Birch Street Radio

Sunday, February 16, 2025

New music from Soda Blonde, Horsegirl, The War and Treaty, Lilly Hiatt, Krooked Tongue

Soda Blonde: People Pleaser

The Dublin quartet that released its sophomore album Dream Big in 2023 has popped out a couple of singles since, and just dropped this one with the promise of more to come this year. Vocalist and songwriter Faye O'Rourke says the song is "an anthem for people who love too easily, lose themselves too often, and mistake validation for love."

Horsegirl: Well I Know You're Shy

Three years after their debut album, Versions of Modern Performance, and following a move from Chicago to New York, this group is out with its second LP, Phonetics On and On. AllMusic writes that they've moved away from noise-rock, opted for "crisp, clean production helmed by Cate Le Bon." brought the vocals to the front of the mix and slowed their pace on many of the songs. Our pick for the New Music Bin is one of the peppier tracks on the album.

The War & Treaty: Love Like Whiskey

The duo's new album, Plus One, opens with this "strutting, horns-punctuated country-soul" number (as AllMusic calls it), cowritten by Miranda Lambert. The lyric describe a couple in a break-up-make-up cycle - or would that be a cycle of war-and-treaty?

Lilly Hiatt: Ghost Ship

From the new album Forever comes this track that Americana Highways calls "a mesmerizing, hypnotic, cigarette-dangling, fast-car-driving, blurry-warm-summer-night, convertible anthem." The album as a whole combines personal, self-reflective lyrics with a rough-edged alt-rock sound (including distorted vocals that get to be too much on some of its other tracks).

Krooked Tongue: Let 'Em Loose

We picked up this Bristol, UK, trio's "Ember Mile" single a couple of months ago, and this latest track comes with word of a "longer body of material" (album? EP?) in the works. Vocalist/lyricist Oli Rainsford says the song is about "the technological age we found ourselves in today" and our addiction to screen time. (If you say so; frankly we can't make much sense of the lyrics.)

Saturday, February 8, 2025

New from Sharon Van Etten, The Black Keys, Inhaler, Momma and (psst) Modest Mouse

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory: Idiot Box

After issuing a half-dozen records as a solo artist, the singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist presents her latest album as a creative collaboration with her band. Pitchfork reports: "During rehearsals for her 2022 tour, Van Etten grew tired of her own voice and impulsively asked her band to 'just jam.' The experiment yielded two songs ... and left the singer 'feeling very inspired.' ... On Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, the frontwoman surrenders to the rhythm on a stormy, unsettled album centered on groove and mood." This track bemoans the modern impulse to replace personal interaction with electronic devices: "All these things we think we lack / All this time we can't get back."

The Black Keys: The Night Before

The 13th album from Dan Auerbach's project with Patrick Carney, No Rain, No Flowers, is on its way this year. This first single comes just 10 months after the duo's Ohio Players LP. It also follows a dispute with their former management company that resulted in the cancelation of their 2024 tour. Carney says: "We were already on a creative streak, and the best thing we could do, rather than sit at home, was just go back in the studio."

Inhaler: All I Got Is You

We previously featured a couple of the singles from Open Wide, and now with the release of the full LP, we're picking this track for the New Music Bin. Reviewers have noted more variety of styles and influences here than on the band's previous albums, with Glide Magazine hearing "touches of The Smiths and The Cure" on this number.

Momma: I Want You (Fever)

Ahead of the Brooklyn indie-rock quartet's next album, Welcome To My Blue Sky, comes this song of jealous love. The group says it's "about wanting to be with someone who has a girlfriend, or someone who isn’t over their ex. It’s pining after someone, but there’s also some confidence knowing that that person wants to be with you." There's not much subtlety in the lyrics: "Pick up and leave her / I want you, fever."

Modest Mouse: Kingdom of Could'a

Talk about a limited release: Good Music to Lift Los Angeles, an extraordinary collection of 90 tracks by as many artists, put together as a fund-raiser for California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund and the LA Regional Food Bank, was available for just one day (Feb. 7) via Bandcamp. The website also donated all its fees that day to MusiCares. Luckily we got the word in time to snag the bundle of originals and covers, demos, alternate takes and live recordings - including this song that we understand has popped up in Modest Mouse live sets but never had a studio release.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Sunflower Bean + Snow Patrol + Tunde Adebimpe + The Weather Station + R.O. Shapiro = New Music

Sunflower Bean: Champagne Taste

Here's the lead track from Mortal Primetime, due in April. Stereogum writes that the Brooklyn trio "leaned into their dark side with the Shake EP," released in September - and now "is getting even heavier." Bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming describes the album as “Belle And Sebastian meets Alice In Chains.” This track, she says, "is about feeling beaten down but still driving forward."

Snow Patrol: But I'll Keep Trying

This new single will be on an upcoming deluxe version of last year's album, The Forest Is The Path. We're told six new songs will be on the extended edition. (Why not issue them as an EP? What is an album these days, anyway?)

Tunde Adebimpe: Drop

Following up on "Magnetic" comes this new single from the TV On The Radio frontman's upcoming solo album, Thee Black Boltz.

The Weather Station: Humanhood

We previously featured a couple of singles and now here's the title track of the latest release by Tamara Lindman and company. It's musically complex, featuring winds, strings and syncopated percussion, with seeming stream-of-consciousness lyrics. "I been carrying this humanhood clumsily / carrying this humanhood, not carefully / carrying a body that’s tired from carrying a mind."

R.O. Shapiro: A Song To The Sunset

Now in California, formerly of Austin, Texas and native of Sag Harbor, N.Y., this self-described troubadour has just released a four-song EP called Worthy. This jaunty, cheerful tune is the most light-hearted of the bunch, and in heavy times we found it irresistible. (Photo by Brit Powers.)

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Our new music picks: Craig Finn, Lucy Dacus, The Head And The Heart, Mumford & Sons, Larkin Poe

Craig Finn: People of Substance

The lead singer-songwriter of the Hold Steady is bringing out his sixth solo album, Always Been, produced by the War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel and featuring musicians from that band along with guest spots by Kathleen Edwards and Sam Fender. On this first single, Finn's lyrics are more coherent than typical, as he takes on the persona of someone trying to reconnect with someone who "cut him off" - apparently for good reason: "I’m pretty much cured / Been getting out of bed before noon now ... I'm sorry about the way that I scared you ... I know I used to be such a monster ..."

Lucy Dacus: Ankles

This single precedes the fourth solo album by the singer-songwriter who is also one-third of Boygenius. The lyric suggests wanting a partner to be both hot and sweet: "Pull me by the ankles to the edge of the bed / And take me like you do in your dreams ... Then help me with thе crossword in the mornings / You are gonna make mе tea.

The Head And The Heart: Time With My Sins

Following up "Arrow," the Seattle-based band just released this second single from its upcoming sixth album, details TBA. "I started this song when I was deep into a whole mess of distractions and, quite frankly I wasn’t able to finish it," says Jonathan Russell, who got help from bandmate Matt Gervais. "The way he interpreted the song and brought it forward is just a great example of why I love being in this band."

Mumford & Sons: Rushmere

Here's the first taste, and title track, of a new LP from British folk-rockers. It's the group's first album since 2018's Delta and its first in its current configuration - the trio of Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane and Ben Lovett - following the departure of Winston Marshall. Rushmere, we're told, is the name of a pond in Wimbledon Common, southwest London, where the three first made plans to form a band.

Larkin Poe: Easy Love, Pt. 1

Round out - and rocking out - our New Music picks for the week, here's yet another track from Bloom, the just-released LP. Yes, we've already featured two singles from the album, and other tracks from this very solid and enjoyable album are bound to pop up in our mix.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

OK Go, My Morning Jacket, Deep Sea Diver, Coheed and Cambria, Inhaler bring the new music

OK Go: A Stone Only Rolls Downhill

The difficult-to-characterize band from Chicago (AllMusic.com calls it "retro indie pop") has announced a new album, called And the Adjacent Possible, coming later this year - its first new release since 2014's Hungry Ghosts. Of this first single, frontman Damian Kulash, says: “It’s a tough time to be optimistic. ... What do we tell [our children]? That’s what this song is about: trying to be honest but keeping your head up at the same time.”

My Morning Jacket: Time Waited

Also coming this year, a new MMJ album with the understated (or pretentious?) title is. Bandleader Jim James says this lead single starts with a sample of a piano part from a "lost album" by pedal-steel virtuoso Buddy Emmons. "I made a loop of that piano intro and listened as I went for a walk and all these melodies started coming to me."

Deep Sea Diver: Billboard Heart

This Seattle-based group headed by Jessica Dobson will release its fourth studio album in late February. Dobson says this title track is "a song that felt like a strange transmission, a new emotion, and a spirit-filled dream when it came. ... It is about being present and embracing the future while wholeheartedly letting go of any amount of control that I think I have in this life. ‘Billboard Heart’ is both a longing for something that may not exist and a place where I can be free.”

Coheed and Cambria: Someone Who Can

This band from suburban New York is known for metal-ish, prog-ish rock, and for sci-fi concept albums. But this single from its upcoming The Father of Make Believe reaches beyond its core audience. Lead guitarist Claudio Sanchez says of the song: "When you’re growing up, you’re perpetually trying to understand the world that’s changing around you. Over time, it’s comforting to reach the conclusion that you’ll never truly have things figured out."

Inhaler: A Question of You

Here's another taste of the Dublin quartet's third album, Open Wide, coming out in a few weeks, Frontman Elijah Hewson says, "This is love song territory for me, about how in order to be honest with someone else you’ve got to be honest with yourself."