Whoo! For so early in the year, there were a ton of great new releases that dropped this past month! Not only that, several are from some of my favorite bands! A lot of these are definitely going to be on rotation once I get started with writing Theadia.

Kaiser Chiefs, Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album, 1 March. Surprising that they’ve only released eight albums considering they’ve been on my radar since 2005! (I tend to equate them with my brief time in Jersey and our move to SF.) They take an interesting left turn into summery funk here, complete with help from Nile Rodgers himself on the above track!

Liam Gallagher & John Squire, Liam Gallagher & John Squire, 1 March. The sneery voice of Oasis and the excellent guitarist from The Stone Roses get together and the end result is intriguing…it’s a wild mashup of sounds from their previous bands and it works unexpectedly well. [I still say Noel’s the better songwriter, though.]

Yard Act, Where’s My Utopia?, 1 March. I love how hilariously nerdy and goofy this band is. James Smith delivers his lyrics in such an unassuming talk-singing way that you think he’s channeling The Fall’s Mark E. Smith or Art Brut’s Eddie Argos, but once you pay attention to his ramblings you’re laughing and wondering what he’s on about. A super fun band well worth checking out.

Torrey, Torrey, 8 March. Slumberland is becoming the new 4AD for me, in that I’m pretty much picking up and devouring several things they’re putting out. [It helps that they’re local and carry some of those super-local bands I love so dearly.] KEXP loves this one a lot and so do I.

FLOYA, Yume, 8 March. I didn’t know much of anything about this band other than they’re metal and from Australia…and chose to change direction on their new record by writing poppy upbeat music that could fit easily on pop radio. Their positive vibe kind of remind me of The Sound of Arrows in a way, and that’s pretty much what intrigued me.

crushed, extra life, 15 March. I’ll try out any shoegazey band that captures the same moods that Curve does, even if it’s less wall-of-sound and more like an aural blanket. Really good stuff here that I need to pay attention to.

Four Tet, Three, 15 March. I’ve known about this musician for a while and he’d gotten a ton of positive press over the years, but surprisingly this was the first album I’d picked up! His work is fascinating in that it’s not quite electronic, but not quite jazz either.

Hooverphonic, Fake Is the New Dope, 21 March. Somehow I’d completely missed that one of my all-time favorite bands of the 90s dropped an album, even though I knew they’d been releasing teaser singles from it since late last year! I’m really digging this one (no big surprise) as it leans quite heavily on their jazzy electronic style. Really great stuff, and I’m sure this one’s going to be on heavy rotation soon enough.

Elbow, AUDIO VERTIGO, 22 March. Another one of my favorite bands, this one from the early 00s, their sound has evolved so much over the last two decades that each album sounds slightly different from everything else they’ve done. This one expands on their previous two records by leaning more on the twitchier side of things. This one’s also getting a lot of play.

Salt Cathedral, Before It’s Gone, 22 March. Thanks to KEXP for this one as well, they’re that kind of moody indietronica I really like. They’re kind of an odd mix that reminds me a little of early Sarah McLachlan in her more obscure moments.

The Jesus and Mary Chain, Glasgow Eyes, 22 March. [C/W: lots of flashy in this video.] I am really liking this new J+MC record!! It’s got the mood of some of their best earlier works like Automatic but with the warmer sounds of Honey’s Dead baked in. I highly recommend it!

Ride, Interplay, 29 March. Loving this one as well, but then again I’ve been a Ride fan for decades now. Their version of shoegaze always had that bright and breezy feel to it, unlike the density of bands like My Blood Valentine. Definitely going to be playing this one.

The Church, Eros Zeta & the Perfumed Guitars, 29 March. This one snuck out on me unexpectedly, and I’m already fascinated by it. The band is essentially singer Steve Kilbey and whoever he’s hanging with at the time, so while it may not have their signature chimey jangle, it does have their reverb-drenched dreaminess they’ve always been known for. This and their previous record sees them going in a very odd direction indeed, almost prog-experimental, yet not without a sense of humor to it.

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Stay tuned for April, with new releases from The Black Keys, Vampire Weekend, James, The Reds Pinks & Purples (yay!), and St Vincent!