Best New Releases, Oct. 4: The Smile, Blood Incantation, and more

Folks, this is an absurd day for new music. It’s an absurd month for new music, if we’re being honest. But today in particular, we’re at about twice the average of our typical Best New Releases roundup at 16 records highlighted for you below, and mind you, this is an edited, curated list. There’s a lot more where that came from. Among this week’s best offerings are the second album this year from The Smile, our current Album of the Week from Blood Incantation, a new indie supergroup, an electronic MVP and more. 

The Smile – Cutouts

In less than a year following The Smile’s excellent Wall of Eyes, Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner are back with their third album, continuing an unexpectedly prolific streak from the trio. They teased Cutouts earlier this year with a 12-inch single that included the jittery rock grooves of “Zero Sum” and the more subdued (almost Kid A-like) electronics of “Don’t Get Me Started.” It’s another reveal of a growing palette of aesthetics and approaches from a group of heavy hitters with nothing to prove but apparently plenty to share. We’ll have more to say on this one very soon. 

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere

Blood Incantation have emerged over the past decade as one of the most thrilling and unpredictable bands in North American death metal. After the release of 2019’s Hidden History of the Human Race, they took a detour into space ambient, but now offer a proper follow up with an album of two side-long prog-metal epics. It’s our Album of the Week, and in our review, Langdon Hickman said, “given their history, there’s hardly reason to believe this might be the last again, to repeat the word, brilliant left turn that makes us totally re-evaluate what these guys are capable of.”

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Caribou – Honey

Dan Snaith shifts gears swiftly and regularly, having taken his Caribou project everywhere from IDM to psychedelia to beat-driven pop and everything in between, while his Daphni releases have been rooted in the euphoric pulse of the dancefloor. Honey, his first since 2020’s Suddenly, likewise draws its sonic palette from house and bass music, and it’s one of his most purely joyful and fun releases he’s ever delivered as Caribou. We’ll have more on this one soon.  

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: “No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead”

The new album from Montreal collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor isn’t untitled so much as a silent vigil, a reference to the death toll in Gaza (and that number has since continued to rise). As such the group’s new set of compositions is somber and solemn, yet still rife with the epic and eerily beautiful quality that’s always been a part of what Godspeed creates. Expect to read more on this one very soon.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

Drug Church – Prude

After 2022’s Hygiene, Drug Church continue to hone their hypercharged post-hardcore sound, with an added emphasis on big pop hooks. Their latest contains some of their most direct and most understated songs alike, showcasing the strength of their songwriting above all, even as their power-chord riffs remain as thunderous as ever. Most of all, however, it’s simply a hell of a lot of fun—so turn it up! We’ll have more on this one soon. 

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Fred Thomas – Window in the Rhythm

For the first time in six years, prolific singer/songwriter Fred Thomas (also known for his work in Saturday Looks Good to Me, His Name Is Alive and other projects) returns to a more song-based indie rock approach after several electronic and other experiments in between. The songs on Window in the Rhythm are longer and unfold slowly, its seven tracks taking up four sides of vinyl, with Thomas allowing in more space and a mesmerizingly graceful aesthetic, aided in part by collaborators such as Mary Lattimore. Window in the Rhythm is rich in lyrical detail and unceasingly beautiful throughout, a stunning late-night album meant for closer listening and taking in all of its incredible details, particularly on the 15-minute closer “Wasn’t,” which deconstructs an indie rock anthem and slowly sees its parts disperse into the ether.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn – Quiet in a World Full of Noise

After crafting one of the most delicately beautiful records of 2022 with Pigments, Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn reconvene with their follow-up to that wonderful LP, Quiet in a World Full of Noise. It’s similarly gentle and atmospheric, based around Richard’s vocals and Zahn’s ECM-style piano and keyboard melodies, spacious and meditative, but graceful and gorgeous throughout. And a perfect comedown record after you’ve made your way through this overwhelming pile of records. More on this one soon.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Geordie Greep – The New Sound

While it’s definitely a bummer that black midi came to an end, the arrival of the first solo album from Geordie Greep only shows that the complex, intricate threads of 2022’s Hellfire only keep on extending. Greep doesn’t simplify anything here in the slightest, finding a way to pack pop hooks into an album built on progressive rock songwriting and Latin jazz arrangements. There’s a lot happening here—you might not absorb it all on a first listen, which is part of the fun. The New Sound is the beginning of a wild and thrilling new chapter.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Anna Butterss – Mighty Vertebrate

Anna Butterss is an active and prolific member of the International Anthem jazz universe, having played with Jeff Parker and Daniel Villarreal, as well as being a member of the L.A.-based fusion group SML, whose debut Small Medium Large is one of this year’s highlights. They’ve also played with Jason Isbell and Phoebe Bridgers, but with their new album as bandleader, Mighty Vertebrate, Butterss leans deeper into richly arranged and hypnotic instrumentals, informed by jazz as well as the immersive soundscapes of groups like Tortoise alike. Expect more about this album soon.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Leon Bridges – Leon

Leon Bridges has shone the spotlight on his Texas roots in the past, particularly through his collaboration with psychedelic instrumentalists Khruangbin, Texas Sun. His semi-self-titled new album Leon more specifically draws from his home city of Fort Worth, and his upbringing in the Lone Star State. It’s a characteristically lush set of soul and R&B, whether laden with strings on “That’s What I Love,” carrying a late-night groove in “Laredo,” or juxtaposing funk with country elements on “Peaceful Place.” It’s another excellent chapter in a career of an artist who only continues to expand the depth of his sound.

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Wild Pink – Dulling the Horns

Wild Pink released a dense and ambitious career high with ILYSM, an album that saw John Ross delving into his own health struggles while building out the group’s atmospheric indie rock sound. Dulling the Horns is a bit more immediate, a bit more energetic, perhaps even a bit more fun if bittersweet, but with the heavy shoegaze layers that marked some of the most remarkable moments on their last album. We’ll have more on this one soon.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

The Hard Quartet – The Hard Quartet

It’s no stretch to call The Hard Quartet an indie supergroup. Fronted by Stephen Malkmus, the group also features Chavez frontman Matt Sweeney, Dirty Three drummer Jim White and The Cairo Gang’s Emmett Kelly. And their Matador debut delivers more or less what you might expect from that, which is to say: anthemic guitar rock from a team of instrumental ringers, with more than a trace of classic and glam rock in their infectious melodies. While they’re not necessarily breaking new ground here, the guitars sound amazing, the songs are excellent, and overall it’s a reminder of just how great this group of musicians really is. 

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Pharmakon – Maggot Mass

It’s been five years since the last Pharmakon album, Devour, and its follow-up—breaking a four-album pattern with her fifth installment—doesn’t begin with an E. All the same, Maggot Mass is an expectedly compelling and cacophonous addition to Margaret Chardiet’s body of work, heavy with pounding industrial percussion and laden with a heavy dose of distortion and chaos. We’ll go deeper on this album soon.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Undeath – More Insane

How’d we get so lucky that this week brings the arrival of albums from not just one but two of the best death metal bands in America right now? Either way, we’ll take it. That said, Undeath’s brand of death metal is dramatically different than that of Blood Incantation. Their songs are shorter, hookier, more focused in their direct application of riffs and mayhem. Which is a longer way of saying that More Insane absolutely rips, building on 2022’s It’s Time…to Rise from the Grave with 10 tracks worth of catchy but brutal rippers. We’ll have more on Undeath soon. 

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Yasmin Williams – Acadia

Virginia-based fingerstyle guitarist Yasmin Williams makes her Nonesuch Records debut with Acadia, an album of gorgeously arranged folk and bluegrass songs that features guests such as Darlingside and Aoife O’Donovan. It’s her third full-length overall and follows two previous, similarly stunning full-length albums as well as an early EP posted to Bandcamp when she was a teenager. A lot has changed since then, but the one constant throughout her career is that she’s a hell of a guitar player.

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded Edition)

This year is the 30th anniversary of Aphex Twin’s pioneering ambient double album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, and Warp Records has reissued it in an expanded 4xLP vinyl box set that includes previously unreleased bonus tracks. Regardless of the format, however, it’s an essential piece of electronic innovation from the ‘90s, a stunning and singular piece of eerie atmospherics that belongs in any collection. 

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)