New Releases For a Gloomy Day -plus- Restocks and Additions.

We’ve got some recent new releases to feature this week. With all the madness that Record Store Day was, new releases that come out around that date tend to get overlooked. Today there are some perfect albums to complement the grey days that have been hanging around lately. The new albums from Okkervil River and Grouper will certainly fit nicely with the glum weather. Of course the masters of bummer rock The Eels are a great match for a gloomy day and they’re back with a new album, “Deconstruction”. Feeling a little more hazy? Check out the latest from Sugar Candy Mountain “Do Right”. You can get all the details on these new releases below.

There’s a huge list of restocks and fresh additions to the new record selection here at Backbeat just down past the new releases. A few late Record Store Day releases have come in, plus we’ve got a few more of the much sought after Led Zeppelin 7″ release.

On to the new stuff!


Okkervil River – In The Rainbow Rain

Okkervil River’s In The Rainbow Rain, the group’s most immediate – and meaningful – album to date, is out now! On it, bandleader Will Sheff makes a startling left turn from the their critically-lauded and inward-looking 2016 album Away, crafting an exuberant declaration of hope. In place of Away’s somber strings and acoustic textures, In the Rainbow Rain is full of dazzling color, spattered with starbursts of electric guitar, big blooms of synth, and a chorus of backing vocals. It’s a buoyant and playful record, but also open and emotionally vulnerable. Sheff says, “I wanted to make a record where a sense of kindness felt encoded into the music.”


Grouper – Grid Of Points

Not long after recording her 10th album, Ruins, Liz Harris traveled to Wyoming to work on art and record music. She found herself drawn towards the pairing of skeletal piano phrasing with spare, rich bursts of vocal harmony. A series of stark songs emerged, minimal and vulnerable, woven with emotive silences. Inspired by “the idea that something is missing or cold,” the pieces float and fade like vignettes, implying as much as they reveal. She describes them as “small texts hanging in space,” impressions of mortality, melody, and the unseen – fleeting beauty, interrupted. Grid Of Points stands as a concise and potently poetic addition to the Grouper catalog.


Eels – Deconstruction

Hi,
We could do the usual record company “bio” about this new record, but, seriously… who gives a fuck.

The world is a mess. This is just music. Music by someone who tends to believe that change starts in your own backyard. I’m just optimistic enough to believe that kind of thing can still help people.

It doesn’t have any answers, other than maybe that there is no answer, the dust never settles, everything is out of control, etc. But it offers this: you can make changes. Thus, you can change the world. Right?

Maybe if there’s anything we have any true control over, it’s how we see things. There’s a song about that here. The “our” of “In Our Cathedral” is the collective “our” — all of us. Your point of view. As the great Roger Miller once said, “You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, but you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.” He said it better than I did.

The other thing we can do while everything’s such a mess is just try to be kind. Why not? We all have bad days, but why not put in the effort whenever possible? Nobody has it easy, however their story may appear from a distance. So why not try to be nice? Starting with yourself. That’s a nice change for the world right there. Good things will grow out of that. There are some songs along those lines here as well.

I’ve been through some stuff, but I’m no expert. I’m trying to dead reckon my way same as anyone. I’m really just talking to myself here, looking for what’s really there under all the defenses. But maybe it could help you too?

Or: Fuck all this jibber jabber and see if you like this new record.

Here are 15 new EELS tracks that may or may not inspire, rock, or not rock you. The world is going nuts. But if you look for it, there is still great beauty to be found. Sometimes you don’t even have to look for it. Other times you have to try to make it yourself. And then there are times you have to tear something apart to find something beautiful inside.

Best wishes on future endeavors,
E
EELS guy


Sugar Candy Mountain – Do Right

Part travelogue, part response to the current, turbulent climate, “Do Right” gives voice to the deeply nested anxiety of modern times attempting to offer a balm. Nature, it seems, is where the band often goes to calibrate it’s moral compass so frequently upended by the daily news-cycle. Sugar Candy Mountain invites you to join them on this journey singing “There’s a quiet place I go when I need to find my way/ There’s a quiet place inside/ Come on in just knock and a door will open”.
Musically, the band remains rooted in 60’s and 70’s rock, with their signature honey sweet vocals. “Do Right” leans more heavily on synthesizer than the band’s previous records, lending the album a more modern feel. The album pairs the ephemeral orchestral arrangements of The Beach Boys with the pop sensibility of George Harrison on “All Things Must Pass”. Oscillating between the hazy psychedelic pop of Mild High Club, the driving energy of Dungen and the danceable familiarity of The Supremes, “Do Right” is a perfect cocktail of old and new, imploring the listener to take a ride into the sunset with Sugar Candy Mountain.


Restocks and additions to our new record selection

Adele – 25
Arcade Fire – Funeral
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Avenged Sevenfold – Stage
Bad Brains – Bad Brains
Beastie Boys – Solid Gold Hits
Beastie Boys – Hello Nasty
Belle And Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister
Black Keys – Attack & Release
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Boards Of Canada – Geogaddi
Bowie, David – Outside
Bowie, David – Low
Bowie, David – Diamond Dogs
Brainpower – RSD 2018 – Dub & Dwars
Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning
Brown, James – 20 All Time Greatest Hits!
Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial
Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Style
Car Seat Headrest – Twin Fantasy
Childish Gambino – Awaken, My Love!
Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas
Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Cult – Pure Cult: The Singles
Czarface & MF Doom – Czarface Meets Metal Face
D’ Angelo – Voodoo
Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
Davis, Miles – Birth Of Cool
Decemberists – Crane Wife
Deftones – Around The Fur
Deftones – White Pony
Dinosaur Jr – You’re Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr – Bug
Disturbed – RSD 2018 – Lost Children
Drake, Nick – Pink Moon
Dream Theater – Images And Words
Eminem – V1 Marshall Mathers
Evans, Bill – Live At The Village Vanguard
Gogo Penguin – A Humdrum Star
Gorillaz – Gorillaz
Green Day – Dookie
Green, Al – Let’s Stay Together
Greta Van Fleet – Black Smoke Rising EP
Guns N Roses – V2 Use Your Illusion
Hill, Lauryn – Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights
Iron Maiden – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
James, Elmore – Definitive
Lamar, Kendrick – Damn (Collector’s Edition)
Led Zeppelin – RSD 2018 – Rock and Roll / Friends 7” (Yellow Vinyl)
Lumineers – Lumineers
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Pronounced
Mastodon – Blood Mountain
Metallica – $5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-Revisisted (Indie Exclusive Orange Vinyl)
Metallica – Ride The Lightning
Meters – Look-Ka Py Py
Motley Crue – Greatest Hits
Motorhead – Motorhead (40th anniversary)
Muse – Black Holes And Revelations
Muse – Origin Of Symmetry
Nas – Illmatic XX
Opeth – Blackwater Park
Opeth – Still Life
Ortega, Lindi – Liberty (Limited Red Vinyl)
Pantera – History Of Hostility
Petty, Tom – Greatest Hits
Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon
Pixies – Doolittle
Pixies – Wave of Mutilation: Best of Pixies
Pop, Iggy – Idiot
Pop, Iggy – Lust For Life
Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine
Rainbow Kitten Surprise – How To: Friend, Love, Freefall
Rammstein – Mutter
Rammstein – Sehnsucht
Rateliff, Nathaniel & The Night Sweats – Tearing at the Seams
Redding, Otis – Otis Blue/Sings Soul
Reed, Lou – RSD 2018 – Animal Serenade (3LP)
Replacements – Let It Be
Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels
Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 2
Sheepdogs – Changing Colours
Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
Soundtrack – Aladdin (Picture Disc)
Soundtrack – Beauty And The Beast (Picture Disc)
Soundtrack – Juno
Soundtrack – Lion King (Picture Disc)
Soundtrack – Little Mermaid (Picture Disc)
Soundtrack – Nightmare Before Christmas
Soundtrack – Peter Pan (Picture Disc)
Soundtrack – Toy Story Favorites (Picture Disc)
Soundtrack – Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me
Stone Roses – Stone Roses
Strokes – Is This It
Television – Marquee Moon
Television – Marquee Moon
Tool – Opiate
Tool – Undertow
Tragically Hip – Phantom Power
Tragically Hip – Up To Here
Tyler, The Creator – Flower Boy
Verve – Urban Hymns
Warsaw (Joy Division) – Warsaw
Weezer – Weezer (Blue Album)
Wilson, Steven – RSD 2018 – How Big The Space?
Wolfmother – Wolfmother
Wonder, Stevie – Music Of My Mind
Young, Neil – Roxy – Tonight’s The Night Live
Young, Neil – Harvest Moon
Zombies – Odessey & Oracle

 

 

 

 

 

That’s a stack of wax!