If It's Too Loud...

I absolutely adored Stay Safe! , the 2023 album from Montreal's La Sé curit é . When you discover bands from nowhere near you, sometimes you resign yourself to never getting to see them live. After all, that album came out over a year ago and the band still hadn't made it to the Boston area. Once I saw they were playing The Sinclair opening for The Go! Team, I obviously had to go. I didn't know what to expect with La S é curit é's  live show. They play a version of dance punk that can easily go wrong live and is better as a studio creation. Instead, the songs off Stay Safe! were much more suited to the stage. Making their Boston area debut, the band played a high energy set that quickly won over the crowd. They play this bizarre mixture of indie rock meets punk combined with disco. The guitars in song like "Anyway" are somehow both indie and disco, which I didn't think could be possible. If you love to dance to music but feel you're too awkward, make s...

And here are the rest! Co-Album of the Week : Artist : St. Beauty Album : Running to the Sun Quick Description : A genre-hoping R&B effort. Why You Should Listen : It's one of the more unique releases in recent memory. Overall Thoughts : At its heart, Running to the Sun is an R&B record. But if you're not into the genre, you can't let that stop you from hearing this, because it borrows from so many modern sounds - indie rock, alternative rock, some of the indie soul stuff, it runs the whole gamut. There are a lot of reasons why this shouldn't work, but instead it ends up feeling like a brilliant and special release. This surprised me a lot, and it will probably surprise you too. Recommendation : One of the best of the week, and has the potential for a lot of staying power. Artist : Glen Hansard Album : Between Two Shores Quick Description : The Frames/ Once singer is back with a retro-feeling record. Why You Should Listen : Hansard is a great...

A pretty good week this week! Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit : Judging by how much I liked her double EP release from last year, I was pretty confident I would like Courtney Barnett's debut. I didn't expect to like it this much, though. It's a wildly confident, fun, interesting album that both retains what I've liked from Barnett so far while improving the value of the production and such. Plenty of good, hooky songs, and by far my favorite release of the week. Definitely check this one out. Action Bronson - Mr. Wonderful : In a new release timetable that includes records from Earl Sweatshirt and Kendrick Lamar, Action Bronson's major label debut feels out of place. I hadn't heard Bronson before this week, and the best comparison I can make is that he's almost like the rap version of Har Mar Superstar in a lot of ways. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's an interesting release that mig...