Clipping - There Existed an Addiction to Blood (Sub Pop)

If first person confessionals historically reign, the LA trio have spent the last half decade terraforming their own patch of soil, replete with conceptual labyrinths and industrial chaos. Conjuring a mutant emanation of the future, built at odd angles atop the hallowed foundation of the past. This is their transmutation of horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist sub-genre that flourished in the 90s. If some of its most notable pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung & Gravediggaz, it also encompasses seminal works from the Geto Boys, Bone Thugs, and the near-all of Memphis cassette tape rap. They absorb the hyper-violent horror tropes of the Murder Dog era, but re-imagines them in a new light: still darkly-tinted and somber, but in a weirder and more vivid hue.

Floating Points - Crush (Ninja Tune)

Since he emerged as one of the standout DJs at the London club Plastic People in the late aughts, Sam Shepherd, who makes slow-building, deliberate electronic music as Floating Points, has become known for his precision, his musical knowledge and his modesty. "Elaenia," his 2015 debut album, took five years to make. This album is significantly harsher and heavier than his earlier music. Several songs dwell on Shepherd's anger about the destruction of the planet. "Crush" gave him his own canvas for political expression.

Battles - Juice B Crypts (Warp)

Battles return to follow their complex, mind-bending predecessors Mirrored, Gloss Drop and La Di Da Di. Their latest album is a sensory overload of information that throws everything you thought you knew about Battles into flux once again. Battles redefined line-up puts Ian Williams (Keys, Electronics) and John Stanier (Drums) at the core of the covertly named album, which was produced and mixed by Chris Tabron (Trash Talk, Mobb Deep, Ratking). Marrying synthesizer loops, cut-throat drum patterns and cyclical riffs, the album flirts with new technology, questions of authenticity and the technicalities of reinventing the wheel at the 11th hour.

Jimmy "Duck" Holmes - Cypress Grove (Easy Eye)

72-year-old bluesman Jimmy "Duck" Holmes' new album, the Dan Auerbach produced "Cypress Grove," captures the raw, explosive sound of real Mississippi Juke-Joint Blues today. An aural postcard of a typical Saturday night at Holmes' Blue Front Café, America's longest operating juke joint. The album is anchored by tradition — which is natural, since Holmes is the last of the original torchbearers of the rural style known as Bentonia blues— but it's also explosive, raw, and unpredictably in the moment. Featuring an all-star cast of players including Auerbach, Marcus King, Eric Deaton and Sam Bacco, as well as Holmes' repertoire of songs spanning nearly a century.

GA-20 - Lonely Soul (Karma Chief/Colemine)

GA-20 was formed by friends Pat Faherty and Matthew Stubbs in Boston, MA in 2018. The project was born out of their mutual love of heavy traditional Blues, R&B, and Rock & Roll of the late 50s and early 60s. They bonded over legendary artists like Lazy Lester, J.B. Lenoir, Earl Hooker, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush and Junior Wells. The duo have set out to write, record and perform a modern version of this beloved art form. Live, GA-20 is a trio of 2 guitars, vocals and drums. Raw, passionate and honest performance, both on stage and in the studio, is the only goal.

Corridor - Junior (Sub Pop)

The Montreal band had barely inked their record deal when they went into studio, racing against time to make a dazzling, immediate and inventive album - darting & dodging guitars, spiraling vocal harmonies, and the complicated, goldenrod nostalgia of a Sunday afternoon. Singers, 2 guitars, bass, drums: the timelessness of the setup underpins the timelessness of the sound, a rock'n'roll borrowing from each of the past 6 decades— punk & pop, psych & jangle, daydream & swoon. This is music that's muscular, exciting and full of love, its riffs a kind of medicine. Junior is a joy, a hasty miracle, because it's so much damn fun to listen to.

The Muffs - No Holiday (Omnivore)

Kim Shattuck, the singer / guitarist who led the SoCal punk band the Muffs alongside contributions to Pixies and NOFX, died in early October at the age of 56 from ALS. No Holiday, their first new album in 5 years, is a celebration of everything the band has always stood for, and continues to be. Bassist Ronnie Barnett says "I think this new album represents the depth of our band like none of our others. It could have easily been aptly called The Many Moods Of The Muffs. All of our strengths: melody, big rock, sweetness, nastiness . . . All on display and readily apparent."

Bodega - Shiny New Model (Whats Your Rupture)

This is a much bigger, sleeker Bodega than we heard on their terrific 2018 album, Endless Scroll, though the themes of alienation and encroaching technology remain, as do their way with hooks. With wild minimalism and laughing wit, they revitalize the rock and roll vocabulary under the influence of post punk, hip-hop, kraut rock, and folk-derived narrative songwriting. Channeling everyone from Talking Heads to ESG, BODEGA remain as giddy and funked-up as ever. And on this highly danceable new addition they barely make a mis-step.

Also New This Week

Alter Bridge - Walk the Sky (Napalm)
Ariel View - Until My Lungs Are Cleared (Epitaph)
Ali Barter - Hello, I'm Doing My Best (PIAS)
Bruno Bavota - Get Lost (Temporary Residence)
Blacker Face - Distinctive Juju (Sooper)
Bremer/McCoy - Utopia (Luaka Bop)
John Carpenter - Halloween: Expanded Edition (Sacred Bones)
Common Holly - When I Say To You Black Lightning (Barsuk)
The Cure - 40 Live Curaetion 25 + Anniversary DVD (Eagle Rock)
Leon Dinero - If You Ask Me 7" (Daptone)
Foals - Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Pt 2 (Warner)
Nils Frahm - All Encores (Erased Tapes)
Garcia Peoples - One Step Behind (Beyond Beyond)
Kevin Griffin - Anywhere You Go (The End)
Fred Hersch Trio - Ten Years (Palmetto)
HXXS - Year of the Witch (Captured Tracks)
If/Then - Kids (self)
Jim James + Louisville Orchestra - The Order of Nature (Decca)
Jimmy Eat World - Surviving (RCA)
Cody Jinks - The Wanting (Late August)
Durand Jones & the Indications - Morning in America 7" (Colemine)
Mark Korven - The Lighthouse OST (Sacred Bones)
Mark Lanegan Band - Somebody's Knocking (PIAS)
Louvin Brothers - Love & Wealth: The Lost Recordings (Modern Harmonic)
The Magpie Salute - High Water II (Eagle Rock)
Idina Menzel - Christmas : A Season of Love (Decca)
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Souvenir 3LP (Republic)
Rachel & Vilray - s/t (Nonesuch)
Refused - War Music LP (Spinefarm)
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Four (Constellation)
Saariselka - The Ground Our Sky (Temporary Residence)
Screaming Females - Singles Too (Don Giovanni)
Sorry Girls - Deborah (Arbutus)
Third Eye Blind - Screamer (Mega Collider)
1349 - The Infernal Pathway (Season of Mist)