Birch Street Radio

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Jeff Tweedy, Joe Bonamassa, The Strumbellas, Goose, Suzanne Vega in our New Music bin

Jeff Tweedy: Enough

The Wilco frontman newest project is a 30-track (!) album, Twilight Override, arriving in late-September. With the announcement of the longggg-player came four tracks, of which this is the most upbeat, despite melancholy lyrics: "Has it ever been enough? / Has it ever been OK?"

Joe Bonamassa: Drive By The Exit Sign

The veteran blues-rocker just released Breakthrough, his first album since 2021's prog-influenced Time Clocks. He returns to his shorter, tighter, songwriting on this outing, writes Rock and Blues Muse, which calls this track "a spark-plug igniting inclusion enhanced by soulful backing female vocals."

The Strumbellas: Hard Lines

There's no word on whether the release of this new single means that an album is on its way. It would be the Ontario group's sixth, following last year's Part Time Believer. But we won't be the ones to ask. After all, the band says this is a "a song about keeping up with pressure and expectations."

Goose: Dustin Hoffman

We pull another plum from Everything Must Go, the Connecticut jam band's latest studio release. It's one of just a handful of songs to appear on the album before being heard in concert. Glide Magazine calls it one of the record's standout moments. "Starting as a funky ’70s strut, the track seamlessly shifts to an adult-contemporary-infused chorus teeming with ’90s-inspired horn arrangements courtesy of an impressive brass trio led by a longtime collaborator, saxophonist Stuart Bogie." (The song's title supposedly was inspired by the actor of the same name, but the lyrics have nothing to do with him.)

Suzanne Vega: Alley

We return to another of this spring's releases to pick another track for our New Music Bin. The singer says this is a song "about transcending life's difficulties and seeking sanctuary somewhere."

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Tedeschi Trucks & Mad Dogs, Drop Kick Murphys, All Time Low, James and the Cold Gun, Big Thief

Tedeschi Trucks Band: The Letter (Live at Lockn' 2015)

Ten years ago at a festival in Virginia, TTB and Leon Russell celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour with a tribute concert. The 12-member band and the iconic blues-rock pianist (who passed away the following year) were joined by some original members of the Mad Dogs ensemble, such as Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear, and Chris Stainton, plus guests including Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes, Warren Haynes, Anders Osborne, and Dave Mason. This track is the first taste of an album compiled from that show, to be released in September. What took so long?

Drop Kick Murphys: Who'll Stand With Us?

This single from the Boston band's new album, For The People, is a protest anthem that ties the current socio-political situation in the U.S. to historic inequality and exploitation. "The working people fuel the engine / While you yank the chain." The song's video depicts immigrant workers being abducted, and then uses the same imagery for people being cut off from health and other benefits. Lead singer Ken Casey says, “We’ve always had the same message and haven’t been afraid to speak out about what’s important to us.." (Photo credit: @Chezphoto / Riley Vecchione)

All Time Low: The Weather

It's been 20 years since this band, formed by high school classmates in Towson, Maryland, released its first album - and now it's rolling out its tenth studio LP, Everyone's Talking!, due in October. This track is billed as "Ramones-toasting pop-rock." Lead singer Alex Gaskarth calls it a "a cynical but playful" song about running into an ex and, rather than delving into the past, talking about trivial matters. "I won't ask you how you've been / 'Cause we might just fall back in / So we talk about the weather."

James and the Cold Gun: Above The Lake

This group from Cardiff calls itself "the loudest in South Wales" (which seems to have confused some people into thinking they're from Australia's New South Wales instead of the U.K.). This track is from the band's second LP, Face In The Mirror. Frontman James Joseph says: "We’re massive rock fans. If you look at 90 per cent of the bands on rock playlists right now, though, they don’t always sound like rock. You can barely hear a guitar, and everything is super polished. We found ourselves wanting to hear new music that had the guts to keep things messy and as real as possible, so we made it ourselves.” (Photo credit: Luke Shadrick)

Big Thief: All Night All Day

Here's the second single to emerge from Double Infinity, the sixth album by the Brooklyn band featuring the tremulous voice of Adrianne Lenker and bandmates Buck Meek and James Krivchenia. "Swallow poison, swallow sugar / Sometimes they taste thе same / But I know your love is neithеr / And love is just a name."

Sunday, July 6, 2025

New music in our mix: Turnstile, Splitsville, Kathleen Edwards, Sunflower Bean, Royel Otis

Turnstile: Seein' Stars

When we picked up "I Care" from the new LP, Never Enough, we wrote that Brendan Yates's lead vocal reminded us a bit of Sting. And we find ourselves agreeing with those who say this track sounds like it could be a lost Police recording. Which is fine by us. Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Dev Hynes (a.k.a. Blood Orange) contribute vocals on this track, although they don't stand out in the mix.

Splitsville: A Glorious Lie

Here's another group that, like Turnstile, hails from Baltimore. But they haven't released new music in a couple of decades. Now they're out with Mobtown, which includes this song whose intriguing lyrics relate (we are told) to a 1926 visit to Baltimore by Queen Marie of Romania.

Kathleen Edwards: Say Goodbye, Tell No One

We pull another track from Billionaire, the Canadian singer-songwriter's album due next month. This is a not-very-gentle break-up song: "People change, people grow," it starts out, "You can take it in stride or slam a door."

Sunflower Bean: Waiting For The Rain

Yes we're choosing to feature another track from Mortal Primetime, following "Champagne Taste," "Nothing Romantic" and "Take Out Your Insides." Got a problem with that?

Royel Otis: Moody

This duo from Sydney is getting some backlash for the lyric, which has a guy complaining that his girl is "a bitch when she's moody," while also singing that "she's my everything, she's all that I need." Is he being sexist - or is she being emotionally abusive? Discuss.

Saturday, June 28, 2025

'Lost' Springsteen + new Marshall Crenshaw, Yukon Blonde, The Beths, Jacob's Run

Bruce Springsteen: Waiting On The End Of The World

"New music" in the sense that it has never been released (except for a bootleg), this 1994-vintage recording is one of 83 (!!!) songs on the just-issued Tracks II: The Lost Albums. Reviewer Josh Kitchen writes: "It's unbelievable that this song was not released until now. ... [It] feels like a perfect summation of the music found on Tunnel of Love, Human Touch, Lucky Town, and now the rest of the songs here on the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions (one of the seven 'lost albums' in this collection). It's peak Bruce, a hopeful sounding Bruce anthem about the price we pay for love."

Marshall Crenshaw: Move Now

Here's another kinda-sorta new track, from an LP called From the Hellhole, Crenshaw's nickname for his home studio. Stereogum tells us "the album’s 14 tracks include 11 repurposed from Record Store Day vinyl EPs released between 2012 and 2016, all of which have been out of print since 2016. Eight of those tracks have been remixed for the occasion. Three more tunes from across Crenshaw’s career round out the tracklist." This song is one of the originals, co-written with Dan Bern.

Yukon Blonde: Colours of My Dreams

This is the first single from Frienship & Rock 'n' Roll, a new LP due in September. The album is described as "stripping things back to spotlight the rawness and electricity of their rock 'n' roll love show." The group from British Columbia says it's "our love letter to rock ’n’ roll itself, like a dog-eared note stuffed in the locker of the universe."

The Beths: No Joy

We've been spinning the New Zealand quartet's recent single, "Metal," and now comes word of an LP, Straight Line Was A Lie, coming in August. This song deals with vocalist Elizabeth Stokes' experience with depression and treatment. "It's about anhedonia, which, paradoxically, was there both in the worst parts of depression, and then also when I was feeling pretty numb on my SSRI (medication). It wasn’t that I was sad, I was feeling pretty good. It was just that I didn’t like the things that I liked. I wasn’t getting joy from them.”

Jacob's Run: Sunday

We're glad to hear more from this Melbourne band - its first release since its self-titled debut LP in 2019. The word is that this single precedes a second album on its way, The Other Side. With Mark Opitz producing, the original line-up of Michael Jacobs (vocals, guitar), Peter Curigliano (bass, vocals) and Fabian Bucci (drums) is augmented here by a 32-piece orchestra led by conductor George Ellis - giving this gentle ballad a lush sound it doesn't really need.