New Release Round-Up 07-24-15
ROGER WATERS - Amused To Death: Remastered - Sony Legacy
An unblinking look at an entertainment-obsessed society, Amused To Death addresses issues that have only grown in complexity and urgency over the past two decades. With Amused to Death, Roger Waters sounded the alarm about a society increasingly and unthinkingly in thrall to its television screens. Twenty-three years later, Amused to Death speaks to our present moment in ways that could scarcely have been anticipated two decades ago. In 2015, television is just one option in an endless array of distractions available to us anytime, anywhere, courtesy of our laptops, tablets and smartphones. With eyes glued to our screens, the dilemmas and injustices of the real world can easily recede from view.
DUCKTAILS - St. Catherine - Domino
St. Catherine is the 2015 album from Ducktails, the solo project of Real Estate's Matt Mondanile. It is by far his most accomplished album to date. The album is filled with his baroque pop flourishes and layered with his soothing, but sharp vocals. Recorded in Los Angeles and Berlin and mixed by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck, FIDLAR), St. Catherine is a complex, moody work filled with yearning and lots of the gorgeous melodic fretwork for which Mondanile has become well known for with his work in Real Estate.
Watkins Family Hour - an acclaimed musical collective featuring siblings Sara and Sean Watkins along with Fiona Apple, Benmont Tench, Don Heffington, Greg Leisz and Sebastian Steinberg - release their debut, self-titled album. Additionally, in celebration of the release, the collective will take their "variety show of epic proportions" (Los Angeles Times) to cities across the U.S. this summer kicking off with a performance at the Newport Folk Festival.
We Came As Romans have built their reputation through near constant touring to become stalwarts of the melodic-hardcore scene, alongside contemporaries like Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens. Their new self-titled album incorporates some more pop elements into the band's traditionally heavy sound, courtesy of accomplished producer David Bendeth (Bring Me The Horizon, Paramore, Underoath).
With A Lampshade On, The Dustbowl Revival's fourth album, finally shines a light on the band’s strength as a live act. They formed in L.A.’s bohemian enclave of Venice Beach in late 2007, the result of a Craigslist ad posted by bandleader Zach Lupetin, a Midwestern transplant who hoped to join together players in the string band and brass band traditions. Since then, one thing has become clear as the group grows more confident in their abilities: Dustbowl does its best work onstage.
The Bunny The Bear have broken new ground with their 5th album, A Liar Wrote This. The far-reaching album defies genre boundaries with its expansive style that bridges pop, spellbinding soul and introduces the acidic, yet velvety voice of new “Bear” Haley Roback.
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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section and don't forget that many of these titles are also available on vinyl.