Browsing Tag rock
Feeder – Guillotine
Following their 50(!) track Best Of album in 2017, and after spending the year 2018 making old B-sides available online for the first time, Feeder are back with brand-new material in 2019. They just put out their tenth studio album Tallulah.
Guillotine, which addresses social media witch hunts and climate crisis-era malaise, is my favourite track on the long-player. An epic rock ballad with bells and strings, and an overall Smashing Pumpkins vibe.
Recommended as well:
Feeder – Youth
Feeder – Bruised
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Union Duke – 123
For American artists combining genres like country, folk, pop and rock, the term ‘Americana’ was invented. So why not call this melting pot ‘Canadiana’ when served up by musicians from Canada? Union Duke is a great example of an act qualifying for this umbrella genre.
Following the release of their second album Golden Days, in 2016, the band have been touring constantly. Thereafter, they went into the studio, ready to share their lessons learned. They came out with a tape full of songs about love, distance, heartache and revelry. These will come out over the coming months.
123 is their fourth single in 2019 already. Union Duke explain: “The original plan was to write a balls-to-the-wall drinking diddy with shades of psychedelia and no social commentary. Apparently, we’re too jaded for that now. Pretty quickly, it turned into a song about being young and getting drunk as a desperate act of escapism.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Courtyards – Stay Up
Matthew Riley, Callum Jack, Louis Taylor and Luke Allcock met at university in Huddersfield (UK). There, they formed the band Courtyards. The 4-piece combines infectious hooks, an immersive atmosphere and energetic live dynamics. Or, as they call it themselves, ‘dirty reverb-soaked indie-rock’. If you still don’t have a clue, just listen to the band’s new single Stay Up.
Lead vocalist Matthew Riley says about the single: “We’re incredibly happy with this track and have experimented more with synth, samples, and electronics during the production than ever before, which is pushing us towards a musical direction that we’re really excited about.” He continues: “Stay Up is inspired by the desire to help those close to you with their mental health battles while at the same time working out how to be that figure of solidarity to confide in. It’s our most personal track to date and is inspired by our experiences with people close to us.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Werner’s Weekly (week 35)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Nicolah – Holiday (Wildcard this week)
- Terouz – Outstanding (Wildcard last week)
- Caravan Palace – Supersonics
- Enter Shikari – Stop The Clocks
- Nasty Cherry – Live Forever
- Sarpa Salpa – Before It Goes Dark
- Tom Sail – Wounded
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Ava Max, Incubus, K.Flay, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Smash Mouth, Yungblud, and many more.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
You Me At Six – What’s It Like
You Me At Six’s latest album VI was quite a sonic departure from… well, anything you had heard from the band before. A great experiment as far as I’m concerned, which spawned some of their best songs to date. Now, they go even further…
What’s It Like is the quintet’s first new song since last year. This time, they add trap/hip hop influences to the electronic rock sound they developed last year. If that sounds deliciously kaleidoscopic on paper, just click the link of your choice below. You’ll hear it’s even better!
Frontman Josh Franceschi explains the song is the band ‘flexing their creative muscles’. “Combining our favourite genres and bringing them together in one track. For me lyrically, it’s looking at our society in parts in 2019. I definitely feel as though we are living in a time where we’ve lost our way a little bit. There are great innovators and pioneers which we can rely on, but there is also a feeling of the blind leading the blind and a lack of humility present. Within the title and the chorus I sort of poke fun at those who are libertines or self serving – ‘What’s it like being perfect all the time?’ Life’s not a competition, but people have a tendency to play it out that way.”
Recommended as well:
You Me At Six – Back Again
You Me At Six – 3AM
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Enter Shikari – Stop The Clocks
Following their most recent album The Spark (2017), Enter Shikari toured a lot. Enough to release not one, but two live albums this year. Toward the end of 2018, the band added the song Stop The Clocks to their live sets. A great track, more poppy than the band ever sounded before.
A brand-new studio version of Stop The Clocks is Enter Shikari’s new single. This catchy, up-beat song begins with glitchy keys and features Queen-like vocal bursts. Lyrically, it’s about ‘the joys of human connection’.
Frontman Rou Reynolds explains: “When someone is open and honest about their vulnerabilities, others can connect with them, and then all of us can feel stronger and more comfortable. It conveys the relief, warmth and freeing nature of the normalization of mental health struggles following decades of stigmatism. A flickering flame of positivity in these difficult and regressive times.”
Recommended as well:
Enter Shikari – The Sights
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Tom Sail – Wounded
The haunting opening tones of Tom Sail’s second single Wounded remind me of Jamaica’s I Think I Like U 2. Not because they sound the same, but because both are fun, up-beat, indie-pop songs with a retro feel.
Sail played every instrument on Wounded himself. “I come from a very musical family, and taught myself to play since I was 10 years old,” he says. “Some of the ideas for my music were generated during a six-month trip through South-East Asia, Australia and America and written in the back of a camper van on a tiny guitar I bought in Vietnam.”
He’s currently working on a 12-song album to be released later this year. Expect echoes of The Beatles, The War on Drugs, Oasis and Motown in Sail’s music. Asked by indie-music.co to describe his upcoming album in five words, he answered: “Retro. Melancholic. Hopeful. Dreamy. Pensive.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Sarpa Salpa – Before It Goes Dark
Sarpa Salpa are a 4-piece alt-pop band from Northampton. George (guitar), Marcus (vocals/guitar), Ethan (bass) and Charlie (drums) take their influences from Foals, Tame Impala and Friendly Fires. Apparently, they’re not afraid to raise high expectations. Even better: they don’t disappoint.
Their first two, independently released, singles were met with praise, airplay and packed shows. Now, they’re now working on their debut EP, which is due out at the end of the year. Before It Goes Dark is the band’s new single. A mid-tempo, yet danceable track. It tackles the frustration of not being able to stop the inevitable. On top of that, it proves parlandos don’t have to be daft.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Phantogram – Mister Impossible
In 2007, Josh Carter (vocals, guitar) and Sarah Barthel (vocals, keyboards) started the band Charlie Everywhere. But it wasn’t until they changed the band name to Phantogram that success fell their way. Their debut album Eyelid Movies came out in 2009, but its follow-up meant their break-through. Second long-player Voices contained the single Fall In Love, which was a worldwide hit. The same goes for You Don’t Get Me High Anymore, off 2016 album Three.
After a few rather quiet years, Phantogram speeded things up recently. Late May, they returned with Into Happiness, and Mister Impossible out now. Looks like a fourth album is on its way…
Mister Impossible is a self-written and -produced tune with a certain suspense to it. This is imposed by a booming beat and stretched-out synth bursts. In the bridge of the song, the vocal melody is doubled with a keyboard melody, which adds a sense of urgency. Great comeback!
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Nasty Cherry – Live Forever
Charli XCX is ready to release her third album in less than a month. But besides that, she’s helping her protégés of Nasty Cherry launch their career. The band consists of model Gabriella Bechtel (vocals), Chloe Chaidez of the band Kitten (guitar), Georgia Somary (bass), and Deborah Knox-Hewson (Charli’s drummer). Half of them living in London and half of them residing in Los Angeles, this is not the best example of a logistic success story. However, when they come together to write, there is instant chemistry.
Nasty Cherry just released their third single, Live Forever. Once again co-written by Charli XCX, it’s a song where the loud drums and catchy chorus stand out. Live Forever follows the quartet’s awesome debut single Win and What Do You Like In Me.
Recommended as well:
Nasty Cherry – Win
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
