Photo of Whisper Doll by Riley Nalatova
First Thought Fridays is a (mostly) weekly column offering quick-hit takes on some of the albums released this week (or at least semi-recently), 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.
This week’s entries start with two new-to-me bands dropping their sophomore albums (one of whom is one of my favorite discoveries of the year), but the rest is bands I’ve known about for a long time, bands whose careers and most well-regarded releases date back to the 1990s, but for whom my direct knowledge was fairly limited. As a result, I spent this week not only listening to these bands but also digging back through their discographies—my favorite kind of spelunking expedition! Here’s what I checked out this week, in the order in which I listened to ‘em:
Whisper Doll, Lucky Clover (Take Care Records): Sometimes a song just leaps right out of the speakers at you. That was the case for me as I was doing some yardwork while listening to the always excellent Crumble Radio by your friend and mine, longtime KWUR host and Vintage Vinyl mainstay Tony “DJ Crumble” Renner, when the gorgeous opening riff of “Bluebells” chimed into my ears. I immediately dropped what I was doing to see who it was, followed immediately by “Huh? Who the heck is Whisper Doll and why have I never heard of them before?!”
Well! Whisper Doll started life as the solo project of Atlanta’s Fiona Tagami, and she released an album under the name in 2024. Since then, she’s fleshed out Whisper Doll to a four-piece band and crafted her sophomore follow-up, Lucky Clover, and the results are simply stunning. Those chiming dreampop guitars (courtesy of Tagami and Maya Lagman) pair beautifully with Tagami’s yearning, girlish vocals for a timeless sound that’s equal parts The Sundays and Sunday (1994). (Tagami also lists Mazzy Star and the Cranberries as influences, and you can most definitely hear them in the mix as well.)
I’ll be honest: two songs in particular, “Bluebells” and “Sunsigns,” tower above the rest of the record as some of my absolute favorite tracks of the year so far. But the rest of the album is still very, very good, every song a solid A behind those two A-plus-pluses. Let me put it this way: as I write this particular entry, I listened to this album for the first time this morning, and I’m currently listening to it front-to-back for the fourth time today. Simply gorgeous stuff. Will I Listen Again?: Absolutely. I mean, obviously, right?
The Crystal Teardrop, Love You More (Rise Above Records): If you’re looking for something a bit more on the trippy side, then turn on, tune in, and drop the needle on Love You More, the psychedelic sophomore release from UK quintet the Crystal Teardrop. This album is like a portal to the swingin’ Sixties, from the psych-powered garage rock grooves of the Peanut Butter Conspiracy to the Byrds-ian guitar jangle to Alexandra Rose’s girl-group-inspired vocals, while things take a turn toward the lysergic on the slowed-down, sitar-soaked album closer “Touch the Sun.” Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Cujo, Paranova (Nomark): Similar to my dive into Thievery Corporation a few months ago, I saw this album in the new release list and took it as a good reason to check in with prolific electronica artist Amon Tobin for the first time. This is something of a landmark release for the Brazilian-born, English-raised producer and DJ: it’s his second album ever released under the name Cujo, the moniker he hasn’t used since his very first release, Adventures in Foam, released 30 years ago this year. Like all of Tobin’s output in recent years, these tracks originally appeared one at a time as part of his Nomark Records subscription service, but are collected and now available as a set to a wider audience for the first time.
Where that original Cujo album was a tad overstuffed (77 minutes in its original configuration, nearly two hours in the reissue currently available to stream, and overflowing with disparate sonic ideas), Paranova is more tightly focused, Tobin’s approach more refined. He still leans into his signature trip-hop sound of pounding breakbeats and haunting, ominous synthesizers; it’s a very cinematic sound that reminded me at times of the Dust Brothers’ Fight Club score (no wonder the guy has done a bunch of movie and video game soundtracks). The beats are particularly well done: dial in on the drums and notice how ornate and busy they are without ever tipping over to overwhelming—instead, they’re downright hypnotic. Tobin slows things down on a pair of tunes that explore the nu jazz side that has been present in his work since the beginning: the spacy “Early for Clink Street” and the weirder, woozier album closer “The Loneliest Monk.” The latter is a fascinating sonic experiment where the piano chords are just ever so slightly dissonant and the drums keep trying to lurch to life but (purposefully) don’t ever quite get there. I don’t know Tobin’s catalog enough to rate where this ranks within his discography, but I can say it’s a great listen. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Shiner, The Y Section (Spartan Records): Kansas City space rock quartet Shiner made their fans wait 19 long years for a follow-up to their 2001 epic The Egg, which is wild when you consider the wealth of excellent tunes they had hiding on limited releases. The Y Section finally collects ten of these rarities from the band’s initial run, moving chronologically through “Crush” ( from a 1994 Shiner/Molly McGuire split 7”) through other 7” singles, the two bonus tracks from the Japanese edition of The Egg (“Dirty Jazz” and “I’ll Leave Without You”), and closing with a cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “Only Shallow” from the obscure 2002 Grand Theft Autumn label comp Soak Your Shoes in Red Wine & Strike the Angels Dumb. Far from mere castoffs, these tracks are as strong as anything they released in that era, with those last three tracks being particularly excellent. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Teenage Fanclub, Do Not Dare to Dream (Merge): Teenage Fanclub made a name for themselves in the early ‘90s with nuggets like “The Contest” and “What You Do To Me” that married the pristine power pop of Big Star with the scuzzy, distorted guitars of the then-present alt-rock explosion. Three decades later, any semblance of scuzz has been burnished away, leaving the songs of Do Not Dare to Dream as pure, crisp, glistening classicist pop.
My ear, though, misses the scuzz: the songs all shuffle along at mid-tempo, all folky guitar strums and sunny vocal harmonies over a stately, unfussy rhythm section. The song- and studio-craft is impressive and the songs have hooky elements, but only a couple of songs (“The Same Air,” “Take Time”) really snagged me. If you like clean, crisp, ‘60s-folk-rock-inspired pop, you’ll probably find a lot to like here. For me, it was a pleasant enough listen, but ultimately just “okay.” Will I Listen Again?: Maybe
Imperial Teen, All Over You (Merge): Speaking of “Teen” bands big in the 1990s! Imperial Teen was a side project led by Faith No More bassist Roddy Bottum, but instead of that band’s funk metal and genre-agnostic weirdness, Imperial Teen offered up cheeky, twisted alt-pop songs as exemplified by their biggest hit, “Yoo Hoo” (as immortalized in the 1999 film Jawbreaker starring Rose McGowan, who also appeared in the song’s music video). This album, the band’s first in seven years, is basically the polar opposite of the Teenage Fanclub album above: the music is relentless giddy, carefully constructed but still rough around the edges, and filled with effervescent boy-girl vocal tradeoffs. It plays a bit like the quirky alt-rock of the Rentals filtered through the bubbly Elephant Six power pop of the Apples in Stereo. Such a fun listen. Will I Listen Again?: Yes. | Jason Green
