New Music Monday: Bob Seger, The Game, The Melvins, and More!

Happy Monday music lovers! Like new stuff? Great – you’ve come to the right place. Each week all sorts of audio goodies are released by labels to the masses and this is where it all comes to be judged. I’ll tell ya what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s a waste of your time. Thanks for stopping by!

The Big News!

First things first: I’m on vacation next week so you’ll have to go elsewhere for thoughts on the new Slipknot record, which is probably a good thing. Never been a fan.

Now, go get your dad cuz he’s gonna be excited about this one. The latest, and possibly final, Bob Seger record, Ride Out, is being released this week and old dudes everywhere are excited. Actually, that’s not fair. Seger’s alright and still holds a shred of actual credibility despite being a shill for Ford Motor Company – he’s one of those guys that earned the right to sell out. Like when Bob Dylan did that commercial for Chrysler. Anyway, Ride Out is the seventeenth album from the sweaty seventy year old rocker, his first in eight years, and includes both originals and a few covers. This one seems tailor made for a commercial. Boogie down!

Into the Wild

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness is the really pretentious new project from that piano playing Jack’s Mannequin dude. Billboard called it “earnest, sunkissed piano pop” and I kinda dig it, a little. I guess. I mean, I liked Jack’s Mannequin, I just don’t know how different it’s gonna be, if you get my drift. And that title just irks me.

Playing Around

Here’s some highly anticipated new stuff from The Game. Exciting!

Surfing Melvins

Yes, Satan has answered our prayers – The Melvins and the Butthole Surfers have collided. Kind of. Paul Leary and JD Pinkus joined King Buzzo and the crew for Hold It In, the one zillionth Melvins record. If you don’t know who Paul Leary and JD Pinkus are then you suck. Quoth the King: “It’s a good cross section of a lot of things we’ve done as well as a lot of things we’ve never done. It’s the first Melvins record I played on where I didn’t write a majority of the material.” Things The Melvins have never done. Now that’s a scary thought!

Video Stars

New OK Go being released this week. No, I haven’t seen the video and I don’t want to. So don’t ask. Ever.

The Legend Returns

Mark Lanegan, who is in my opinion the most important musician produced by the vaunted Seattle scene of the mid-90s. His new record, Phantom Radio, is being released this week and you should buy it and obsess over it like me. This review from The Independent includes the lines “appregiating guitars plummet slowly over a chilly synth pad and trenchent drums”, and goes on to hail Lanegan for his “soul ravaged blues fatalism”. If you don’t know Lanegan you should: he was in Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, and other great stuff. You gotta hear it.

My Recommendation

The most interesting album being released this week comes from Danish pedal steel guitarist Maggie Bjorklund. Bjorklund is best known for playing with Mr Jack White both on tour and on his latest masterpiece, Lazaretto. I postively cannot wait to hear this whole thing – the band she’s put together is amazing, containing pieces of Sparklehorse, Portishead, Calexcio, among others. Do not miss this one!