The first of this week’s smashers is Chronicles of a Diamond, the hotly anticipated second album from Black Pumas. When the Austin-bred duo made their self-titled debut in 2019, they set off a reaction almost as combustible and rapturous as their music itself. Along with earning a career total of seven Grammy Award nominations (including Album of the Year) and winning praise from leading outlets like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, singer/songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada achieved massive success as a live act, touring large venues all over Europe and North and South America and delivering a transcendent show Burton aptly refers to as ‘electric church’. As they set to work on their new album, the band broadened their palette to include a dazzling expanse of musical forms: heavenly hybrids of soul and symphonic pop, mind-bending excursions into jazz-funk and psychedelia, and starry-eyed love songs that feel dropped down from the cosmos.
Every element of Egyptian Blue’s fierce, uncompromising sound feels like hypnotism fuelled by psychosis. Their grinding riffs achieve a mesmeric power through brute repetition, while their rhythm section produces taut, nervous energy and intense post-punk grooves in equal measure. After the release of their incendiary EPs Collateral Damage & Body of Itch, the band garnered a fervent following and had support from key taste-makers across the media including Steve Lamacq, Jack Saunders, Tom Ravenscroft, NME and Fader. Their debut album, A Living Commodity, shows a new clarity of vision fully formed during the extended 2-year hiatus of pandemic-enforced delays, representing a dynamic artistic shift from the band and showcasing in full the scale and ambition of their songwriting.
Originally released in 1982, Simple Minds’ fifth studio album marked a turning point for the band as they gained critical and commercial success in the UK and Europe, taking them from cult status to the most commercially successful Scottish band of the decade. Featuring the hits ‘Promised You a Miracle’, ‘Glittering Prize’ and ‘Someone, Somewhere (In Summertime)’, it turned the band into a major force, spending a full year on the UK album chart. Late last year the band celebrated the album’s 40th anniversary with a superb live rendition – it’s electric and dynamic, with front-man Jim Kerr delivering powerful vocals and Charlie Burchill and the band delivering tight, energetic performances. All this magic is captured on New Gold Dream – Live from Paisley Abbey.
Duran Duran return with their new album, Danse Macabre, a 13-song collection featuring three brand-new songs, haunting covers of songs by artists such as Billie Eilish, Talking Heads, The Rolling Stones and The Specials and new versions of classics from their own back catalogue, including a rare rework of fan favourite B-side ‘Secret Oktober 31st’. Guest artists include producer, guitarist and composer Nile Rodgers, Victoria De Angelis of Måneskin and former band members Andy Taylor and Warren Cuccurullo.
Jenny from Thebes began its life as many albums by The Mountain Goats do, with John Darnielle playing the piano until a lyric emerged. That lyric, “Jenny was a warrior / Jenny was a thief / Jenny hit the corner clinic begging for relief,” became a song that laid down a challenge he’d never taken up before: writing a sequel to one of his most beloved albums. The Mountain Goats’ catalogue is thick with recurring characters. Jenny – who originally appears in the All Hail West Texas track bearing her name, as well as in ‘Straight Six’ from Jam Eater Blues and the Transcendental Youth jam ‘Night Light’ – is one of these: someone who enters a song unexpectedly, pricking up the ears of fans who are keen on following the various narrative threads running through the Mountain Goats’ discography before vanishing into the mist.
Our release of the week is History Books, the first new music in over nine years from New Jersey-bred four-piece The Gaslight Anthem. Like so many of the most essential rock bands, they have a rare gift for finding glory in the inescapable pain of being alive. On their new album, they bring their soulful breed of punk to ten thrilling songs exploring everything from mortality to mental illness to the more precarious dimensions of human connection. In the tradition of their seminal album The ’59 Sound, this new full-length achieves the tremendous feat of hitting every raw nerve while endlessly inspiring wildly triumphant singing-along.
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