Our Favorite Vinyl Releases of the Week (9/23/15)

Battles – La Di Da Di

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When your math-rock band loses your vocalist going into your third album you could go find a new vocalist…..OR you could just do without vocals altogether, which is precisely what Battles did with La Di Da Di.  A full instrumental album with a sound perfectly described by Jon Pareles as “high impact minimalism,” the band uses a lot of repetitive beats/riffs, but never for too long.  Over the course of the album the “rock” morphs into very heady, but danceable album.  It’s hard to put your finger on what makes it all work to be honest, but this album is smart, fun & worth a spin.

Stream album via NPR First Listen

Destruction Unit – Negative Feedback Resistor

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‘Noise-punk’….is way we’ve heard the sound of Destruction Unit described after several team debates and trips down Google lane.  ‘Wild-broncos-stampeding-through-a-sweaty-Mexican-whore-house’ was what we’d settled on previously, but noise-punk is probably the more proper terminology.  Either way the Arizona punk band, fronted by former Jay Reatard live band member Ryan Rousseau, seem to know a thing or two about maintaining cohesion while pushing energy in one direction…max.  Signed to Sacred Bones, their third album feels as though things are hitting stride with all the right kinds of droning chaos you need without the lack of direction you often get from less experienced bands trying to push it up.  If you’d rank “dabbling in punk/hardcore” low on your music activities list let us offer this album as a fine example of why you might reconsider.

Stream album via Adult Swim

Ought – Sun Coming Down

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Sophomore slump? Nay, horsies, nay.  The Montreal indie rockers signed to Constellation Records have come back after an impressive debut in 2014 to reveal they had more up their sleeves…and we are thankful.  Describing the evolution taking place on the second album Stuart Berman provided the following analysis,

“Ought make indie rock that sounds like how urbanity makes you feel: nervous, antsy, sometimes hostile, yet intoxicatingly vibrant. And Darcy, likewise, gesticulates like a dutiful office drone who’s played by the rules his whole life but just can’t take it anymore. Ought’s 2014 debut, More Than Any Other Day, was an album of slowly unfurled epiphanies, stoking simmering tension into fiery, exultant release. Those sort of affirming moments are a little harder to come by on the more chaotic and causticSun Coming Down, but the album’s relentless drive and uncompromising attitude constitute their own special kind of thrill. IfMore Than Any Other Day was about the hard-fought, triumphant ascent, Sun Coming Down is the giddy, daredevil “wheeeeee!” down the other side of the peak.”

Stream album via Stereogum