had begun dropping singles from Make It Better way back in 2017,  so eventually she decided, the hell with it, and put it out. The album was recorded before any of our current problems, but the breezy electro-pop seemed to fit the mood of lockdown. Or maybe I should say moods. If you focus on the music, it might lift you away from your current problems. If you focus on the words, you can sit and luxuriate in sadness.

4. A2VT – Twenty Infinity

“African refugees in Vermont” is the elevator pitch, but their music offers so much more than just a human interest story. A duo of singers and rappers who go by Jilib and Pogi, augmented by a rotating cast of friends, they sing in English, Swahili, Maay Maay and a combination they refer to as “Swahenglish” (their longtime producer quipped that when he first met them they were “between languages”). Their collaborators from Vermont’s refugee community hail from Burundi, Mozambique, Congo, Nigeria, and beyond. The music is informed by the musicians’ story, but isn’t subservient to it. Other than occasional Vermont reference, Twenty Infinity could easily be something you’d find at a street stall in Lagos. “Hilamia” delivers a bumping electronic song written to fill wedding dance floors, while “You Ma Numba 1” delivers a love letter to both a woman and a continent (its music video also does a decent job making Vermont settings pass as Africa). “Wave Your Flag,” one of of our favorite singles of 2019, delivers a feel-good anthem in the vein of their fellow African refugee K’naan’s hit of a similar name.

3. Lily Wade – 5teen

The indie-rock songwriter’s chops bely her age (15 when the album came out, hence the title – even Adele didn’t start until 19). She writes short and snappy songs, filled with hooks and wit and pop smarts, even as the subject matter reflects her own life experiences: high school crushes, grade-grubbing schoolmates, a summer you wish would last forever, etc. If the lyrics reflect her present moment, though, her influences look a couple decades further back. Wade gushes about Sonic Youth and Pavement, even covering “I Want to Be Stephen Malkmus” live, a song by beabadoobee, another young woman in thrall to indie-rock made before she was born. Hope she’ll do a sequel about life as a 16-year old in lockdown.

2. Couchsleepers – Only When It’s Dark

Harrison Hsiang wrote, produced, recorded, and mixed his band Couchsleepers’ debut album Only When It’s Dark in his bedroom. These days, that’s not unusual. But he takes it one step further. It’s a bedroom album about that very bedroom. But, for an album about sleep, Only When It’s Dark probably isn’t very conducive to it. A layered, dense production, these nine tracks frame Hsiang’s lyrics with horns, strings, backing vocals, and much more. He alone plays seven instruments, and brings in a dozen-plus friends to do the rest. Grizzly Bear and The National offer obvious sonic touchstones, but, spiritually, this is the indie-rock successor to Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.

1. Wolfhand – The Devil Arrives

“Spaghetti western doom metal” is how the band Wolfhand labels itself, and few zany genre tags are so dead-on accurate. Both components are equally present on this quintet’s debut, and they go together so well you wonder why it’s not a more common sound. The concept album follows a classic hero’s journey, in which a gunslinger takes on the titular Devil in a small western town. Now, this is a narrative you will have to imagine a bit for yourself; in true spaghetti western tradition, Wolfhand’s music is all instrumental. The difference is, it’s also heavy as hell. They should have called themselves Mörricöne.

Now check out the Best Vermont Songs and Best Vermont EPs of 2020!

The post The Best Vermont Albums of 2020 appeared first on County Tracks.

I wish I’d come up with the “spaghetti western doom metal” label, but that’s how the band Wolfhand describes itself. And it’s been a while since I’ve come across a zany genre combo that was so dead-on accurate. Both components are equally present on this quintet’s debut album The Devil Arrives. They go together so well you wonder why it’s not a more common sound. They should have called themselves Mörricöne.

“Wolfhand was formed out of our mutual love for movie soundtracks, bizarre cowboy movies, and doom metal, so merging all the material into a spaghetti western doom metal opus seemed to make perfect sense,” guitarist Dave Mahan says. That opus comes out next week, and we’re premiering the title track below.

The concept album follows a classic hero’s journey, in which a gunslinger takes on the titular Devil in a small western town. “The Devil Arrives” comes second on the album, when things are at their bleakest: The Devil comes to town, causing misery and ruin. The hero, outmatched, flees to plot his next move.

Now, this is a narrative you will have to imagine a bit for yourself – in true spaghetti western tradition, Wolfhand’s music is all instrumental. So to help tell the tale, they incorporate clips of dialogue from old public domain westerns. But someone should film a real movie with this as the soundtrack.

The full album comes out next week (preorder here). Hear the title track below.

Check out more of the best metal from Vermont bands here.

The post “Spaghetti Western Doom Metal” Band Soundtracks Shootout with the Devil appeared first on County Tracks.

Amelia Devoid – Side A

I was just listening to a podcast where the hosts were debating what type of music they needed during this crisis. One wanted peppy, upbeat songs to lift them from their funk. The other wanted downcast, inward-looking songs to match their current mood. No wrong answers. If you want something blissful and ambient to relax to, Amelia Devoid’s got you covered.

Bennington – Dime Robadora

Vocal quartet Bennington (named after Bennington college, where they all went to school) covers everyone from The Supremes to Crosby, Stills, and Nash on their debut album. And those are just the people you’ve heard of. But I found it fun to poke around the many songs I’d never heard of, as someone not super familiar with choral music. “Dime Robadora” is composed by Cancionero de Upsala. Who or what is Cancionero de Upsala? After some exhaustive research (read: I Wikipedia’d it), I learned it was an anonymous volume of Spanish music that came out in the 1500s, of which there is only one volume remaining. So with this album come for the songs you know, stay for some schoolin’ in the ones you don’t.

Carraway – St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t really a thing for most of us this year (and if you really did St. Patrick’s Day big, you probably did something wrong). But Carraway’s rousing new single “St. Patrick’s Day” can be just as easily enjoyed at home. Pour a pint of Guinness and holler along to the “ba da da da”s all by yourself.

Eastern Mountain Time – One World (Dire Straits cover)

Eastern Mountain Time’s Sean Hood covered a Dire Straits song that, despite being on one of the best-selling albums ever, has never gotten a decent cover before. As I said over on my covers site, it was worth the wait.

Eric George – Shadows

I’ve heard rumors prolific roots musician Eric George has recorded an entire album about Harry Potter. This isn’t it. Rather, Shadows offers a short EP’s worth of songs all combined into one track. He calls it a vignette. On Bandcamp, he writes, “This album was made using only a cell phone as a recording device, a compilation of field recordings and spontaneous creations captured in the moment of their conception. The recordings were originally meant to be a reference, the seeds of songs I would later record in front of expensive microphones. I later realized there is so much magic in the first moments of a song’s existence.” [Update: After I wrote this he dropped the Harry Potter album!]

Father Figuer – Error

“Error,” off Father Figuer’s strange and dreamy new album, sounds true to its name. A meditative ballad drifts along for the first bit, drawing you in. Then, at 57 seconds, it sounds like someone switched the dial on the radio, abruptly shifting into what a different song: louder, faster, harder-rocking all around. Was this intentional, or a serendipitous technical glitch they kept? I have no idea, but it makes sense after a couple listens.

Kingfisher – Blue Skies

No, it’s not a cover of the Irving Berlin song. Rock quartet Kingfisher deliver an original both memorable and meditative, jazz-piano flourishes laid atop dream-country (that’s like dream-pop, but, you know). Their self-titled EP has tracks with more energy and tempo, but they do this sort of mellow reverie extremely well, and, right now, I’m in the mood for something soothing.

Loot – Robert Downey Jr.

Loot’s timing couldn’t have been much worse. Releasing an album about partying hard and getting rowdy just days before those things stopped happening. Bummer. I guess you’re still free to get rowdy in your own apartment. If you do, this would be a worthy soundtrack.

Northern Harmony – Ndikhokele

Lotta choral music this month! Well, two, but that’s two more than usual. In these incredibly stressful times, a sound like Northern Harmony’s can provide a calming balm. They pull songs from all over the globe on new album A Thousand Radiant Marks, from Bulgaria (“Otišla moma hubava”) to the French island of Corsica (“Bernardinu”) to South Africa (“Ndikhokele”). I don’t know what these words are – I can’t imagine any human alive is fluent in every language they sing in (some are pretty obscure) – but the sounds say it all.

Shore Rites – And Over.

If you’re gonna be a bassist, be a bassist in a post-punk band. Few genres as regularly let their bassists take center stage. Shore Rites lean as dream-pop as they do post-punk, and a song like “And Over.” off their excellent debut EP wonderfully blends the two seemingly unblendable genres.

Wolfhand – Canyon Wizard

The song titles on The Devil Arrives would prepare you for a real country record. “Saloon.” “Gallows.” “High Noon.” And though it certainly has some old-time-country touches, don’t expect Roy Acuff on “Canyon Wizard.” This is one parts country, ten parts doom metal. Maybe that’s the “Canyon” part mixed with the “Wizard” part. I can’t wait to hear the rest.

Zeus Springsteen – Madman Across the Water (Elton John cover)

Zeus Springsteen is a power trio. Read: No pianist. So Elton John might seem like an unlikely person to cover. But the inability to be too faithful to the original leads to a wild progged-out “Madman.” Chris Farnsworth says: “We all like the demo version from Tumbleweed Connection, the one with the Mick Ronson solo on it. So we skewed towards that, but we kept pulling on the sound like taffy until the track felt suitably under mental duress.”

Check out the out previous best-of-the-month lists here.

The post The Best New Songs of March 2020 appeared first on County Tracks.

As you may have heard, Bandcamp is waving all its fees until midnight tonight to deliver 100% of the money to musicians. In this time of cancelled gigs and an uncertain future, artists need your support more than ever. So go nuts. To start, here are twenty-five great 2020 albums to buy there.

Note: Bandcamp’s site is currently pretty overloaded. So bear with it. And, if none of their embeds show up below, reload this page until they do.

Adam Rabin – Things Fall
Genres: Progressive rock, piano jazz, nerdcore

A2VT – Twenty Infinity
Genres: R&B, Afropop, songs for dancing around your bedroom

Babehoven – Demonstrating Visible Difference of Height
Genres: Indie rock, dream pop, they left Vermont but we won’t hold that against them

Barishi – Old Smoke
Genres: Loud metal, even louder metal

Becky Tracy and Keith Murphy – Golden
Genres: Bluegrass, old-time roots music, fancy fiddlin’

Bleach Day – As If Always
Genres: Psychedelic rock, dream pop, drugs

Brand New Luddites – Terms and Conditions
Genres: Punk, indie, robot rock

The Bubs – Cause a Fuss
Genres: Art-rock, punk, cathartic yelling

Chris Weisman – Closer Tuning
Genres: Bedroom pop, lo-fi, prolific DIY guy who was made for this moment

Community Garden – Don’t Sweat It
Genres: Post-punk, indie rock, bass grooves

Couchsleepers – Only When It’s Dark
Genres: Indie rock, pop, bedtime jamz

Evergreen Avenue – Farewell, For Now
Genres: Ambient, electronic, meditation music

Father Figuer – Transitions
Genres: Slowcore, shoegaze, music that seems like it would be great to drift asleep to but be careful because it will get loud abruptly and jolt you awake

Fern Maddie – North Branch River
Genres: Americana, folk, angelic harmonies

Jo Bled – The Accumulation and The Radiate
Genres: Jazz, improv, hope you like drumming

Kin & 13aDLuck – Fire Out
Genres: Hip-hop, rap, underground realness

Kingfisher – Kingfisher
Genres: Indie rock, dream blues, lying in the grass

Lily Wade – 5teen
Genres: Indie rock, bedroom pop, 15- (now 16-) year old prodigy

Love and Japan – Tears for Vanishing Ways
Genres: Post-punk, new wave, Joy Division-core

Northern Harmony – A Thousand Radiant Marks
Genres: Choral, a cappella, angelic sounds we’ll presumably hear just after we die from coronavirus

Rico James – Nickels
Genres: Beats, so many beats

The Röse Parade – Hyena Dream Machine
Genres: Experimental, industrial soul, Nine Inch Nails meets Miguel

Shore Rites – Shore Rites
Genres: Indie rock, jangle pop, Real Estate covering The Cure

Strawberry 3000 – all good things, part 1: t h e s t o c k t i p
Genres: ’80s, synthcore, the Repo Man soundtrack

Wolfhand – The Devil Arrives
Genres: Symphonic metal, doom, wizards (I assume)

The post 25 New Vermont Albums to Buy on Bandcamp Today appeared first on County Tracks.

Bad Rat? – Transitional Forest

“Transitional Forest” is billed as the lead single of Bad Rat’s upcoming album This Time Around The Sun, but it’s almost two singles in one. The first half is a bit of a feint, a meditative meander that doesn’t predict the drop to come. With little warning, Marc Kamil’s mellow ballad becomes thudding  post-punk, little more than a shared guitar line connecting the two halves.

Barishi – Blood Aurora

I’m pretty sure the opening line of Barishi’s ten-minute song “Blood Aurora” is “Lord of the darkness,” but singer Graham Brooks is growling so ferociously I can’t quite make it out. Does that sentence offer enough clues what genre we’re talking about? For their first album in four years, the Vermont metal titans worked with Inter Arma producer Mikey Allred and it shows. Though hardly easy- or even medium-listening, “Blood Aurora” has enough going on to potentially sell non-metalheads (present company included) while providing plenty for the death metal kids to thrash to.

Bent Muffbanger – No Ordinary Day

Carl Sheperd’s voice reminds me of Tom Petty, and he manages to blend two Petty eras on “No Ordinary Day: “Wildflowers” folk-rock on the verses, “Don’t Come Around Here No More” synth-pop on the choruses.

Bleach Day – bbs in in the grass

If you follow certain music writers on Twitter, “indie jam” was all the rage last year. Vampire Weekend got real noodly on their new album, and trippy acts like Chris Forsyth and Cass McCombs managed to get weird while still attracting as many hipsters as hippies. Bleach Day’s “bbs in in the grass” continues the trend. They’re not a jam band by any stretch, but they’re psychedelic enough you could imagine them blissing out on this song for ten minutes live.

Chris Weisman – No New Hampshire

“New Hampshire has an illness in its heart,” begins this diss track dedicated to an entire state. Though Weisman now lives in Vermont, he hails from New Hampshire, so he knows of what he speaks. This came out a week before the NH primary, so that may have been part of the frustration (though his current-home-state senator ended up winning it). These disses go down easy though, as the prolific Weisman layers vocals and guitar for a beautiful ballad that offers a lot more than interstate rivalry.

Francesca Blanchard – Ex-Girlfriend

The killer opening line “I just spent an hour stalking your ex-girlfriend on the internet” sounds like a Lily Allen song. The entirety of Francesca Blanchard’s great new single recalls Allen, in fact – not one of her big poppy singles, but a more mellow album cut. Blanchard told Billboard “I wanted [the video] to feel like a never-ending scroll through Instagram, perfect snapshots of strangers living their lives. To capture that icky feeling I get after accidentally spying on people for hours. But I can’t help it, because everything looks so damn pretty on a screen.” She even impersonates Siri at one point.

Jessica Rabbit Syndrome – Thelma and Louise

Given that they named their band after one movie (earning a recent shoutout from the character’s creator), no surprise that goth-garage trio Jessica Rabbit Syndrome named a song after another. They haven’t properly released much since I wrote about them a couple years ago, but this new track came out via a live-on-radio album by New England radio host Tim Lewis (the third in the series, I wrote about the previous installment here). It’s dark and murky, with the bass distortion turned way the hell up.

Kin & 13aDLuck – Fire Out

In 2007, hip-hop producer AmpLive released an album remixing every track on Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows with underground rappers. It was a hit or miss project (shocking), but at its best, a song like “Video Tapes” provided a fascinating and unexpected sample for someone like Del Tha Funky Homosapien to rap over. I don’t know what the sample is on this Kin & 13aDLuck, but it reminds me of that.

LILABET – Mercedes Bends

Take riot grrrl energy, filter it through ’80s synth pop, and add a killer guitar solo. You’ve got “Mercedes Bends.” That more or less describes Sleater-Kinney’s last album, too.

Lily Wade – I Don’t Wanna Be 5teen

“I don’t want to be fifteen,” goes the opening track on Lily Wade’s debut album, and good news: She’s not. Just turned 16 last week. But as I noted in my longer piece on the album, she doesn’t sound her age. The “teenage indie rocker” is a good narrative hook,  but a catchy bedroom pop song like this would stand out no matter how many years the musician had been working.

Love and Japan – Spider Rain

Love and Japan’s new EP sounds like the lighter and darker sides of ’80s pop blended together – Men at Work meets Joy Division. I don’t know what “spider rain” is, but I’m frankly shocked it’s not already the title of a Cure song.

Michael Chinworth – There You Are

The lyrics to these songs were written by playwright Quincy Long, who must be doing something right – one of his plays was directed by William H. Macy and starred Felicity Huffman. This comes from another, The Huntsmen, for which the New York playwright worked with Vermont musician Michael Chinworth to compose songs. It’s not a musical, but rather “a dark, deep and hilarious piece about a murderous teen that borrowed from old thrasher flicks and after school special tropes.” It apparently uses these old doo-wop sounds to juxtapose against the on-stage violence and mayhem. Sounds like Tarantino should direct the movie adaptation.

S.T.L.A. – Do You Know Yer Curses?

The album cover looks like Blair Witch Project meets The X-Files, and the eerie music follows that lead. Experimental musician Henry Birdsey works like an ambient electronic producer, but with analog instruments: lap steel, pedal steel, microtonal organ, fiddle, hammered dulcimer. None of them sound remotely like what you think they should sound like, but it creates a magnetic and slight unnerving stew.

Troy Millette – Runaway (Live at Higher Ground)

I liked country singer Troy Millette’s 2019 debut EP, but his new live version of “Runaway” takes the song to another level. More muscular than the quieter studio version, Millette’s gruff voice and a knockout country-rock band turns the song into a beers-up southern-rock anthem. There’s polished Nashville country in his songwriting, but there’s Allman Brothers rawness in this delivery.

Check out the out previous best-of-the-month lists here.

The post The Best New Songs of February 2020 appeared first on County Tracks.

A2VT – You Ma Numba 1

“African refugees in Vermont” is the elevator pitch, but their music offers so much more than just the human interest story. A duo of singers and rappers who go by Jilib and Pogi, augmented by a rotating cast of friends, they sing in English, Swahili, Maay Maay and a combination they refer to as “Swahenglish.” This infectious love song doesn’t hit as hard as some of the higher-energy songs on their great new album Twenty Infinity, but the joyous and insanely catchy chorus will burrow its way into your brain for days.

Couchsleepers – Half the Night

’70s pop-rock balladry meets Grizzly Bear on Couchsleepers’ new single, maybe the best preview yet for the band’s forthcoming debut album. Bonus points for one hell of a guitar solo, evocative and moving without wearing out its welcome.

D. French – Early

“I got the whole city jumping,” Dominic French exclaims at one point on “Early.” Presumably he means somewhere bigger than his hometown of St. Alban’s, Vermont (pop 6,918). But wherever he plays this, vertical motion may be incurred. As someone who grew up in Chicago in the ’90s, I appreciate any Dennis Rodman shoutout. And bonus points to producer GC Beats for the killer Eastern-inflected beat. I want whatever record he sampled that from.

Dead Man From Mars – daBadBoy

Have you heard 100 gecs? If you have, you probably have a strong opinion about them. This buzzy duo’s spastic 2019 debut often got tagged as the sound of the internet, all sorts of unrelated genres violently smashed together (they cite the “Hamster Dance” as a formative influence, which says it all). Dead Man From Mars’ new EP Fruity has that same unhinged energy, at times sounding like a half dozen radio stations playing at the same time. I mean that as a good thing. Your mileage may vary.

Eric George – The Fix

“All I got are these songs and a few good magic tricks,” Eric George sings on the chorus of “The Fix.” In his hands, that ain’t nothing. He third album of 2019 snuck in just under the wire in late December, a spare Americana set that blends solo folk songs like this one with full band roots-rock.

Garret Harkawik – A Collection of Works

Garret Harkawik is not the polo shirted man on the album cover. That’s Steve Kohlhase, the subject of a documentary about the man’s ten-year quest to find the source of a strange hum in his house. I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t tell you whether he succeeds, but Harkawik’s soundtrack is one sound you won’t want to get rid of. The first eight tracks expand upon cues he created for the film, then this 13-minute closer pulls them all together into an intriguing ambient piece.

GOOD WTHR x SkySplitterInk – Tell a Friend

It may be rap on Soundcloud, but GOOD WTHR is far from “Soundcloud rap.” It hits harder, for one, drawing more from the aggressive energy of old-school MC’s than the chemically-laid-back young guns. On their new single “Tell a Friend,” producer SkySplitterInk gives rappers Pro and Kin a lilting beat to rhyme over while otherwise staying out of the way.

James and the Giant Sleep – My Friend the Apostate

Lotta Roald Dahl fans in Vermont, apparently – the aforementioned Couchsleepers recently changed their name from The Giant Peach. Christian James apparently doesn’t fear the Dahl estate’s litigious wrath, and more power to him (James and the Giant Sleep is a solid band name). This twisty rocker recalls any number of emo-adjacent bands on the Tooth & Nail roster in the ’90s – plus they might be drop a word like “apostate” too. If Bandcamp is to be believed, it’s only his second single. Off to one hell of a start.

Justin LaPoint – Wide Open Spaces

No, this isn’t a Dixie Chicks cover. Sonically, though, it’s close enough that I could imagine that trio doing a nice job with Justin LaPoint’s quiet folk-country. Particularly on that infectious chorus, where it already boasts a Chicks-ready backing arrangement.

PREECE – Take Our Time (Acoustic)

Any number of rock bands have been padded out EPs with superfluous “acoustic versions,” where the band makes their songs sound worse by playing them on an acoustic guitar while otherwise changing nothing (Jimmy Eat World just this week tried this live on “The Middle” – it didn’t work). Sean Preece’s Give Preece a Chance EP isn’t that. For one, he includes only acoustic versions. But more importantly, he dramatically twists five of his volume-knob-to-10 punk bangers into wholly new, quieter shapes. “Take Our Time” becomes a peppy strum-along. If the Ramones had taken to playing around campfires, it might have sounded like this.

Quasar Valley Band – To Be Absorbed

Releasing an EP on December 27 ensures a band will never appear on anyone but the biggest procrastinator’s year-end list. If the simply-titled QVB had come out a month prior, though, it would have earned a spot on our Best EPs of 2019 list. Because it is one of the best EPs of 2019 – even if it came out with only four days to spare.

Roost – Winners

“I hope it gets better!” Zack Schuster hollers repeatedly on “Winners,” as his eerily pitch-shifted echoes him back. One part post-punk and two-parts dance music of the sort that might get booked at a jam-band festival, it’s an odd and mesmerizing mix. The eight-minute runtime may seem excessive, but it just grooves along blissfully. Until the surprise ending, that is.

The Röse Parade – Mrzim Te

Who says guitar solos can only come in when the vocals drop out? On The Röse Parade’s album Hyena Dream Machine, guitars seem to solo whenever they damn well please. “Mrzim Te” eschews classic rock wankery, though, going for the dark and weird. Like Nine Inch Nails, but with Miguel on lead vocals.

SACHEM – Winter

Looking at that amazing album cover, it will not surprise you to learn this is a metal band. The Bandcamp description is equally memorable: “Evocative of frigid northeastern winters, “Hymns of Hunger” honors the liminal zone between times of dearth and times of hope. It pays homage to a dire, eternally famished demon whose hunt never ceases. It lulls you into trances with the sonic replication of a glowing horizon, red before an early sunset. And finally, it brings you high into the hills with ice tipped cliffs and miles of skeletal arms, bare and reaching toward a vacant light. Here, we are born into the cold. Here, we embrace it.”

Seamus Egan – Welcome to Orwell

Veteran traditional Irish musician Seamus Egan recently moved to the town that gave the song its name, and it forms a centerpiece of the Solas bandleader’s first solo album in 20 years, Early Bright. He writes of its inspiration: “After living in Philadelphia for many years, I moved from The City of Brotherly Love to the Green Mountains of Vermont. After many miles in a U-Haul I was ill equipped to drive, I came across this friendly sign. It made me feel better.”

Thomas Gunn – Virginia

You know the song “A Horse with No Name”? Well as Thomas Gunn makes clear right at the start here, his horse has a name: “Virginia.” Gunn: 1, America: 0 (actually, -1, just for naming their crappy band “America”). Gunn’s horse song starts with a similarly mellow folk-rope lope before going full grunge gallop in the chorus. Your shlocky-’70s-Neil-Young-ripoff fave could never.

Transitory Symphony – Robert Moses Causeway

Though he lives in Vermont, there’s a strong Long Island theme running through Jim Heltz’s latest album. Two separate songs are named after Oyster Bay; even Billy Joel doesn’t drop that many references! The beautiful instrumental “Robert Moses Causeway” might make the perfect soundtrack when you read Robert Caro’s Pulitzer’d Moses tome. You’ll just need to repeat the song a few (thousand) times.

Western Terrestrials – Automated Trucker Blues

The video for “Automated Trucker Blues,” off last year’s excellent The Clearlake Conspiracy, takes the band name literally: “Western” with the guys rocking some pretty swank Nudie suits and “Terrestrials” with unexplained UFOs hovering over the proceedings. The secret star of the show, though, is the old cowboy in the background flipping them off.

Check out the out previous best-of-the-month lists here.

The post The Best New Songs of January 2020 appeared first on County Tracks.

Fifteen is a pretty stupid number for a list like this. I tried to get it down to a nice round ten, but some of the cuts to get to fifteen had been so painful that the idea of losing five more almost physically hurt (I realize I may take these lists too seriously). So fifteen it is. “A baker’s dozen,” as people who don’t know what a baker’s dozen is might say.

The selections below span sounds and genres, from folk to metal, noir-rap to African traditional, dashed rock prefixes from post- to punk-. They also span approaches, from ornate productions to DIY bedroom records that sound tossed off (but probably took a lot of work to get there). I’ve done enough of these sorts of lists to know you’re supposed to seek some grand unifying theory in the intro, but I’m pretty sure that’s a fool’s errand. These fifteen records come from the same state, but share little else in common. Oh, except greatness.

Disclaimer: EPs is a pretty outdated term in the digital era. Most of these artists just referred to these as albums, and who am I to say different? But it felt I should somehow separate three-track releases from thirteen-track releases, and “The Best Short/Long Albums of 2019” is terrible for SEO. So until someone comes up with a better term, “EPs” it is (defined as six tracks or less and under 30 minutes).

Bear’s Tapestry – Wind and Water

In their impressively assured debut, Americana quartet Bear’s Tapestry channel Fleet Foxes and the Avett Brothers (or sometimes just one Avett Brother, in case of leader Bear Borges’s solo finale “Death’s Bird”).

Clover Koval – Spatial Awareness

Clover Koval excels at slice-of-life lyrics that echo Courtney Barnett over music that sounds like a lo-fi Best Coast. “Ugly Shoes” is about exactly that, and “Yoga Mat (Don’t Know Where I’m At)” might be one of the best song titles of the year.

Cole Davidson – Sleep Talking

Cole Davidson’s fingerpicked guitar work is so impressive it’s easy to miss the songwriting it supports. A funky folk music – a rare combo indeed – he writes inventive melodies that twist in unexpected ways. Good luck trying to diagram these songs into standard verse-chorus structures, but in his performance he makes complicated music sound easy.

Damascus Kafumbe – Nsomesa Okwagala (Teach Me to Love)

Damascus Kafumbe plays every instrument on his new EP, and I bet you’ll only recognize one of them: adungu, mbuutu, mpuunyi, nsaasi, claves, and lead vocals. This Middlebury ethnomusicology professor knows his stuff; his speciality is the music of East Africa and last year he published a book on the music of the Kingdom of Buganda, in Uganda. He describes this EP as “a song cycle to remind listeners that we live in a beautiful world…in an era of metastatic geopolitical fear and xenophobic loathing.”

Danny & The Parts – It Came from the Box

After sticking in the country lane for their previous EP, this alt-country band swerves to the “alt” side of the hyphenate for a song that channels the Replacements via Wilco’s Being There. The band’s rough and tumble delivery of these six songs never hides the tightness of their construction.

Dino Bravo – Blind By Midnight

From the first verse of the first song on their first album, the Vermont rock quartet wears their favorite bands on their sleeves. My Morning Jacket gets a couple explicit nods, as well as just genuinely influencing the music of superfan frontman Matthew Stephen Perry (the band’s Twitter features a lot of MMJ talk). Thin Lizzy and Wilco get shout-outs too. But the band makes their influences their own, with a fresh take on the sort of ’70s-inspired classic rock where no song is complete without a shredding guitar solo.

Glorious Leader – My Kingdom

Sufjan Stevens and Kishi Bashi and other associated precious, ornate song-constructors come to mind on Kyle Woolard’s new EP under the name Glorious Leader. But the delicate performance touches – a jump to falsetto here, a horn line just so there – simply add a bit of filigree to the seriously sturdy songs that lie underneath. [Note: The release date was pushed back, so pre-order it for one of the best EPs of 2020] 

Learic and SkySplitterInk – The Theoriest

Few rap albums this year came as ambitious as rapper Learic and producer SkySplitterInk’s hip-hop-noir collaboration. In barely 20 minutes, The Theorist traces a plot like an old Robert Mitchum movie, with a private eye, a mystery, and a femme fatale. Learic raps most the characters himself, his inimitable flow even more impressive when run through different voices.

Meg Rice – Now or Then

Meg Rice, late of the recently departed indie-rock band Julia Caesar, emerges as a clear star on her folkier solo debut. Her writing is smart and funny, with a clever nod to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” worked into the title track. Best line: “I’ve been on the loose, doing what I pleases / Staying up all night, eating drugs and grilled cheeses”

Out with the Old – Nothing of Relevance

When I first wrote about this band in April, I admitted I had no idea who they were. Eight month later, I’m no closer to cracking the case. No bio on their Bandcamp page, and no anything elsewhere. The five short songs on this mystery EP stop and start abruptly, as rough as the super-grainy album cover. Maybe they’re demoes for all I know. But they enrapture just the same, like acoustic emo with grittier voices and better harmonies.

Plastique Mammals – Northern Sound

When I last wrote about instrumental duo Plastique Mammals, I focused on their inventive song titles. Their latest EP doesn’t disappoint there. “She Found She Had Grown Antlers” sounds like some lost fairytale, and “Tiger Woulds” is a pun just dumb enough to work. Yet despite the puns and cutesy titles, the music is no joke. Mixing post-rock bass with synthy drones, each composition invites you into the band’s mediative world.

Sabouyouma – Sabouy

Seven-piece band Sabouyouma features your usual musical gear: guitar, bass, percussion. But floating above it all is an instrument much rarer: the balafon. Rare in America, I should say; this melodic percussion instrument (cousin to the xylophone) has been around Africa since at least the 12th century. Here it’s played by the Guinean-born Ousmane Camara, who builds a world of sound with it. The sound integrates naturally with the other six players on raucous Afro-funk jams like “Konkobah.”

Wild Leek River – The Bacon EP

Surprisingly, Wild Leek River sounds like George Jones. Why surprisingly? The last time I wrote about the guys in this band, the headline was “Four New Doom Metal EPs to Get You Through the Winter.” That band was Acid Roach (which continues on, loud as ever), but turns out these metalheads can ably rip off some classic honky-tonk. Just like when the A Mighty Wind folk singers opened for Spinal Tap, Acid Roach should bring Wild Leek River on tour.

Willow Ash – Creeping Winter

October 30 was the perfect release date for this EP. For one, it’s called Creeping Winter, and the season always creeps in quickly in the band’s Vermont homebase. Plus, the Halloween season suits their sound, as if the creepy skull cover and song called “Witchgasm” didn’t make it obvious. It works for any season though, stoner psych-rock that mixes Sabbath and Sleep.

Yestrogen – SHE EP

A lo-fi garage rock take on girl group music has been in vogue for a few years, from Shannon and the Clams to Hunx and His Punx. Yestrogen (great name) enter the arena strong on their debut She EP. With much glossier production, these could be Marvelettes songs in the 1960s.

Now check out the Best Vermont Songs and Best Vermont Albums of 2019!

The post The Best Vermont EPs of 2019 appeared first on County Tracks.

Ali T – Electric Haze

Alison Turner is an artist out of time. She’s a singer-songwriter, but not with the folky connotations the phrase often takes on. Rather, something like “Electric Haze” sounds made for radio. Late-’90s radio, that is, when artist like Jewel and Meredith Brooks were racking up top-ten hits. It wouldn’t have a chance today, but “Electric Haze” ably walks to tricky line of engaging with nostalgia while creating something new.

Bishop LaVey – I Am the Atom

Last time I wrote about doom-folk singer Kane Sweeney, he was bellowing about the death of ancient gods. His outlook hasn’t gotten any cheerier, but the deaths are more recent on his new single. Inspired by the recent Chernobyl miniseries, he wrote a song about “the danger of harnessing atomic power and the consequences of its mismanagement.” A heavy topic, and delivered powerfully.

boys cruise – Peachfuzz

boys cruise pack a lot of pop smarts in a sloppy package. Very sloppy, in some cases. When I saw them live, all band members swapped both instruments pants mid-set. They they cut off a band member’s hair in huge hunks that got thrown into the crowd. Their debut album is equally shaggy, but these greasy and garagey performances don’t hide the hook-packed tunes lurking just beneath the chaos.

Bull’s Head – Names

Parts of Bull’s Head’s debut album sound like one of those lost private-pressing folk records that some vinyl reissue label might unearth. I’m not quite sure what “Names” is about, but the enigmatic lyrics and the barely-there music demand the listener lean in.

Clover Koval – Yoga Mat (Don’t Know Where I’m At)

Clover Koval excels at slice-of-life lyrics that echo Courtney Barnett over music that sounds like a lo-fi Best Coast. “Yoga Mat (Don’t Know Where I’m At)” might be one of the best song titles of the year. Thankfully, the song itself lives up to its billing.

Couchsleepers – In My Head

The band formerly known as The Giant Peach made both of our best of 2018 lists with a sprawling Talking Heads-inspired pop music. They’ve since changed their name (is the Roald Dahl estate litigious?), but show a similar ambition under the new moniker Couchsleepers. They’ve stripped down their sound a bit on their first new song – though stripped-down for them means one horn instead of a half dozen, and the list of instruments main man Harrison Wood Hsiang plays only appears to be going.

Danny & the Parts – Saturday

After sticking in the country lane for their first 2019 EP, this alt-country band swerves to the “alt” side of the hyphenate for a song that channels the Replacements via Wilco’s Being There. Come to think of it, are their early-Wilco homages overt? Follow me here: Wilco have a song on that album called “Monday,” and this song is “Saturday.” Plus, Danny & the Parts’ new song “Mississippi Queen” echoes “Casino Queen” on Wilco’s first album. Okay, my Claire-Danes-on-Homeland sleuthing doesn’t get much further than that; it’s a sad conspiracy wall with only two red strings. But you’ll hear the musical connections, even if the titular ones may be a stretch.

Eric King – Take Me Away

The phrase “folk-rock with a flute solo” may trigger Jethro Tull haters, but “Take Me Away” uses the combination quite differently. This pretty love ballad doesn’t have an ounce of prog in its DNA. The flute mostly adds more subtle auxiliary flourishes, but even during its moment in the spotlight it almost gets overshadowed by beautiful backing vocals.

Glowwworm – Keep Your Solitude

DIY isn’t dead! Glowwworm’s lo-fi EP Things’ll Never Be The Same! recalls the sounds flooding the blogosphere a decade ago, when the ability to produce a decent-sounding rock record in your bedroom was still a novelty. As with much of that music, it demands a bit of attention to hear the catchy songs underneath the haze, but the extra effort pays off.

Ionee – We Are More Than I

Electronic music producer and singer Ionee’s new video features a lot of great visuals, but the first truly important shot is subtle: A map of the world with a lot of little dots coming out of Africa and heading to the Americas. As anyone who explored the New York Times 1619 Project knows, this year marks the 400th since the beginning of slavery in America. The Times took a sober look at this history in a magazine supplement and podcast that will undoubtedly win every journalism award there is (and deserve to). Maurice Lajuane Harris takes a very different tack on the same sad history, creating a haunting house track and a mesmerizing animated video.

Jason Baker – The Last Coral Left Alive

Jason Baker refers to his music as “socio-political Americana,” though he admits that genre tag “doesn’t really roll of the tongue.” “The Last Coral Left Alive” puts it a little more poetically, bringing gospel-blues inflections into Baker’s folk music. It wears its environmental message on its sleeve, but injects a dose of wit and melody.

Lean Tee – Fern

“This is a song about hysteria,” is the entirety of this song’s Bandcamp description, but if anything the watchword is “restraint.” For most of its duration, it evokes a barely contained energy, slow but certainly not mellow. When it finally does expand into a Yo La Tengo-esq guitar jam, the moment of catharsis is fleeting.

Madaila – Clandestine Magic

When Vermont’s dance-pop breakouts Madaila announced an indefinite hiatus last year, they had the better part of a new record in the can. I figured we’d never hear the rest, but, as indefinite hiatuses so often do, it finally dropped the “in.” They return with a local concert tonight, and two new singles from that rumored album. Thankfully, they haven’t lost a step in their new-wave catchiness, and frontman Mark Daly’s falsetto remains as soaring as ever.

Matt Valentine – Minor Rager > Calliphygian Niekro > Minor Rager

Anyone who’s ever heard a Grateful Dead tape will recognize the formatting in the title (for everyone else, > indicates segues between different songs). In this case, though, it’s a bit of a feint; “Minor Rager” and “Calliphygian Niekro” don’t exist as separate songs (except maybe in Matt Valentine’s head). This is the first we’ve heard them. The Dead comparisons don’t go far beyond the title and the sense that some people might enjoy this on mushrooms. Valentine brings dance music into his jams, giving an electronic beat to his weird atmospherics.

Miriam Bernardo – I Got a Well

As detailed in two excellent local-news stories, singer Miriam Bernardo’s debut album has been a long-time coming. In her many years performing around Vermont, she’s connected with many of the local folk musicians, most notably recent Tony-winner Anaïs Mitchell. Mitchell even contributed a song to open Bernardo’s album, the beautiful “I Got a Well.” When they one day stage the Hadestown revival, this could fit right in.

Omega Jade – Tricks Of The Trade (Petty With A Purpose)

“I write these verses to break generational curses,” rapper Omega Jade rhymes on the first single from her debut album Wounded Healer. On “Tricks Of The Trade (Petty With A Purpose),” she puts that into action, passing on some hard-earned business lessons to her kids: “Follow your heart but take your brain with you / Not every damn friend is meant to work with you.” She spits proverbial fire going after fake friends and slacker collaborators as she grinds her way to the top.

The Pyros – Casanova

Two things I doubt have ever been used in the same sentence before: “Stacy’s Mom” and Jackie Chan. But The Pyros claims them as the two inspirations behind the final installment in their “video EP.” The comparison sounds like stretching promo-hype until you watch the video. Yep. “Stacy’s Mom” and Jackie Chan (albeit a Jackie Chan whose fight moves perhaps aren’t what they once were).

Sarah King and the Guilty Henchmen – Oh Mama

Sarah King’s new blues-rock album What Happened Last Night hits the genre’s typical bar-band notes, but the most impressive song strips the sound down to barely more than her voice. “Oh Mama” starts as more or less a folk song. The band does join in eventually, but, as on many other blues ballads, the star remains the vocals.

Vivintinn – Hypocrisy

I don’t know what Tim Burton’s up to right now, but whatever it is, I think we’ve found the soundtrack. Spooky church organ and string quartets and child’s piano would fit right in with some Nightmare Before Christmas sequel. The album cover’s even got fancy-dressin’ skeletons!

The War Turtles – The Oblong Box

Our second Halloween-appropriate song in a row! “The Oblong Box” sounds enough like some old sea-shanty folk song I had to Google to check if this was a cover. It’s not, though I’ve now learned there’s both a Vincent Price movie and Edgar Allen Poe short story of the same name. Dig into the Bandcamp credits and discover that the Poe story did inspire the song at least. It’s as depressing a lyric as you’d expect once you guess what that “oblong box” must be.

Western Terrestrials – WWWJD (What Would Waylon Jennings Do?)

Nick Charyk knows his honky-tonk history. He nods to a whole host of heroes from Johnny Paycheck to George Jones on “WWWJD (What Would Waylon Jennings Do?),” slipping in lyrical nods to old country songs like a More important than cramming in the references is nailing the sound of classic outlaw country, which his band Western Terrestrials does with aplomb. The lyrics attack modern pop-country, but you could tell these guys aren’t Blake Shelton superfans just by listening to the way they play.

Willow Ash – Into the Willows

October 30 was the perfect release date for this EP. For one, it’s called Creeping Winter, and the season will be creeping especially quickly in the band’s Vermont homebase. Plus, it’s almost Halloween, and there’s a creepy skull cover and a song called “Witchgasm.” The high point, “Into the Willows,” works for any season though, stoner psych-rock that mixed Sabbath and Sleep.

Check out the out previous best-of-the-month lists here.

The post The Best New Songs of September/October 2019 appeared first on County Tracks.