Category Archives: New Music

Agender: “Some Songs Need to Be Fast and Furious”

Photo of Agender by Lindsey Byrnes
Agender (Photo: Lindsey Byrnes)

It was the night before the inauguration and, somewhere in the distance, the Eaton and Palisades fires continued to burn. Needless to say, the mood was grim on the streets of L.A. that Sunday. Inside The Regent, though, at a little after 7:30 p.m., the vibe was dynamic. Agender was in the midst of their opening set for CSS. The floor level of the venue was already packed wall-to-wall. The balcony, where I stood, was quite full as well. Looking down, a mass of people bopped around the floor as the L.A. punk band ripped through one fierce song after the next. 

“I think it was a moment of the city coming together and it felt special,” says  Romy Hoffman, who is the singer, guitarist and songwriter for Agender. “I know I needed that outlet.” Hoffman, who has known CSS since a previous project of hers toured Australia with them in the mid-‘00s, notes that the Brazilian indie band has a “positive, infectious energy” that lent itself to the “catharsis” inside the venue that night. “It was the perfect band to play at that time just because of their energy,” she says. “We had a great time and the crowd was really responsive. It was wonderful.”

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It’s Marie Davidson vs. Big Tech on City of Clowns

Marie Davidson City of Clowns album cover

Is there an album title better suited for 2025 than City of Clowns, the latest from Marie Davidson? Just this week, Meta dropped some Instagram users into a new level of doomscroll hell, Jeff Bezos decided that WaPo’s opinion page would push “personal liberties and free markets,” and I can’t even keep up with the New Adventures of Trump and Musk. These dudes are a bunch of fucking clowns with far too much power over our daily lives. 

But, enough about politics, let’s get the music, right? Sorry, that’s not going to happen with City of Clowns. Influenced by Shoshana Zuboff’s book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, the not-so-subtle theme throughout Marie Davidson’s new album is the control that Big Tech wields over us. Take “Demolition” as an example, when Davidson whispers, “I want your data” in a flirtatious voice, like the platform that’s going to seduce you into handing over the details of your life that you don’t even share with your closest confidantes.

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L.A. Duo Optometry Returns With Sophomore Album, Lemuria

Optometry Lemuria album cover
Lemuria is the second full-length album from L.A.-based duo Optometry

Read Beatique’s interview “Fear is the Mind Killer: Inside the World of Optometry”

Lemuria, the sophomore album from Optometry, has the best closer I’ve heard in a long time, so we’re going to start this review at the end. “Never Coming Back” is in the vein of what’s considered post-punk right now. It has a running-for-your-life tempo (over 160 bpm for those of you who keep track of these things), a gloomy synth and a “Ceremony” sad guitar. It’s dark— really, it sounds like the cliff-hanger ending of a TV show— but also danceable and it’s become my favorite track on the album, which is out today on Palette Recordings.

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Drop Nineteens’ New-Old Album, 1991, Is Essential Shoegaze

Drop Nineteens 1991 album cover
Cover of 1991 by Drop Nineteens

As the story goes, in the early years of the 1990s, the buzz on Drop Nineteens began with two demo sessions that landed them gigs, ink in the U.K. press and, ultimately, a record deal with Caroline. The songs on the demo, though, weren’t what made it onto the band’s debut album, Delaware. In fact they hadn’t been officially released until now. Called 1991, the remastered collection of songs recorded mostly in a dorm room on an 8-track reel-to-reel is out now via Wharf Cat Records. 

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French Police Has a New EP, Espera, Out Now

French Police Espera EP cover
Cover of French Police’s new EP, Espera

French Police released a new EP, Espera, last week. If you haven’t already added the four-song release to your listening queue, get on that asap because this is a good one. 

Based in Chicago, French Police is a trio on the post-punk/darkwave tip who have been steadily gaining popularity over the past few years. Anecdotally, I can tell you that their songs were requested at virtually every party I played with Klub Nocturno this past year. Frequently, their songs were requested more than once during the course of one night. Outside of the clubs, you have probably heard them in the ether somewhere in L.A. Recently, when I was at Alamo Drafthouse to see Pump Up the Volume, there was a French Police playlist on in the bar. 

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Mogwai, FKA twigs and More New Music for January 2025

Mogwai The Bad Fire album cover
Mogwai The Bad Fire is one of this month’s essential new releases

We’ve finally made it to the end of the longest month ever. I’m writing this under the assumption that no one— literally, not one single person— wants a recap of the events of January, 2025. However, I do want to spotlight some of the music that came out this month because we need the arts most when the world is bleak af and there is some wonderful new music that came out this month.

I already wrote about a few albums, so follow the links if you want to know more about a new/old tune from The Faint or new albums from Matt Berry, Legendary Pink Dots or Franz Ferdinand. Otherwise, keep reading. 

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The Faint Drops Previously Unreleased ’00s Jam “Zealots”

Cover for The Faint Wet From Birth Deluxe Edition out on March 14, 2025
The deluxe edition of The Faint’s 2004 album Wet From Birth is set for release on March 14, 2025

Recently, maybe at the CSS show last week, I said to a friend that you know we’re living in dark times because people are all nostalgic about the ‘00s. I’ve written about it here before, but that decade was not cute. Bleak is probably a better word to describe an era marked by wars, financial shenanigans and rising social conservatism. And, at least in comparison to other decades, there weren’t many musicians addressing the turmoil in their work. Amongst the few who did was The Faint. 

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Matt Berry Drops A New Batch of Psychedelic Earworms on Heard Noises

Matt Berry Heard Noises 2025 album cover

Years ago, Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher had a show called Snuff Box, a comedy about two executioners who hang out at a gentleman’s club— the British kind, not the Bada Bing! kind. The show itself is fantastic, but the most memorable thing about it is the theme song. That melody has haunted me for years, even when my content-addled brain struggles to recall what actually happened in the series. Matt Berry writes a good earworm. 

Berry, the actor who has been in cult favorite shows like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh, starred in the British series Toast of London and recently ended a six-season run as Laszlo in What We Do in the Shadows, has a parallel career as a musician. His latest album, Heard Noises, was released on January 24 and it’s potentially as sticky as that Snuff Box theme song. 

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It’s So Lonely In Heaven on Legendary Pink Dots’ New Album

Legendary Pink Dots So Lonely in Heaven album cover

Click here to read the interview, “Edward Ka-Spel on How AI Inspired New Legendary Pink Dots Album, So Lonely in Heaven”

In 2022, Legendary Pink Dots released The Museum of Human Happiness, their first album since the pandemic. It was one of my favorite albums of that year and, really, one of the finest releases from a band who celebrated their 40th anniversary just before lockdown. Now, two weeks into 2025, they’ve dropped the follow-up, So Lonely in Heaven, via Metropolis Records and I humbly recommend that you listen to the two albums back-to-back. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but from the listener’s perspective, The Museum of Human Happiness and So Lonely in Heaven sound as if they are part of the same extended body of work. 

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Greek Jam “Black Eyelashes” Stands Out On Franz Ferdinand’s The Human Fear

Franz Ferdinand The Human Fear album cover

In the four or five times that I’ve listened to The Human Fear, the latest album from Franz Ferdinand, since it was released on January 10, I keep going back to one song. “Black Eyelashes” is the band’s take on rembetiko (also spelled rebetiko), a style of Greek music that was particularly popular in the first half of the 20th century, and I’m hooked on it. 

It’s sounds like there have been a Greek influence on Franz Ferdinand’s music from the get-go. I can’t really pinpoint exactly what it is, but something in the guitar tones and the rhythms they use has struck me as very eastern Mediterranean since I first heard “Take Me Out” 20+ years ago. On, “Black Eyelashes,” though, the influence is so blatant that you might start imagining that final dance scene in Zorba the Greek. I did. 

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