BEST OF THE REST

Other new releases out this month.

Ewan MacFarlane ROYALE STAG

Always Everlong Sparking with triumphant Wah! exuberance, the former Apollo 440/ Grim Northern Social frontman channels his inner Tom Petty to excellent effect. The Scottish Neil Diamond that no one knew we needed. 8/10

Scattered Hamlet BAD MOON

Stereo Overthrow Like a backwoods Zodiac Mindwarp force-fed through a surly

brat filter, Appalachian quartet Scattered Hamlet boast greasy-baseball-capped swagger in their party-hard punk rock stagger. Righteous. 8/10

JuJu

La Que Sabe WEIRD BEARD JuJu mastermind, Sicilian multi-instrumentalist Gioele Valenti, merges his driving motorik loops with bleary shoegaze psych and crisp industrial synth-pop in an irresistibly hypnotic miasma of danceable darkwave. 7/10

Bad Waitress

No Taste ROYAL MOUNTAIN Self-identifying as DIY-punks, Toronto’s Bad Waitress sell themselves somewhat short. is positively obese with ideas, street smart with a side order of Sonic Youth, a grrrlish death disco diva Banshee fest. 7/10

Heartless Bastards SWEET UNKNOWN/THIRTY TIGERS

A Beautiful Life Erika Wennerstrom’s Austin, Texas collective can reliably wrangle an engaging, chart-friendly rock-lite tune (you’ll hum despite yourself), yet don’t sound anything like their irresistibly evocative name would suggest. Which is a shame. 7/10

Floored Faces SELF-RELEASED

Kool Hangs Broad, fuzzed-out, desert rock far horizons recall Queens Of The Stone Age, while treacle-thick Swervedriver riff-washes invoke a thousand-yard staring Dave Wyndorf in full Space Lord effect. Seattle psych in excelsis. 7/10

Mike Skill

Skill… Mike Skill SELF-RELEASED The soaring, Byrds-jangling, sunshine pop naiveté of veteran Detroit power-poppers The Romantics is reliably deployed by their founding guitarist here. Jarring vocal effects can’t hide time’s passage. Nor should they. 6/10

Maniac Squat

The Cloud Upon The Sanctuary MANIAC SQUAT Colchester art-punks Maniac Squat employ Bowie/Iggy alumni to fashion a pair of lengthy tracks allying avant-jazz improv with unsettling vocal back-masks and musique-concrète sound collage. Textbook uneasy listening. 6/10

The Lucid Furs

Damn! That Was Easy ARGONAUTA Maintaining the Motor City’s proud tradition of mashing feral rock chops with booty-quaking funk electricity and blue-collar blues grit, Detroit’s exceptional Furs boast a rare abundance of finger-licking hot-buttered soul authenticity. 9/10

Donald Fagen UME

The Nightfly Live! A companion piece to Steely Dan’s Northeast Corridor in-concert slickathon, this flawless, atmosphere-free ooze through Fagen’s timehonoured AOR/FM masterpiece might well be live, but it’s hardly Kick

Out The Jams. 6/10

Meatbodies

Licensed To Ill

No Taste

333 IN THE RED

Boasting enough brutal, deep-in-the-bong riffs to satisfy even the most doomed-out Black Sabbath aficionado, this latest cache of aural meds from stoner all-rounder Chad Ubovich (Meatbodies, Fuzz and more), along with drummer Dylan Fujioka, doesn’t so much hit the spot as annihilate it. 7/10