Today is Friday, the most wonderful day of the week for music lovers because it’s the day when new albums are released. Let’s celebrate by highlighting some of today’s new records.
Belle and Sebastian
How to Solve Our Human Problems, Part 1 (Matador)
Glasgow’s twee darlings Belle and Sebastian have a real talent for working in between works. Over their 20 years as a band, they’ve consistently churned out — to steady acclaim — EPs, singles, covers and re-recordings outside of their proper albums. Often these releases have been able to stand on their own and become fan favorites. With How to Solve Our Human Problems, the band again makes an elaborate project out of a handful of songs. Problems is a three-part release, consisting of three separate EPs that will drop a month apart. Part 1 features “We Were Beautiful,” a synthy pop delight in the same vein as their most recent LP, 2015’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. The next two EPs will arrive in mid-January and February, and it’s possible that this particular project’s goal is to get you through the depths of winter with some warming indie charm. Leave it to Belle and Sebastian to dedicate diligent time and work for an end product that is effortlessly light and breezy.
Listen on: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
QTY
QTY (Dirty Hit)
It’s pretty clear that New York rockers QTY (pronounced Q-T-Y) sound like those that came before them. The young group’s got strong roots. In their sloppy yet succinct tunes, you’ll catch undeniable whiffs of NYC rock and roll legends, from the up-front Lou Reed swagger in the vocals to the stripped-down dirty punk basics of The Ramones in the instrumentation, with a thick slice of The Strokes’ nonchalance-in-leather-jackets the middle. The duo is made up of best friends Dan Lardner and Alex Niemetz, who met as teens while growing up in The Big Apple. This self-titled debut album has been a long time coming; they’ve pushed back the release date a few times, instead opting to pepper out singles here and there. The result is an album largely composed of previously released tracks. Such is the way of punk youth: It’ll happen when it happens, and as long as everyone’s having fun, who cares?
That’s the key takeaway from QTY’s music: Even if they sound like a bunch of other New York bands, it’s a sound that’s a good sound. There’s a reason why so many musicians have emulated these acts over the years. QTY’s music leaves room to grow in the best of ways, and they seem to be ambitious enough for that. And c’mon, what band doesn’t sound at least a little bit like The Velvet Underground?
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