Deadshirt Is Listening… Bringing you a rundown of our staff and guest contributors’ favorite new tracks released in the past week after they’ve had the weekend to blast them in their cars, in a club, alone in their rooms, etc.
Sam Paxton is having déjà vu to…
“Never Ending Circles”
CHVRCHES
Every Open Eye
Pop
My biggest fear with CHVRCHES was that they would never be able to live up to the precedent they set with their incredible debut album. The Bones Of What You Believe was a triumphant, confident, and highly polished gem, a general high-water mark for pop music in 2013. If the advance tracks for the Scottish trio’s follow up album, Every Open Eye, are any indication, the band found a very simple way to guarantee quality, namely: stick to their established formula as closely as possible.
While the lead single “Leave A Trace” evoked the sweeping majesty of “The Mother We Share,” this past week’s offering from the band, “Never Ending Circles,” cribs both the vocal melody and the shuffling dance beat from the first album’s “Recover.” As always, the production is flawless, with shimmering synth lines, sawtooth bass, and crisp, punchy drums. Lead singer Lauren Mayberry’s voice walks the thin line between cutesy innocence and coquettish swagger. The band may not be seemingly trying to innovate much this time out, but if the rest of the record keeps pace with what they’ve revealed this far, they’ll have another bonafide classic on their hands.
Dylan Roth is time traveling to…
“Drone”
FIDLAR
Too
Punk Rock
There have been a lot of innovations in Punk over the past thirty years. It’s spawned loud, soul-bearing offspring like Grunge and Emo, it’s gone pop, it’s gone folk, it’s expanded far beyond the imaginations of those magical dirtbags in New York and London who gave it life. This is all wonderful and the world is better for it. BUT. The soul of punk is in simple, dumb, overdriven Rock ‘n’ Roll that high school kids can learn in their garages and annoy their parents with. It’s about expressing rebellion and gleeful immaturity even when you don’t really have a concrete cause to champion or specific authority to topple. As great as Folk-Punk, Pop-Punk, Post-Punk, etc. etc. are to have, it’s important that someone carries the torch of traditional, fast, loud, and childish punk.
FIDLAR could very well have stepped right out of the late seventies. They could’ve opened for the Buzzcocks or the Dickies. What FIDLAR brings to the table isn’t new and fresh, it’s old and fresh. Are you the kind of person who never wants their favorite comic book to get canceled even though the creators have clearly run out of original ideas and are just doing new takes on old stories? FIDLAR is for you. FIDLAR is a new take on the old story that is Classic Fucking Punk Rock.
Enjoy “Drone,” an entirely unoriginal but also entirely welcome punk rock track with a weird low-budget music video, as God intended.
Julian Ames is falling in love on the dance floor to…
“Willing & Able” feat. Kwabs
Disclosure
Caracal
Electronic
Disclosure is pumping out the jams in preparation for the September 25th release of their second record, Caracal. Since the end of May, the band has released three huge singles from the album: “Holding On” featuring Gregory Porter, “Omen” featuring Sam Smith, and now “Willing & Able” featuring R&B up-and-comer Kwabs. “Willing & Able” is a pretty chill deep house track; a little slower than Omen, the Lawrence brothers have room to play musically, giving the song and atmosphere that makes it a good song to vibe to.
Now that the group has made it big, they can definitely call in some heavy hitters; the recently released tracklist includes features from the likes of The Weeknd, Miguel, Lorde, and of course Sam Smith. It’s good to see they’re still searching for up-and-coming, not-yet-made-it talent like Kwabs, who has a minor hit of his own called “Walk.” Kwabs has a great voice, and he brings some classic nineties R&B harmonies to the track that fit perfectly with Disclosure’s production. Hopefully Kwabs can get the same bump Sam Smith got after being featured on the last album’s hit “Latch.” Either way, “Willing & Able” sounds great, and Caracal is shaping up to be a huge record.
“I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler”
YACHT
I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler
Alt Dance
Last fall, YACHT put out the “Where Does This Disco?” EP and the single of the same name. It was a slick dance track that insisted that love, a lot like the compact disc, was on the verge of becoming obsolete. Picking up right were that song left off almost a year later, the Portland band released “I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler.” With lines like “Got my broken heart / I got it sold right back to me / by an algorithmic social entity” and “I thought the future would be cooler / I thought the brave world would be newer,” the song is another indictment on technology set to a catchy groove.
YACHT is an acronym for Young Americans Challenging High Technology, which was a weird cult-like school that bandleader Jona Bechtolt attended as a child—so it’s no wonder this band has some issues with technology. Still, they know how to make a mean dance track. It’s a little slower than their last track, more traditionally disco-sounding and complete with strings later on in the track to really give it that throwback feel. Perhaps they thought the future wasn’t cool enough and opted to go to the past. “I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler” was announced as the first single to YACHT’s upcoming album of the same name, due out on October 16th.
Steph Salo is getting rowdy to…
“Heavy Metal Detox”
Wavves
V
Pop/Rock
“End of the summer” jams need to contain a few different elements. Much like the end of summer itself, they need to be fun, nostalgic, upbeat, and just a little melancholy. Wavves ticks all of the boxes with their fun, almost surf-rocky end of summer anthem “Heavy Metal Detox.”
This song is SUPER bratty. It makes me wish I owned a skateboard so that I may throw my hair into pigtails and ride to the closest Wawa (SUP FELLOW NEW JERSEY RESIDENTS) to pick up cigarettes and a slushie. For as fun and driving as the track is, the lyrics definitely have that melancholy vibe. You know, the “what the hell am I doing with my life, why am I alive?” sort of quarter-life-crisis stuff. It’s got a whining, metallic sort of whirr going on in the background, and then dance-y guitar in the foreground.
Put this song on if you want to drink beer and have fun. Enjoy the last few weeks of summer. And remember: don’t cry because it’s over, smile because The Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a mild winter.
That’s what we’ve been listening to this week – what’s got your ear this week? Tweet your recommendations @DeadshirtDotNet or drop us a line on our Facebook page.