San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Robert Glasper, H.E.R. among array of new music.
The Chronicle’s guide to notable new music.
NEW ALBUMS
The Flaming Lips, “American Head” (Warner): The Oklahoma band is, somehow, 37, and “American Head” is studio album sweet 16. Lead singles “Mother Please Don’t Be Sad” and “Will You Return/ When You Come Down” feel like callbacks to the late ’90s, “The Soft Bulletin” days (even if the former, in light of the police killings around the country, feels extra heavy in modern context).
The album follows a collaboration with garage rockers Deap Valley, under the name Deap Lips, released earlier this year.
Marilyn Manson, “We Are Chaos” (Loma Vista): The metal maven has hooked up with outlaw country favorite Shooter Jennings for Manson’s 11th studio album. The title track is heavy enough to top the Billboard Hard Rock Digital Songs chart, maintaining Manson’s dark worldview (“We are sick, f—ed up and complicated/ we are chaos, we can’t be cured”), but it also has an uplift to it that makes it sound like a stadium anthem.
Doves, “The Universal Want” (Virgin): The British indiepop trio’s 2002 album “The Last Broadcast” was considered a postBritpop classic, and now the band returns from a decadelong hiatus. Single “Prisoners” looks to reclaim the “danceable indie pop” label from Phoenix (Doves walked so Phoenix could run, essentially), while “Cathedral of the Mind” turns a short, simple lyric and a sample of a speech by a member of the Black Panthers into a miniepic.
Delta Spirit, “What Is There” (New West): The Americana rockers had been trending in the right direction since 2007 in terms of audience, with 2014’s “Into the Wide” making Billboard’s top 20 for both Alternative and Independent Albums. But with that success came interpersonal strain, creating a sixyear gap between “Into the Wide” and “What Is There.” Lead singer Matthew Logan Vasquez has said that during the time off, “the friendships got an opportunity to come back.” Singles like “The Pressure” and the John Prinequoting “Home Again” show a band picking up right where it left off.
YoungBoy Never Broke Again, “Top” (Never Broke Again/Atlantic): The prolific rapper Youngboy (an astounding 16 mixtapes since April 2015, including two this year) releases his second album while on a hot streak. His collaboration with Future hit the top 40 on Billboard, while the video for his track with Da Baby, “Jump,” has more than 65 million views (it came out in April and has a coronavirus cleaning theme making it worth a watch). None of the six songs released before the album’s street date topped three minutes in length. Expect two verses and then on to the next idea.
FROM THE VAULT
Mastodon, “Medium Rarities” (Reprise): To celebrate 20 years together, the hard rock band has emptied the vault, coming up with 16 tracks available digitally mostly for the first time, including covers, Bsides and live versions. That list includes “A Commotion,” a Feist cover available previously on a split 7inch Record Store Day release, and “Cut You Up With a Linoleum Knife,” a parody of the “Let’s All Go to the Movies” prefilm song that played before the Adult Swim cult favorite “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and includes lines like “Be considerate to others or I will bite your torso.”
#ICYMI
SZA featuring Ty Dolla $ign and the Neptunes, “Hit Different” (Top Dawg): Just weeks after publicly feuding with her label over releasing her new music, the singersongwriter returns with her first nonsoundtrack single since those on 2017’s “CTRL.” It’s a hazy, latesummer R&B slow jam, with Ty Dolla $ign on the hook, the Neptunes behind the boards and SZA singing about developing feelings for a fling.
SONG OF THE MOMENT
Robert Glasper featuring H.E.R. and Meshell Ndegeocello, “Better Than I Imagined” (Loma Vista): Glasper has said of the song, “We have generations of people in our community who haven’t had the tools to actually be in healthy relationships.” “Better” is a slow jam with Vallejo singersongwriter (and recent MTV VMA winner) H.E.R. making an appearance for an ode to relationships in that questioning stage — what are we, and what can we be? Spoken word from Ndegeocello at the end ties together generations of neosoul.
STAYATHOME DANCE BREAK
Hermitude featuring Daniel Bedingfield, “Spotlight” (Elefant Traks): Hermitude is the Aussie duo of producers who have worked with R&B singer BJ the Chicago Kid and remixed dance music superstar Flume, among many others, while Bedingfield — the older brother of Natasha (“Unwritten”) — has had a career as a singer, songwriter and even actor in London’s West End. The resulting combination feels almost like a ’90s Eurodisco track. Crystal Waters (“100% Pure Love”) could be singing on it, and no one would bat an eye.