The Mad Mackerel

Here is a collection of tracks that have found their way into our in-box or on to our iTunes one way or another recently, and which deserve far more time and effort spent on them than we are currently able to give. Plenty to soundtrack your Friday with.

Brooklyn’s indie pop three-piece Violens have just released their second LP, True, on Slumberland Records. The album’s first single, Totally True, has a dreamy stone-washed feel, celebrating bands like Cocteau Twins and The Chameleons.

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Chris Marr makes a welcome return under the guise of Esperi with the release of the EP Melancholics Anonymous, and a free download of the fragile and delicately beautiful track Come Dine With Me.

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As a companion to a new video and a trailer for their tour, Pillars and Tongues has released a free, three-song digital single titled (Laid) Palms to Tell.  This new single includes the reworked slow-burning, romance-saturated standout title track along with two others, all previously unreleased. The full single is available for free download at their Bandcamp page.

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Taken live from Baeblemusic’s The Launch Pad at SXSW, here is Reptar’s cover of New Order’s classic Age of Consent.

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The Death Notes gave away a free download of their song Ghost to celebrate World Goth Day 2012. You can download the song for free up until 30th May.

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The Funeral Club also mine a Goth vein although in a more sombre way with their new Waves & Waves EP. The title track is a surreal look at obsession, desire, and isolationism told with an appropriately grand, operatic flourish.

Download The Funeral Club – Waves & Waves mp3 (from Waves & Waves EP)

By contrast, The Appleseed Collective sweep up swing, bluegrass and gypsy-folk into a swirling cauldron of their own making, tinged with raw vocals and delivering highs and lows that are equally sweet and engrossing. Debut album Baby to Beast will be released in July.

Download The Appleseed Collective – Mani mp3 (from Baby To Beast)

Jaill release new album Traps next month via SubPop and while the lyrics have taken a darker turn, the band’s signature slack yet tightly wound musical style and self-deprecating humor retain all of their charms.

Download Jaill – Perfect Ten mp3 (from Traps)

Download Jaill –  Waste A Lot Of Things mp3 (from Traps)

Scuzzy popsters Beast Make Bomb have made another free track available for download. This time it is the first in a planned series of singles, the excellent Dream Boat.

Download Beast Make Bomb – Dream Boat mp3 (from Dream Lovers single)

The Virgins have made a new track available, their first since their self-titled album of 2008, and it is a charmingly nonchalant slab of garage inspired rock oozing with glam undertones.

Download The Virgins – Venus In Chains mp3 (from Venus In Chains single)

Denmark’s Choir Of Young Believers are picking up some buzz with their free download, Paint New Horrors which comes from forthcoming long player Rhine Gold. Equal parts lo-fi chamber folk and orchestral indie pop, it has a depth and subtlety to it that is most affecting.

Download Choir Of Young Believers – Paint New Horrors mp3 (from Rhine Gold)

The Mynabirds new album Generals is a protest record, channelling Laura Burhenn’s political frustrations and is fuelled and filled with armies of stomps and claps, sweeping full spectrum orchestrations, and moments that range from intensely personal pleas to shout-out-loud protests with teeth.

Download The Mynabirds – Body Of Work mp3 (from Generals)

I Still Pull the Silver (From the Penny Drawer) is from Catherine Market, the new solo album from Plates of Cake frontman Jonathan Byerley. It is a most appealing cut offering a contemporary twist on sun-scorched country-rock.

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Stagnant Pools are Bryan and Douglass Enas, two brothers from Bloomington, Indiana. With just one guitar and a drum kit, they make music that is heavy, distorted, squally and reverb heavy, pierced with shafts of melody. Dead Sailor and Consistency would probably be prime candidates to soundtrack the end of the world.

Download Stagnant Pools – Dead Sailor mp3 (from Temporary Room)

Download Stagnant Pools – Consistency mp3 (from Temporary Room)

Red Kross are back! The hardcore punk pioneers first album in fifteen years, and the title track is every bit as vital and as dynamic as we could possibly have hoped for!

Download Red Kross – Researching The Blues mp3 (from Researching The Blues)

Brooklyn’s The Modern Airline have an angular, spastic sound borrowing equally from 70s punk and 80s new wave, and where sex and sci-fi are recurring themes. This is the closing track, Accelerated Evolution, from their new self-titled album.

Download The Modern Airline – Accelerated Evolution mp3 (from The Modern Airline)

Lastly, Cory Branan is a one-of-a-kind maverick. A singer-songwriter, storyteller and itinerant troubadour whose slyly poignant tales are laced with dark, mordant humour and showcase a unique perspective on the world. With echoes from John Prine to Tom Waits, He describes his new album, and first for the wonderful Bloodshot Records, MUTT as a “…barbed little nasty record.“. Just what we like – this is the lead single, Bad Man.

Download Cory Branan – Bad Man mp3 (from MUTT)