Happy October! The beginning of spooky season means we ran down the best punk, rap, and indie (basement) of September, and a new week also means a new load of great new albums. I highlight 9 below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including A. Savage (Parquet Courts), Peter Brewis (Field Music), Vanishing Twin, Axis: Sova, Adulkt Life (Huggy Bear, Male Bonding), Creation Rebel, EXEK, and more.

On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Drake, Rick Astley, Keanue Reeves’ band Dogstar’s first album in 20+ years, Michael C. Hall’s band Princess Goes, Glasser, Short Fictions, The David Tattersall Group (The Wave Pictures), The Rural Alberta Advantage, Mutual Benefit, Bewilder, Hannah Diamond, Tré Burt, Mansions, The Keening (ex-SubRosa), Truth Club, Jolie Holland, Kool Keith, Wiz Khalifa, Maiya the Don, Elcamino & Black Soprano Family, Stiff Meds, SATÓN, Butcher Brown, P.E., Slauson Malone 1, BCMC (Bitchin Bajas, Bill MacKay), Daniel Villarreal, Prong, Joey Nebulous, Aho Ssan, Hunny, Jason Hawk Harris, Sam Gendel & Marcella Cytrynowicz, Putrascension, Xorsist, Meernaa, Hello June, Leo Takami, John R. Miller, Tele Novella, Jeremy Dutcher, Adeline Hotel, Lufthaus, Pangaea, Baby Queen, Call Super, cEvin Key, Carrtoons, Mitch Rowland, the Church Girls EP, the Omar Apollo EP, the Georgia Gets By (of BROODS) EP, the Wrong Man EP, the Heatmiser comp, the Paramore remix album, the latest Joni Mitchell Archives release, the latest John Carpenter Anthology release, Roger Waters’ re-imagined version of The Dark Side of the Moon, and the expanded/streaming edition of Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist’s Voir Dire (which I reviewed the original version of).

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Sufjan Stevens – Javelin
Asthmatic Kitty

The way Sufjan Stevens asks “Will anybody ever love me?” on the titular refrain of Javelin‘s lead single is so instant-classic that it’s almost hard to believe it’s coming nearly 25 years into his career. It’s plaintive yet hair-raising, and it sets the tone for the rest of Javelin, which features nine of the most gorgeously intimate songs that Sufjan has ever written and a lovely re-imagining of Neil Young’s “There’s A World.” It’s a return to the more quiet, personal side of Sufjan’s songwriting, after he employed synthesizers and took a look at the crumbling world around him on 2020’s The Ascension, but also fleshed out by arrangements that recall the grander moments of records like Come on Feel the Illinoise and The Age of Adz. In some moments, you can hear a pin drop. In others, there are sweeping strings, choral harmonies (from Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Megan Lui, and/or Nedelle Torrisi), clamoring explosions, or guest guitars by The National’s Bryce Dessner on an eight-and-a-half minute song called “Shit Talk.” It’s an album that gets more and more rewarding with each listen and it already feels like yet another triumphant masterwork from a songwriter whose catalog is full of them. It also arrives just two weeks after Sufjan revealed the news that he was diagnosed with Guillian-Barre Syndrome, an auto immune disorder that left him temporarily unable to walk. He’s currently on the long path to recovery and we’re hoping for more good news, but meanwhile, both this album and the GBS diagnosis serve as a reminder that Sufjan should never be taken for granted. He’s been one of the most impactful singer/songwriters of his generation for a long time, and he still has so much more to say.

Citizen – Calling The Dogs
Run For Cover

Citizen never make the same album twice–sometimes to the confusion or even dismay of their fanbase–but in the 10 years since they released their classic debut LP Youth, it’s become clear that Citizen aren’t changing things up just for the sake of doing the unexpected; they’re building a fruitful catalog that makes more and more sense as they go on. There are stylistic elements that make each album stand out from the others, but also a strong identity that makes every album sound like Citizen and no other band. Citizen aren’t just Youth, they aren’t just an emo or post-hardcore band; they’re everything that they’ve been over the past decade, and Calling The Dogs feels like a culmination of everything they’ve ever done, as well as another step forward.

It often seems like just when Citizen’s fanbase has finally caught up with the band’s latest stylistic departure, they’re already onto the next one, but Calling The Dogs feels like it’s gonna be very rewarding for the fans that have stuck with them the whole time, and hopefully rope in some new ones or pull some old fans back in. It touches on almost everything they’ve ever done, from their hardcore roots to sunny power pop to jittery dance-punk to fuzzed-out garage punk, all done in a way that feels both new and distinctly-Citizen. It’s loaded with hook-fueled songs that sound like they could’ve been singles, and it’s the warmest-sounding Citizen album yet, thanks in part to its analog-friendly producer Rob Schnapf. Best known for working with Elliott Smith, Schnapf is also really great at helping punk bands make prettier records. That’s been true for everyone from Saves The Day to Joyce Manor to Angel Du$t, and now it’s true for Citizen too.

For more on this album, listen to our new podcast episode with Citizen. We’ve also got an exclusive blue/red swirl vinyl variant available now, limited to 400.

Open City – Hands in the Honey Bar
Get Better Records

The members of Philly punk band Open City have all been in multiple beloved bands over the years–to name a few, vocalist Rachel Rubino fronted Bridge and Tunnel (and very recently did guest lead vocals for On The Might of Princes); guitarist Dan Yemin is of Paint It Black, Lifetime, and Kid Dynamite; bassist Andy Nelson is also of Paint It Black, as well as Ceremony; and drummer Chris Wilson is of Ted Leo + the Pharmacists and Titus Andronicus–but Open City never rests on the laurels of “members of.” Like all of those other aforementioned bands, Open City are a force of their own, and their sophomore album Hands in the Honey Jar is a masterful hardcore and post-hardcore album. It’s their second album but first written collaboratively with Rachel, who joined after the music for the band’s 2017 debut LP had already been written, and it pulls Open City’s wide array of influences–Swiz, the Faith/Void split, Lungfish, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Chain of Strength, Embrace, Pissed Jeans, and a lot of others–into something that stands on its own, separate from all of Open City’s forebears and the members’ other well-known bands. It’s a dark, menacing record, with both personal and politically/socially conscious lyrics that really mean something. It gets better with every listen, and knowing the intriguing context behind these songs only makes the album hit even harder, so we’re very grateful that all four band members took the time to give us an extensive track-by-track breakdown.

R.A.P. Ferreira – ASIATIQUE BLACK WIZARD LILY FUNK
Ruby Yacht

Earlier this week, experimental rapper R.A.P. Ferreira surprise-released ASIATIQUE BLACK WIZARD LILY FUNK, an eight-song, 19-minute, one-track album that was recorded in seven days less than a month ago, and which may not even be the final version of the album. A vinyl release is on the way, and R.A.P. Ferreira says the record “may undergo an update” before that happens. If you download the current digital version, you’ll automatically get the updated digital files emailed to you if and when they exist. It’s exciting to get something so instantly after it was recorded, something that might even technically be unfinished, and the record as it currently stands is great. Production largely came from either Bullies of the Boulevard (aka vast.ness, brainweight and R.A.P. Ferreira himself under his scallops hotel guise) or vast.ness himself, except for “jayve steers the night shift,” which features and was produced by Abstract Black. (The album’s only two other guests are Pink Navel and ELDON.) The production varies between roaming jazz passages, abstract soundscapes, and a little head-nod-inducing boom bap, and the rapping is just as mind-bending as the musical backdrop. Releasing it as one continuous track suits it well; this is music to immerse yourself in.

Mil-Spec – Marathon
Lockin’ Out

Mil-Spec have been relatively quiet since releasing their excellent debut LP World House three years ago, but now the Toronto band are back with their sophomore LP Marathon. Like the debut, it finds Mil-Spec delivering melodic hardcore in the lineage of anything from 7Seconds to Dag Nasty to Turning Point, and it finds them continuing to push forward, with a blend of emotion, passion, and aggression that makes these songs feel timeless. The record was co-produced with Ned Russin of Title Fight and Glitterer and mixed and mastered by the very busy Arthur Rizk, and it features guest vocals from Brandon MacFarlane of Wild Side and Danielle Clark of 9 Million. The band says that “if the record is ‘about’ anything, it’s what French academics call the longue durée — taking the maximally long view of what’s happening in our lives and the world.” Of its ten songs, nine are impactful hardcore rippers, and the penultimate song is a hypnotic electronic track with a spoken word monologue by vocalist Andrew Peden’s wife Sophie Vallée that recounts Mil-Spec’s trip to Dallas in January 2020 to play Power Trip’s Evil Beat festival, which would end up being the last time they’d ever see Riley Gale. It’s a powerful song, and it makes the heavier songs and the overarching theme of this album hit even harder.

Capra – Errors
Metal Blade

Louisiana hardcore band Capra are back with a followup to their 2021 LP In Transmission, and it quite literally picks up where its predecessor left off. “If you listen to the last song from In Transmission into the first song on Errors, it’s a continuation,” guitarist Tyler Harper says. “From there the album steers off into a direction that still feels similar, but is new.” The new LP channels similar metallic yet tuneful influences to the ones the band cited on their debut (Every Time I Die, Converge, Comeback Kid), and vocalist Crow Lotus’ jagged, forceful delivery and lyrical sincerity makes Errors stand out from Capra’s musical forebears. It also features some cool guests; Walls Of Jericho vocalist Candace Kucsulain-Puopolo appears on “Human Commodity” and Dustin Coffman of Glassing did backing vocals on a handful of songs.

Svalbard – The Weight Of The Mask
Nuclear Blast

UK band Svalbard have followed 2020’s When I Die, Will It Get Better? with The Weight of the Mask, and lead screamer Serena Cherry says “if the previous record was about facing your demons, then The Weight of The Mask is about fighting them with everything you’ve got.” It is indeed a very hard-hitting, angry album, and like its predecessor, it can’t be pigeonholed into any one particular genre. It fuses elements of crust punk, black metal, post-rock, metalcore, and more, and it’s topped off with glossy production that adds a sleek exterior to all the aggression and darkness.

Mary Lattimore – Goodbye, Hotel Arkada
Ghostly International

Harpist and ambient musician Mary Lattimore says the songs on her new album make her think of “fading flowers in vases, melted candles, getting older,” among other things, and that’s perfect stage-setting imagery for Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, which induces the hazy feeling of something slowly drifting away. It has two guest vocalists–folk singer Meg Baird on the opening track and Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell on the closer–both of whom give wordless performances that are just as meditative as the instrumentation. Other contributors include The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst on keyboards, accordion player Walt McClements, guitarist Roy Montgomery, and violin from Samara Lubelski. It’s no secret that Mary Lattimore is a master at this kind of thing, but it remains remarkable that something so quiet and minimal can engulf you every time.

Snag / Coma Regalia – MMXXIII
Middle-Man Records

Coma Regalia have been staples of the DIY screamo scene for over a decade, and band leader Edie Quinn has been helping shape the genre for even longer than that, and Snag are one of the genre’s most exciting newer bands. On MMXXIII, they’ve come together for a split LP. Both bands adhere the raw, harsh version of screamo pioneered in the ’90s by Ebullition Records and Level Plane bands, and the record is loaded with ear-catching moments that break up all the noise–the slithering instrumental patterns that bookend Snag’s “On the Human Condition,” the gentle guitar arpeggios and awakebutstillinbed guest vocals on Snag’s “A Familiar Feeling,” the rough-yet-soaring clean vocals sprinkled throughout Coma Regalia’s half. Both bands put their own spins on things, and it makes for a record with two distinct halves that go together exceptionally well.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including A. Savage (Parquet Courts), Peter Brewis (Field Music), Vanishing Twin, Axis: Sova, Adulkt Life (Huggy Bear, Male Bonding), Creation Rebel, EXEK, and more.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive or scroll down for previous weeks.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episode with Citizen.

Also, BrooklynVegan launched pre-orders for its first-ever special edition 80-page magazine, which tells the career-spanning story of Alexisonfire and comes on its own or paired with our new exclusive AOF box set and/or individual reissues. Pick up yours in the BV shop.