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John McCauley’s career in music has been fixed on a path of steady evolution ever since the release of Deer Tick’s studio debut War Elephant in 2007. With each subsequent record, his band has risen to the self-imposed challenge to outdo themselves—to do something they haven’t done before. Following last year’s brooding Black Dirt Sessions comes Divine Providence, a double-shot, rough-and-tumble rock ‘n’ roll record that only McCauley and company could craft.

The frontman has stated that with Divine Providence, the band set out to capture their live sound on record. If you’ve ever been to a Deer Tick show, you know exactly what that sounds like, and if you haven’t, you could probably guess. Loud, raw, gritty? Check. Sometimes silly, often earnest lyrics ripping from whiskey-soaked vocal chords? Got that, too. Everything one would come to expect from the band that lovingly performed an entire set in tribute to their grunge heroes under the moniker “Deervana” is represented on the record. – Paste Magazine

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Tom Waits Bad As Me
Dntel Life Is Full Of Possibilities
Blink-182 Neighborhoods
Devil Makes Three Stomp & Smash
Bjork Biophilia
Magnetic Fields Holiday
Dntel Anywhere Anyone (Remix)
Russian Circles Empros
Smiths Complete
Puscifer Conditions Of My Parole

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Chunklet is reissuing two out-of-print double LPs from Elephant 6 psych-poppers the Olivia Tremor Control, Dusk At Cubist Castle (1996) and Black Foliage (1998), on deluxe vinyl gatefold for the first time since their original release. Super sturdy Stoughton tip-on jackets, tons of great artwork and Black Foliage was completely remastered from the original tapes (and sounds 100x better). The band has also been generous in opening their tape vaults to give fans over three hours of rare/unreleased/live material between the two releases via download card. Both reissues are limited to 1000 copies.

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Real Estate Days
Bill Orcutt How The Thing Stings
Todd Rundgren Something/Anything
Abba Abba – The Album
Abba Super Trouper
Merle Haggard Working In Tennessee
My Brightest Diamond All Things Will Unwind

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This sprawling three-records-on-two-CDs set offers a healthy cross-section of material and finds the band honing even further its blend of musical languages. There are country-inflected boogies, blues rave-ups, passionate ballads, and, of course, the extended, adventurous jams that made them famous. Many of the Grateful Dead‘s best-loved tunes made their initial vinyl appearances here, including “He’s Gone,” “Jack Straw,” “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Ramble on Rose,” and “Tennessee Jed”–most of which reveal a heavy country influence, especially in Robert Hunter’s lyrics. In addition to introducing these new songs, Europe ’72 also showcases brilliantly fine-tuned versions of “Truckin'” (complete with a lengthy “Epilogue”) and “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider,” which became the first of the band’s many magical song combinations. – Marc Greilsamer

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Youth Lagoon The Year Of Hibernation
Blue October Any Man In America
Jayhawks Mockingbird Time
Talk Talk Laughing Stock
Lil Wayne The Carter IV
Cormans Halloween Record With Sound Effects
Tori Amos Night Of Hunters
Deep Purple Live 1999 Melbourne Park
Mayer Hawthorne How Do You Do
Starfucker/Champagne Champagne Dragon Queens (Skeletron Mix)

Tags: new releasesvinylwhats playing

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The Nirvana Nevermind 20th anniversary reissue is now available as a 4-LP, 180-gram heavyweight vinyl edition featuring the remastered album and B-sides, the Smart Studio sessions, boombox rehearsals and BBC sessions (40 tracks in all), a remastered CD of the original album, and digital versions of the standard and deluxe editions.

When Nevermind exploded into earshot in the autumn of 1991, it was startling: a grenade detonating in your car radio. It sounded like the end of something (the 1980s? hair metal?), or maybe the beginning of something (“alternative rock”? “Generation X”?). Today, the album has become so encrusted with myth, that it’s hard to wrap your ears around it, to really hear it. In 2005, the Library of Congress added Nevermind to its roll call of the world’s most significant recordings. It’s a museum piece, a record that merits a display in the Smithsonian. And, of course, a doorstopper 20th-anniversary box set with fantastic B sides (check “Curmudgeon,” featuring the howlingest metal- dude vocal Kurt Cobain ever recorded) and stupefying live performances; plus demos, previously unreleased BBC sessions and eight cruddy-vérité “boombox rehearsals” of Nevermind tracks.

The extras offer history lessons – and help you hear Nevermind with fresh ears. The live versions of “Breed” and “Drain You” show why Nirvana may be the greatest power trio ever: The heave and thrust of Krist Novoselic’s bass, the Bonhamworthy attack of Dave Grohl’s drums, the tumult of Cobain’s singing, which proved screaming yourself hoarse could be as powerful, and as beautiful, as any vocal style. Compare the boombox demos with the finished LP – where Cobain’s songs were burnished to a fiery glow – and you realize it was pop, not punk, that turned Nirvana into the biggest band on Earth. As works of melodic craftsmanship, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Lithium” and “Lounge Act” are up there with the best of Buddy Holly, Smokey Robinson and other genius hook masters.

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Feist Metals
Minus The Bear Highly Refined Pirates
Altar of Plagues Mammal
Bring Me The Horizon Count Your Blessing
Dinosaur Jr. Bug
Jack’s Mannequin People & Things
Minus The Bear This Is What I know About Being Gigantic
Misfits Twilight Of The Dead
New Found Glory Radiosurgery

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Wilco is exciting because the band seeks to redefine our expectations for it with each record. And their new album, The Whole Love, continues that cycle to often brilliant effect.

The reason it’s constricting to pin Wilco down with definitions is because they are at their best when they pull the rug out from under themselves (and, by extension, us). Opener “Art of Almost” is as jarring as “Misunderstood” or “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”, but it sounds like no Wilco song you’ve ever heard. It’s a clean break, a move to establish a wholly new landscape for this record, and it works. Orchestral flourishes at the start could recall their lush sound on Summerteeth if they weren’t so shadowy and alien. The song blips and squawks behind the bleary-eyed plea of Tweedy’s voice. But if it feels lost, it finds its footing in the fits and freak-outs of guitar that come in crashing squalls at the end. It’s a distinct shift from other dissonant tunes in the Wilco catalog. This doesn’t devolve; it comes together, searching for its shards and knitting them together into one sharp entity. If The Whole Love marks a change in perspective, it’s in this. Tweedy acknowledges the lonesome feeling that’s followed him around his entire musical career, but here he often debunks it. The excellent “Born Alone”, for example, may rest on the line “I was born to die alone,” but the triumphant roll of guitars that follows it belies that sentiment. This is the sound of unification, not isolation. – Pop Matters

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Dum Dum Girls Only In Dreams
Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon
Sonia Leigh 1978 December
John Cale Extra Playful
Gem Club Breakers
Face To Face Laugh Now Laugh Later
Mike Doughty Yes & Also Yes
TV On The Radio New Health Rock
Evidence Cats & Dogs
Those Darlins Screws Get Loose/Prank Call

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