Photo of feeble little horse by Eve Alpert
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.
No column last week, so this column starts with a bit of catch-up from the two previous weeks that I wrote throughout the week. I had the bright idea to post some polls on Threads looking for what people were most interested in reading reviews of, but unfortunately I had this bright idea on Thursday then spent Friday digging through the brand-new releases from June 5. I thought about pushing through but this article is already eight reviews and over 2000 words so best to just cut it loose with what I’ve got. But that does mean my next column is obligated to include reviews of Violet Grohl, Paul McCartney, All Them Witches, and probably runners-up Guided by Voices and villagerrr if I get a chance in addition to the June 12 releases. No rest for the wicked, I suppose! Here’s what I’ve got for you this week, in the order in which I listened to ‘em:
Wynona Bleach, Animal Style (Propeller): Hit play on Belfast quartet Wynona Bleach’s latest album and it sounds so much like the 1990s that you’ll magically transform into that meme of Robin Williams in Jumanji shouting “What year is it?!” Seriously, if this album were released in 1997, it would have been aaallllll over The Point: Jonny Woods’ guitars are huge, soaring and blipping and bleeping like Failure, while Melyssa Shannon’s cool, coy vocals are reminiscent of Kelly Alli (formerly of Sneaker Pimps), though with a little more sass and a little less too-cool-for-school detachment. Fortunately, the album’s sound is not monolithic or formulaic—take “Not Cool With It,” which goes for even earlier ‘90s sound with that kind of funky alt-rock thing that was big in the UK as the ‘80s turned into the ‘90s (think a little Big Audio Dynamite, a little EMF). The album really hits is full stride in the rockier final four tracks, led by “Gonk,” a track with a title that’s fun to say out loud that plays like the Struts crossed with Republica with occasional blasts of just massive guitars. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Aja Monet, the color of rain (drink sum wtr): A few columns ago, I included a review of Dua Saleh’s Of Earth & Wires, highlighting the guest appearances by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, but also making an appearance on the album’s final track/mission statement “ALL IS LOVE” was Aja Monet, her warmly authoritative voice ending the album in a distinctively different sound than Saleh’s alien falsetto. Following up her 2023 Grammy-nominated debut when the poems do what they do, Monet is, indeed, a poet, and these are less songs than spoken readings of her poems. The gamechanger is she’s backed by a live band playing atmospheric R&B and free jazz, including some assistance from bass master Meshell Ndegeocello. With the musicality in Monet’s delivery, it’s a winning combination.
“every media minute” is the best example of Monet at her best: sonically mellow but fiercely political (“There’s a whole lot of religion/ but not enough god”) over a spacious arrangement of plinking piano and warm saxophone soloing. Other favorites include the warm call for connection “withless,” “love is a choosing” with its ethereal backing vocals from Mereba, and the way Monet’s measured delivery on “melting clocks” faces off against the more rapid-fire flow of guest rappers Mick Jenkins and Vic Mensa. The one song that didn’t hit for me: “song of myself,” where Monet’s voice is double-tracked, one of which is distorted like an anonymized interview on a bad talk show, an off-putting choice.
The material is often politically charged (one track aims at “republicoons and democrazies”) but always approachable: I’ll willingly admit I often don’t “get” poetry, but this is the kind of poetry you connect with immediately. The music is sometimes melodic, sometimes chaotic, but always in support of Monet’s words. If you’re looking for something a little different, I highly recommend this one. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
feeble little horse, bitknot (Saddle Creek): Pittsburgh’s feeble little horse announced an unexpected hiatus less than two weeks after the release of their 2023 sophomore album Girl with Fish, but that didn’t stop the album’s gnarly, shoegaze-y single “Steamroller” from becoming the band’s breakthrough. Though the band did sporadic touring stints throughout the intervening years, they gave no indication that a new album was forthcoming until they surprise-announced the existence of bitknot just a few days prior to its release.
Slimmed down from their original quartet lineup after the departure of guitarist Ryan Walchonski last year, the new trio lineup features singer Lydia Slocum, drummer Jake Kelley, and Sebastian Kinsler packing the rest of the sonics with guitars, bass, and drums. If you liked “Steamroller,” you’ll find more of that song’s mix of gauzy vocals and churning shoegaze guitars, but there’s more at play here too, with other tunes that bring to mind the effortless cool groove of Stereolab, or still more with gentle almost-acoustic sounds.
Whereas Girl with Fish was often purposeful in its abrasive weirdness, bitknot is sweeter, and goes for eclecticism instead. That eclecticism is its big selling point: there are a lot of interesting avenues to explore on bitknot, much more than what can be readily drawn from a couple of initial listens. This feels like an album to keep coming back to and dig deeper. Add this one to the list of the best albums of 2026, and add their upcoming appearance July 26 at Off Broadway to your concert calendar. Will I Listen Again?: Absolutely.
Death Cab for Cutie, I Built You a Tower (Anti-): Our Margo Lemley checked in with her “complicated” opinions on the new Death Cab for Cutie, and while I agree with most everything she says, my own thoughts are a lot less conflicted: I like it a lot, and at first blush, I think it’s the best of the three albums released with the band’s current quintet lineup. As much as I adore the band’s first six albums, I’ve had a much spottier appreciation for its last decade. The single “Riptides” felt very much like the kind of song DCFC have released as singles in the post-Codes & Keys era so I was expecting more of the same, but luckily album #11 has a much wider-ranging sound and some of the more compellingly written songs of their recent output.
Ben Gibbard is at his best when he’s at his most lovelorn, and grappling with his recent divorce has resulted in a set of heartfelt, introspective songs on what happened and where his life is going. His personal life has the biggest effect on “Punching the Flowers,” a song about punching flowers and slamming doors set to appealingly aggressive guitars that features one of his most devastating lyrics yet: “And I’m not sure which is worse/ If it was love or it wasn’t.” “Pep Talk” and “I Built You a Tower (a)” follow with the kind of circling, hypnotic guitar figures that used to be DCFC’s main mode but haven’t been heard much since the days of 2001’s The Photo Album. (The former also has a lyric so perfect it jumps right out of the speakers at you: “My past is a whisky glass tipping down a drunkard’s throat/ I can’t claim I was ever ashamed when I drank the antidote.”) The album does have a few slower songs (including acoustic opener “Full of Stars”) that didn’t grab me as much, though “Trap Door” is a solid addition in that vein; it almost sounds like the War on Drugs with its steady, insistent beat and layers of synth loops and piano and guitar strums. “I Built You a Tower (b)” sends the album off in grand fashion with its gradually escalating guitar squall. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Modest Mouse, An Eraser and a Maze (Glacial Pace Recordings): An Eraser and a Maze is the first Modest Mouse album in five years, but more importantly, it’s the first since the sudden death of founding drummer Jeremiah Green in 2022 after a brief battle with cancer. Death looms large on the album’s front half, with bandleader Isaac Brock singing to his children about his own mortality on “Remember Yourself” (“Sometime I’ll be dead and gone/ Yeah, sooner than I hope, but I hope I’m wrong”) over a folky acoustic guitar figure, struggling with survivor’s guilt and fading memories of Green in “Third Side of the Moon,” and channeling George Harrison on the strummy dirge “Dogbed in Heaven.”
After a brief interlude, though, the album resets, and the back half explores more varying emotions and more varying sonic textures. The songs also get shorter, with several not even breaking the two-minute mark; “Song About Nothing,” in particular, is a weird, paranoid treat, Brock singing “This is a song about nothing, sing along” with varying levels of agitation as if he’s trying to his best to believe it. “Look How Far…” is a late album highlight, and probably the song most likely to slide into Good News for People Who Love Bad News undetected. There hasn’t been a Modest Mouse album yet that didn’t grow in my estimation with repeated listens, and there’s enough good here to make it worth of further exploration. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
of Montreal, Aethermead (Polyvinyl): Death Cab, Modest Mouse, and of Montreal all released their first albums in fairly close succession during 1996-1997, but while the former two only released 11 and 8 albums respectively in the following three decades, of Montreal are now on album number 20, and bandleader Kevin Barnes remains as restless as ever. This time out, Barnes eschews the band’s usual freaky, funky indie rock for acoustic baroque pop in the vein of the Kinks or the Left Banke. The reason for the switch: the end of an eight-year relationship and the freedom Barnes felt after fleeing to New York City after an ill-advised move to rural Vermont. The lyrics are surprisingly forthright for the typically cryptic Barnes (“Surely you knew me well enough to know that I’d want to be a star in New York not a hick in Vermont,” they sing in the album closer “Dismissal Mosaics”), but the honesty works, particularly on album highlight “Now We Cringe at the Thought,” a laundry list of the ways they tried to save the relationship that seem like bad ideas in hindsight. The song features a nice build in energy from quiet and pensive to a garage-y clang on the chorus. The rest of the album tends to the contemplative side except for “When,” which injects some funky horniness into the proceedings (but also kinda sticks out like a sore thumb). Will I Listen Again?: Maybe.
Mr. Dinkles, R.I.P.T. (futureless): Divorce, death, heartbreak…how about some music about something happy for a change…like, say, politics? Don’t worry, this isn’t some dry political diatribe—L.A./Seattle duo Mr. Dinkles have their snark meter cranked all the way up. “Socialism Ditty” opens the five-song EP with singer-guitarist Mac Rettig’s delivering her lyrics with tongue planted firmly in cheek (the best thing to do with your money, rich guy? “Give it to me!”), the sneering “Eat Chips and Talk Shit” is an album highlight and mission statement, and “Letter to Elon” is a brutal takedown of a much-deserving target. “Grinding My Teeth” and “IDRW” (as in “I Don’t Really Wanna”) come from a uniquely Gen Z perspective, capturing a portrait of life trying to survive making art in the age of late-stage capitalism. As a duo, Rettig and drummer Rocco Ramos keep things simple but not simplistic, raw but not amateurish, and drill-in-your-brain catchy, conjuring memories of Sleater-Kinney, Le Tigre, and Ida Maria without sounding exactly like any of them. It’s just 13 minutes, but man, is it a great 13 minutes. Will I Listen Again?: Hell yes.
Petty Grievances, Petty Party (self-released): A couple weeks ago, I fell down a local band internet rabbit hole and discovered, much to my excitement, that Scott Randall (lead singer of Belleville, Illinois’ finest alt-rock band of the 1990s, Fragile Porcelain Mice) had a new band, Petty Grievances, and that band had a brand-new album coming out just a few weeks later. Now that it’s here, even more exciting news: it’s pretty great!
Petty Grievances sounds less like the Fugazi-plus-kinda-like-Korn-but-before-Korn-even-existed sound of FPM and more like the full-tilt punk and hardcore of Bad Brains and Damaged-era Black Flag. Time has done little to dull Randall’s trademark bark or his skill at catchy sloganeering. Highlights include “Projection” (sung from the perspective of a dipshit who whines that “everything I hate is woke”) and “Temper Tantrum” (with the all-time great refrain “You’re not canceled, just an asshole”). Unfortunately, the only local show on Petty Grievance’s current concert calendar is the very night I’m writing this and the day before I’m posting it, an album release show at Heavy Anchor, but keep an eye on their Facebook page as Petty Party makes it clear this is a band you gotta see live. Will I Listen Again?: Definitely. | Jason Green
