The summer is speeding past as we say goodbye to July and hello to August. It’s a very quiet week for new releases and I’m only reviewing three: Debby Friday‘s follow-up to her Polaris Prize-winning debut, plus albums from LA psych vets The Warlocks and young UK shoegazers Everything Else. Plus: a power-pop nugget from 1991 as this week’s Indie Basement Classic.
Andrew also only reviews three records this week in Notable Releases: Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Wisp and The Armed.
For a more robust read, also up is the Indie Basement Best of July roundup which includes new track reviews, the month’s best albums, a two-hour playlist and more.
Things will be picking up soon, don’t worry. Head below for this week’s reviews.
Debby Friday – The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life (Sub Pop)
The idiosyncratic Toronto artist follows up her Polaris Prize-winning debut and heads even deeper into pure dance music territory
Following up your debut is always at least a little tough. “You’ve got your whole life to write the first one, you’ve only got six months for the second,” as the saying goes. There’s even more pressure if that debut was widely acclaimed and went on to win an award like the Polaris Music Prize. Toronto’s Debby Friday—whose unpigeonholeable 2023 debut GOOD LUCK was all those things—seems to be taking it all in stride, showing no weakness on a second album that makes her intentions clear: “I want to be a starrr, I can’t hide that desire,” she said when announcing the record. “But what I don’t want is to live someone else’s dream or to follow a pre-set path.”
This time around, she teamed up with Australian producer and now bandmate Darcy Baylis (Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh co-produced GOOD LUCK) for a sound that embraces more mainstream textures. The album’s opening songs—“1/17” and “All I Wanna Do Is Party”—are euphoric, neon-lit EDM bangers ready for Electric Daisy Carnival or Ultra Music Festival.
For those who preferred the darker, more eccentric elements of her debut, Debby’s personality comes through more on the rest of the album. “In the Club” is a terrific dancefloor filler, co-produced by Hi-Tech, while the pulsating strut of “Lipsync” is right in her wheelhouse. There’s also the sexy, successful drum-and-bass workout “Bet on Me,” and the slippery ballad “Higher”—both highlights.
Best of all, the album closes with “Darker,” a gothy jam powered by a Cure-esque bassline that feels more like Debby’s natural habitat than where the album begins.
The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life by DEBBY FRIDAY
—
Everything Else – Another One Making Clouds (Big Potato Records)
Liverpool dreampop duo get a little help from Slowdive’s Neil Halstead on their debut album that gets the sounds right but could use a few more good tunes
Everything Else are the Liverpool duo of Herby Whittie and Charlie Holton, friends since they were six, who cite such influences as The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Jesus & Mary Chain. But on their debut album, they’re making textural dreampop that doesn’t so much sound like floating through clouds as being the clouds themselves. Early-’90s shoegaze—Slowdive in particular—seems to be the ur-text, and they even got that band’s Neil Halstead to mix “Two Monkeys,” which roars with overdriven guitars and is about the only thing that rattles the tranquil world they’ve created. Everything Else have the vibe down, along with the sonic palette, but they could use a few more memorable melodies to keep things from floating away completely into the ether. There’s lots of promise here—they’ll get there.
Another One Making Clouds by Everything Else
—
The Warlocks – The Manic Excessive Sounds Of (Cleopatra Records)
Long-running LA psych band play it loose on their 14th album
Led by Bobby Hecksher, The Warlocks have been weaving psych, garage rock, and post-punk together for nearly 30 years. They were signed to Mute in the early ’00s and ran in the same circles as The Brian Jonestown Massacre (Hecksher was briefly a member) and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. (Phoenix, from 2002, is worth giving a spin.) I haven’t kept up with the band much since that era, but I was happy to see they had a new record out.
The Manic Excessive Sounds Of is The Warlocks’ 14th long-player, and here at least, they’re no longer chasing JAMC-style fuzz so much as misty, mystical folk rock. Hecksher says he wrote all the songs on the album in a single day, and you can feel that creative rush—even as his six bandmates flesh things out around him. (The title of the album is accurate.) He hasn’t lost his knack for a melody either, as the trippy ripper “A Duel Between You and I” and the swaying “Stars on Sunset” clearly show.
—
Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend (Zoo Entertainment, 1991)
A near-perfect power-pop classic has lost none of its charm more than three decades on
Paul Westerberg sang “Children by the millions sing for Alex Chilton” in 1987 but it took a few years for Chilton to really become an influence on alt rock. By 1991, between Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet, Chilton’s ’70s band Big Star were being mentioned left and right. Matthew Sweet had been making records since the early ’80s, having formed Oh-Ok with Lynda Stipe (sister of Michael) before going out on his own where he soon became known as a musician’s musician and an ace songwriter. Sweet scored major label solo deals with Sony and then A&M, neither of whom really understood the music he was making, but once free of his contracts (and newly divorced), Sweet decided to finally do it his way. He put together a band that included Television’s Richard Lloyd, The Voidoids’ Robert Quine, Lloyd Cole, and Lou Reed sideman Fred Maher (who produced) for Girlfriend, a stripped-back, shit-hot power-pop record that let the songwriting and musicianship shine. The great songs just pour out, including MTV hits “Girlfriend” and “I’ve Been Waiting,” but also “Divine Intervention,” “Evangeline” and the sun-dappled “Winona” (an ode to ’90s crush Winona Ryder). Girlfriend at once sounded classic and modern in 1991 and still does.
Matthew’s been going though tough times following his debilitating stroke last year and could use your help, whether it’s giving his albums a play or donating to his gofundme.
Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.
And check out what’s new in our shop.