Photo of the Lemonheads by Gareth Jones
First Thought Fridays is a (mostly) weekly column offering quick-hit takes on some of the albums released this week, serving up first impressions, favorite or least favorite songs, and whether or not they’re worth a second listen. Check back for more each Friday night or Saturday morning.
Last week’s column was super late, and I hinted this one might be as well. So look at me, getting this posted before midnight on Friday! This is despite some hiccups along the way. First, the first album from this week’s releases that I dove into was Eliza McLamb’s Good Story. I got an advance stream on it, which gave me extra time to dive into it, and as I tried to sum up my feelings for the album, the word count ballooned well past the “quick-hit” limit. I figured I could either keep wrestling with it or promote it to its own full album review and concentrate on getting this column out the door, which is what I did. So stay tuned for a full review of that album in the next couple days. (Spoiler alert: it’s phenomenal.)
Then, despite reviewing a whopping eight albums last week, I discovered this morning that I had missed that BEL, one of my favorite new artists of the last few years, dropped her debut full-length last week as well. Do I go back to that one? This column is supposed to cover this week’s releases! So I hemmed and hawed before deciding to postpone a full listen. But I am very excited to dig into that one.
And last but not least, after promoting McLamb to full review status, I was looking for one more album from this week to get us up to a round number with five reviews and picked Touch, the new album from post-rock mainstays Tortoise. I tried to stream it on my phone, but Apple Music, despite showing a release date of today, still had most of the songs grayed out on the mobile app. When I got home, I went to stream it on my laptop through the web interface and it worked, but the songs all seemed to stop abruptly—lo and behold, it’s only playing “previews” of the tracks (though those previews are all over a minute long?). Spotify shows the whole thing grayed out and a release date of November 11, but Bandcamp still shows the release date of today, but you have to buy the album to hear it. Is this album out or isn’t it? Who knows! But it’s not in this week’s column. The snippets that Apple Music deigned to play for me were pretty great so I may have to dig back into that one whenever it’s finally released.
Anyway! That’s a long way of saying here’s my thoughts on four new releases, in the order in which I listened to ‘em!
Katy & the Null Sets, Troublemaker (self-released): Katy Ohsiek dropped a four-song EP as Katy & the Null Sets back in 2020 before spending the last five years as singer for the Portland, Oregon-based band foamboy (a band that’s still an ongoing concern—they just dropped a new single on Wednesday). Backed by a band that includes some of her foamboy cohorts, Ohsiek has resurrected the Null Sets name for a musically adventurous new nine-song LP. Where foamboy has a kind of throwback ‘70s dancey, synth-driven vibe, Troublemaker is more insular in focus and guitar-based in practice: “F**k Me” opens the album with a Snail Mail-ish lo-fi stomp and second track “Last Time/Next Time” rocks a chill bossa nova groove that occasionally explodes into bursts of distorted guitar (a unique but very nice pairing). But then things quiet down considerably for a pair of slow, sad, acoustic songs (the stark, Nick Drake-ish “Cholorine” is particularly evocative). “I Wish I Had Met You in the Summer” is another highlight, returning to that same jazzy vibe as “Last Time/Next Time” but with more of an Elliott Smith indie folk twist. An impressive set of songs. Will I Listen Again?: Definitely.
The Lemonheads, Love Chant (Fire Records): It’s been a long wait if you’re a Lemonheads fan: Evan Dando’s last album of original material was the band’s self-titled album way back in 2006, and in the intervening 19 years all he’s released is two covers albums and two standalone singles. Love Chant drops amid an unexpected flurry of activity that also includes a new memoir (Rumors of My Demise, released earlier this month by Gallery Books) and an upcoming tour, which arrives in St. Louis on December 16 at Delmar Hall.
The Lemonheads lineup this time out features Dando, bassist Farley Glavin, and drummer John Kent, with co-writing collaborations and guest appearances by longtime cohorts like Juliana Hatfield, Tom Morgan, and J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.) alongside new friends like Erin Rae, Nick Saloman (The Bevis Frond), and Adam Green (The Moldy Peaches). “58 Second Song” (which, it should be noted, is 203 seconds long) kicks things off in the classic Lemonheads peppy power pop territory, “Deep End” is built on a woozy, lurching Dando guitar riff accented with a nice bluesy guitar solo from Mascis, the title track has an insistent British Invasion drive to it, and the intertwining acoustic guitars of “The Key of Victory” are quite pretty. “Togetherness Is All I’m After” (co-written with John Strohm of fellow ‘80s Boston alt-rock scene survivors the Blake Babies) is one of those great down-tempo and defeated Lemonheads songs, and features a particularly ripping lead guitar performance from Dando.
It wouldn’t be a Lemonheads album if those peaks weren’t joined by some valleys, though: “Cell Phone Blues” is a pretty blah blues number, and “Marauders” has a kitchen sink approach to its arrangement (double-tracked vocals, random injections of fuzzed-up organ and guitar solos) that never really gels, and that’s before Dando starts rapping about “Chicken, corned beef, ham, duck, and pigeon” for…some reason? On balance, it’s good to have Evan back, and there’s plenty of songs for him to pick from that I wouldn’t mind mixed in among the classics at Delmar Hall this December. Will I Listen Again?: Of course…I go on a Lemonheads kick every few months.
Hannah Jadagu, Describe (SubPop): Hannah Jadagu’s “Lose” was one of my favorite songs of 2023, and its accompanying album Aperture was a promising debut. For her sophomore album Describe, the NYC-based songwriter decamped to California, putting her romantic relationship on pause. Long distance longing is a theme for the album—on album highlight “More,” Jadagu sings “I’ve been five thousand miles away/ Why does three thousand feel like more?/ Telling you ‘Wish I could stay’/ With one foot almost out the door,” while on album closer “Bergamont” she repeats “Say you’ll keep me in your mind” like a mantra. The musical emphasis has shifted from guitars to synths this time out, the pace is slowed, and Jadagu’s voice is often heavily coated in reverb, all adding to the lovelorn vibe. Other highlights include the languorous guitar notes of “D.I.A.A.,” the way the massive drums kick in a minute into the short transitional piece “Perfect,” and the blippy, echo-drenched guitar pop of “My Love” that picks up the tempo at the album’s middle point. There are a couple of songs that skated by without grabbing my attention on the first listen (“Tell Me That!!!!,” “Normal Today”) but even those fit seamlessly into the album’s sonic milieu. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Meric Long, Kablooey (Polyvinyl): Meric Long’s best known as singer-guitarist for the San Francisco area duo The Dodos, a band that over 15 years and eight albums have made music that sounds like…well, they don’t exactly sound like The Shins, but they sound like the kind of band that the band that made the first Shins album could have developed into in another life, if that makes sense. For his first solo album, Long recorded during off hours at Tiny Telephone, the studio run by John Vanderslice where Long works as an engineer. The resulting album strips away the more ornate indie rock sound the Dodos often used for songs with high BPM beats but spacier lead instruments and vocals. At times the driving click-clack beats and garage guitars invoke the Strokes, but more often Long keeps things just a little off-kilter, sounding sort of like a modern DEVO with the agitation and weirdness dialed way down. Favorite tracks include “Split Decision,” “Exit Forward,” “Is This It,” and, for a change of pace, the appropriately titled album closer “Slowburn.” Will I Listen Again?: Probably.| Jason Green
