New Music Weekend: Zayne Malik, Asking Alexandria, Amon Amarth, The Thermals, and More!!!

Hey there music lover! You like new stuff? Great! You’ve stumbled into the perfect corner of the internet.  Each week all sorts of audiolicious goodies are unleashed onto the masses and this is where they come to be judged. I’ll tell ya what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s a waste of your precious time. So strap on your headphones and let’s take a ride!

The Big News
Not really my sort of thing, but lots of people seem to be soooooper excited about the debut solo release from that Zayne dude from One Direction, Mind of Mine.  I, of course, am not exited and hope I never hear a single song from it. And I guess his name is just Zayne. I searched for some early reviews to quote for y’all, but couldn’t find anything substantial. Oh, wait, here’s one that just popped up from the New York Times, which calls the record “an album of sweaty, smooth R&B” that “shows a singer eager to reclaim the parts of himself that five years in the pop klieg lights forced into the shadows.”

Metal Mania
Gonna lump a bunch of hard, heavy, and loud stuff together under this moniker today.  Let’s start with the new epic from Swedish Viking Metal magnates Amon Amarth, Jomsviking, their tenth release. Wonderbox Metal is not disappointed by the new record saying “the songs on this release are as catchy and memorable as any that they have released over their victory-filled career.”

California punk upstarts Plague Vendor, one of the most exciting young bands in the US, return with their snotty sophomore effort, Bloodsweat. If it’s anything like their debut, Free to Eat, we’re in for a raucous treat.

Hey, if I told you that Asking Alexandria is still around and that they’re releasing a new album, their fourth, and that it’s called The Black, you’d probably be all like “Oh yeah, why are you telling me this?”

Solo Suckers

I know it probably sounds sacrilegious to say this but I think it’s high time we start to say that Bob Mould’s solo work is better than any of his work in Husker Du or Sugar. At the very least it is time to discuss it as a possibility. Mould has never released a bad record and his latest solo effort, Patch the Sky, his twelfth non-Du-gar release, should be no exception. The always trustable Consequence of Sound calls the album “a personal reflecting pool, a watery blank canvas into which [Mould] expertly casts the stones of his regrets and longings.“

Blues dude Joe Bonamossa unveils his twelfth effort, Blues of Desperation.

Alt/Rocking Rockers
Said it before and I’ll say it again. The Thermals are the best fucking band on the planet. We Disappear is the trio’s seventh album and it’s fucking great.

Welsh outfit The Joy Formidable are offer up their third release, Hitch.

RIP
This is the part where we say goodbye to those who’ve played their last solo. Rock on brothers and sisters.
Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest.

Nigerian artist Nomoreloss.

Scabs, drummer for Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13.

Cajun performer David Egan.

Outlaw country guy Steve Young.

Doo-wop dude Lee Andrews.

My Recommendation

In the spirit of the new Thermals record I’m gonna go ahead and rec up the new stuff from Austin’s garage psychers White Denim.

Next Week

Tune in next week, same new music time, same new music channel, for new stuff from: WEEZER!!!