STACK #239 September 2024

MUSIC FEATURE

visit jbhifi.com.au/stack WHAT’S OUT Whether it’s a voyage of musical discovery or a sonic reacquaintance with a favourite band or artist, check out these fresh releases heading to JB this month.

EDITOR’S PICK THE RUBENS SODA IVY LEAGUE Menangle’s finest band – the biggest Aussie group featuring three brothers since INXS – follow their chart-topping fourth album 0202 with another winning collection of pop-rock tunes, where they confront the fact that they’ve now entered veteran status with the cheeky line: “And the man in the mirror looking old as f-ck.” And then in Good Mood , they reflect: “All you want is the old me.” But why change a winning formula? “Flat soda’s all we got now,” Sam Margin sings. But this SODA pops.

BRIGHT EYES Five Dice, All Threes DEAD OCEANS/ ROCKET

MIRANDA LAMBERT Postcards from Texas UNIVERSAL Miranda Lambert

NADA SURF Moon Mirror NEW WEST/ MGM More than three decades after they

Bright Eyes – the indie rock band from Omaha, Nebraska, led by Conor Oberst – have had just one Top 40 album in

doesn’t hold back in Wranglers , where a woman scorned sets fire to her ex’s belongings

formed, America’s Nada Surf have made it to album number ten. If

including his Wrangler jeans. But the country star’s tenth album is actually a musical love letter to her home state of Texas. Though it includes a track called I Hate Love Songs , it also features a song that Lambert wrote with hubby Brendan McLoughlin, a New York City cop.

you dug Nada Surf back in 1996 when they released Popular , you’ll still love ’em now as they continue to mix power pop and alternative rock. Singer Matthew Caws says, “I’m just trying to stay honest and take my best guess at making sense of the world.” KATY PERRY 143 UNIVERSAL As Katy Perry gets set to bring her fireworks to her seventh album, a joyful and poptastic set of songs. The title is what she calls her “angel number”. “I started seeing 143 in many different ways,” she explains. “I looked it up and it’s code for ‘I love you’.” REX ORANGE COUNTY The Alexander Technique SONY Rex Orange County (real name Alexander O’Connor) is just 26, but The Alexander Technique sees the English artist dig deep. “It’s very much a look into my own brain and experiences over the last few years,” he says. “It’s almost like a diary.” Includes a collab with James Blake, Look Me in the Eyes . the AFL Grand Final and then celebrate her 40th birthday, she’s releasing he’s already releasing his fifth studio album.

Australia, but they are a much-loved group. Their 11th studio set comes with all the Bells and Whistles and includes cameos by Cat Power and The National’s Matt Berninger. NELLY FURTADO 7 UNIVERSAL Twenty-four years after high. She says her seventh studio album, 7 – her first album in seven years – is like a fashion collection. “Fashion collections don’t really have titles,” she points out, “they’re just called collection number ten or 21. This is my collection seven.” THE JESUS LIZARD Rack UNIVERSAL Rack is the first album in 26 years for cacophonous first single, Hide & Seek – with “nearly as many hooks as a Mike Tyson fight”, according to singer David Yow – will transport you straight back to the mid-’90s when alternative rock ruled. her Grammy-winning debut hit I’m Like a Bird , Canada’s Nelly Furtado is still flying American noise rock legends The Jesus Lizard. The

LONDON GRAMMAR The Greatest Love SONY

English trio London Grammar topped the Australian charts with their 2021 album Californian Soil . But all

that is in the past, with the group explaining that their fourth album sees them “celebrate a new chapter, and hone in on a newfound sense of freedom”. “This is my place, my house, my rules,” Hannah Reid declares in lead single House . MERCURY REV Born Horses BELLA UNION/ ROCKET America’s Mercury Rev have been together since 1989. Their first album in five years – their first of original music in nine years – sees frontman Jonathan Donahue narrating the proceedings. The result is powerful and poignant. “Everyone I thought I had lost I keep finding again,” he states.

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