Welcome to March and what is the biggest week of releases for Indie Basement this year so far. There’s the terrific second album from Yard Act, and the anticipated Manchester superduo of Liam Gallagher (Oasis) and John Squire (The Stone Roses), plus new albums from Sheer Mag, The Bevis Frond, SAVAK, Uranium Club, and Aussie prog-disco outfit Mildlife. It’s a good week of releases!
Over in Notable Releases, Andrew listens to the latest from Mannequin Pussy, Pissed Jeans, Schoolboy Q, and more.
Speaking of Mildlife, they made us a list of ’70s prog-disco essentials. And if you need more Basement-friendly stuff from this week, here you go: The Damned’s classic ’80s lineup (Vanian, Sensible, Scabies, Gray) are touring here for the first time in 35 years; PJ Harvey announced her first North American tour in seven years; Miracle Legion announced a reunion tour; and Les Savy Fav are gearing up to release their first album in 14 years.
You can also catch up on last month with the Indie Basement: Best Songs & Albums of February 2024 roundup.
For folks who’ll be in NYC next week: the BrooklynVegan showcase at the New Colossus Festival has a number of Indie Basment Faves on the lineup. Hope to see you there!
ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia? (Island/Republic)
The talky UK band move beyond post-punk on their ambitious, poppy and danceable second album. To quote one of its songs, “it’s Ace!”
I reviewed Yard Act’s excellent second album elsewhere on the site but here’s just a bit of that:
Where’s My Utopia? Is brimming with confidence, ambition, wit, fun, and big hooks. As to the latter, they are not ashamed to write catchy songs which is the subject of “We Make Hits,” a meta bit of bragging, statement of intent and Yard Act origin story all in one dance floor filler. “We make hits…but not hits like Nile Rodgers,” Smith sings, knowing they probably won’t be displacing Taylor Swift on the charts, then rhyming it with “just that we ain’t hook dodgers.” Yard Act’s choruses are massive and instantaneous, and working with Gorillaz drummer and producer Remi Kabaka Jr. they’ve expanded their palette well beyond the post-punk signifiers of their debut. They’ve embraced disco (the ABBA kind), lush ’80s new wave sophisti-pop (the Wham! kind), and hip hop rhythms (the ’90s kind), while still keeping those groovy basslines and angular guitars (the Gang of Four kind).
Read the whole review here.
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: Liam Gallagher & John Squire – Liam Gallagher John Squire (Warner Music)
The Manchester superduo of former Oasis frontman and Stone Roses guitarist make the best record either have made since those bands initial runs
I also reviewed the debut album from this Manc Britpop dream team of John Squire (The Stone Roses) and Liam Gallagher (Oasis) elsewhere on BrooklynVegan. But here’s just a bit:
“Here comes that feeling, here it comes again.” That is indeed the feeling you get listening to “Mars to Liverpool” by the Manchester superduo of former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire. The swaying chorus is a mile high as Squire spits out swaggering riffs that pull you back to the height of Britpop. Let’s just get this out of the way: Liam Gallagher John Squire is the best thing either have done since the ’90s. That makes for good headline fodder but anyone who has followed their respective careers knows that’s not saying all that much. Still! This album is good, full-stop, no qualifiers. Squire, who gets sole writing credit on every song here, still has some tunes in his back pocket, and there are flashes of their old brilliance not to mention that cocky Northern attitude.
Read the whole review here.
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The Bevis Frond – Focus On Nature (Fire Records)
Nick Saloman is one of England’s national treasures and his band’s 26th (?) album is another gem
Not unlike Robert Pollard with Guided by Voices, Nick Saloman has been leading London’s The Bevis Frond since the mid-’80s, with dozens of albums and lineup changes in his wake. He’s got a signature sound too: a stormy brand of indie rock that’s steeped in folky ’70s British psychedelia, windswept melodies, and ragged guitar solos. Saloman is not quite as prolific as Pollard, but Bevis Frond records feel a little more fussed over. Depending on how you count, Focus on Nature lands somewhere around Album #26, and is a sprawling, 19-song, 75-minute double LP that is awesome in scope. Saloman just turned 71 but you’d never know it with songs like “Jacks Immortal,” a hooky ripper complete with a killer twin-lead riff. Every detail seems considered, even if Nick sometimes sounds like he just woke up. The basslines are fantastic, as are the minor key harmonies, and Saloman possesses a full house of choice guitar tones — see the wonderful, Big Star-ish “Maybe We Got it Wrong” as one of many pieces of evidence. Focus on Nature might benefit from some editing — save a few of these for an EP, perhaps? — but I’d be hard-pressed to tell him what to cut. Saloman has earned the right to indulgence, and his is the sweetest kind.
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Sheer Mag – Playing Favorites (Third Man)
After a decade of Thin Lizzy worship, this Philly band seriously level up for their first album for Jack White’s Third Man Records
Philly band Sheer Mag have been around for a full decade now and while I’ve always enjoyed their live shows, I can’t say I’ve been compelled to listen to their records at home. But on Playing Favorites, their third album and debut for Jack White’s Third Man Records, they have moved beyond garage punk and Thin Lizzy worship — they’ve definitely got the twin lead thing down — and are on to other matters. “Nobody seems to write straight up rock bangers anymore,” says bandleader Tina Halliday of the album, “more than anything else, we want this record to put huge, catchy songwriting front and center.” Playing Favorites is a major level up that is jam-packed with bangers of all shapes and sizes. Suzi Quattro-style power pop (the title track) and hot-lick rippers (“Eat It and Beat It”) were already within their wheelhouse, but the hooks are sharper and the arrangements more inventive. Then there are songs you’d have never expect from Sheer Mag, like “Moonstruck” which almost sounds like a Jackson 5 song, or “Mechanical Garden” which starts like something they might’ve done five years ago before dramatically switching gears, via a strings-and-harp scene transition, into a greasy disco-rock number. Almost all of it works and across it all Halliday is singing her heart out. This time, there are tunes worthy of her pipes.
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Mildlife – Chorus (Heavenly)
Third album from Melbourne prog-disco is a seriously groovy good time
In a feature Australian band Mildlife wrote for this website about their favorite ’70s Prog-Disco tracks, they opened with this: “What is Prog-Disco? Is it disco music inspired by progressive rock? Is it progressive rock music with a rhythm section that passed on the psychedelics? Is it disco music that pushes the boundaries? If the monotonous progression of time is as linear as a 4/4 kick drum, then is life Prog-Disco? We cannot answer those questions for you, but we can provide you with things we like that we feel fits the mold. The aforementioned progression of time has rendered this music unserious to many people ears, but it is profoundly serious. Serious Fun.” This kind of stuff is definitely kitschy but if you have a taste for vintage synthesizers, vocoder and flutes, you may have already pre-ordered Chorus. Prog-Disco neophytes might want to head straight to 10-minute closing track “Return to Centaurus,” which is the album’s showstopper, laying down an amazing “too slow to disco” groove while the entire universe seems to pass through the speakers. If you dig that, the rest of the album is an interstellar pleasure cruise.
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SAVAK – Flavors of Paradise (Peculiar Works / Ernest Jenning Record Co)
The sixth album from this Brooklyn band is their tastiest yet
“There are things to learn / there are things to unlearn,” SAVAK sing on “Welcome to the New Age,” one of the standout cuts on their sixth album, Flavors of Paradise. Led by Sohrab Habibion (Obits, Edsel) and Michael Jarowski (Cops), the band have become one of the most reliable indie rock bands in Brooklyn and a great exception to the rule that this is a young person’s game. Jaworski and Habibion, along with drummer Matt Schulz (Enon, Holy Fuck), have been in bands since the early ’90s (in some cases, before) but are making some of the best music of their careers right now. Maybe it’s because they’re truly doing it for the love of the music and as a creative outlet, with no real ambitions of “making it” (though I’m sure they’d love a few prominent sync placements), the great stuff still pours out. They’ve also become an increasingly tighter, homogeneous unit both musically and lyrically, making their albums more cohesive. When Jarowski’s pop instincts rub up against the grit of Habibion’s more angular tendencies, many pearls a created on SAVAK’s most toothsome album yet.
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Uranium Club – Infants Under the Bulb (Static Shock)
This enigmatic Minneapolis band is just as weird, hyper and awesome as ever on their first album in six years
In our age of being always online and oversharing, Minneapolis’ Uranium Club still feel like a mystery. They have almost no internet presence of their own, and albums come with obtuse press releases that read like a massive prank that only they understand. The record artwork is just as weird, but fascinating and benefits those who read the fine print of the credits, examine the covers with a magnifying glass, and look at vinyl runout grooves. Like Devo (a clear inspiration), Uranium Club are a total package. With no website or social media, you also have no idea when new music is coming, if ever, making something like Infants Under the Bulb feel like a surprise gift from someone you’ve never actually met. This is their first since 2018’s The Cosmo Cleaners and they’ve spent the last six years winding their gears tighter and tighter before letting things explode here Things only slow down for a series of interludes titled “The Wall” where a story plays out, narrated by a very calm woman over new age synthesizer landscapes. Otherwise these songs are as hyperactive, anxious, and catchy as ever, and even the one titled “1-800-Lullaby” may cause some to grind their teeth. Your mileage may very on whether all that angst is a good time but you have to admire their dedication to every aspect of the Club,
You also have to admire, in this age of AI, the Infants Under the Bulb cover art which is an actual photo featuring “a crowd of the local volunteers wearing ponchos standing together in an open field to make the shape of a giant spiral.” They continue: “The spiral pictured is 120 feet (36.5 meters) wide, photographed by drone, and was plotted out on the ground using a protractor specially fabricated for the occasion by the band with a pivoting centre and 60ft long adjustable arm.” This warrants a vinyl purchase alone.
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