Our The Songs of the Week column looks at the best new songs of the past seven days and the most notable releases. Find our new favorites and more in our The best songs on Spotify playlist and other great songs from emerging artists, check out our New Spotify sounds Playlist. This week, we look at the return of some old favourites, including Japandroids, Kim Deal and Alan Sparhawk.
News and updates:
Japanese androids strike back
It's clear from the first passionate strum of a distorted electric guitar: Japandroids are back and this is their swansong.
The Vancouver indie rock duo have waited seven long years to re-emerge, and now they're back with “Chicago,” the first installment of their fourth and final album. Destiny and alcoholIt's fitting that Japandroids are finally embracing the end, because their sound at full force has always sounded as if every song, every note, every screeching chorus, every drum fill, every feeling could be their last.
Still, “Chicago” burns with the kind of confidence that’s taken years to hone. “Sorry baby, we call it like we see it in Chicago,” Brian King sings on the chorus, sneering lightly into the microphone as David Prowse pounds out a torrent of snare beats behind him. King circles around the premise, but eventually employs his own advice on the final verse when he barks, “You can sit there, deny it all night, baby/ but this 'just friends' act ain't fooling me.”
As the best of the band's 2012 album. Celebration of the rockThese statements fall like bricks into a turbulent river. Their passion is infectious, their urgency palpable. There’s always a lot riding on Japandroids’ songs, but on “Chicago,” they turn that fight-or-flight energy back into intense, blistering rock ‘n’ roll. It’s good to have them back — endings are tough, but Japandroids definitely know how to end on a high note. Paul Ragusa
Alan Sparhawk cries from a distance
When you think of the band Low, you definitely don't think of menacing trap beats and distorted, auto-tuned vocals, do you? Alan Sparhawk, one half of the lauded Minnesota duo, seems to be using these foreign qualities as a sort of grand reintroduction.
The singer, songwriter and producer reappeared this week to announce his debut solo album. White roses, my Godand it's the first time we've heard from Sparhawk since his wife and musical partner Mimi Parker passed away from cancer in 2022. Sparhawk is no stranger to deep sounds and soulful verses, but even the more experimental, electronic-filled work of Low's latest nod Hey what is alien to “Can U Hear,” a furious song that is both energetic and devastating.
It sounds a lot like the stream of consciousness, trap-induced power that Kim Gordon employed on her new album, The colectiveBut the uncertainty and anguish hidden in “Can U Hear” make for a more heartfelt listen. It’s tragically beautiful to hear Sparhawk so humanly wounded, but presented in a way that makes him more of an entity or spirit than anything else. As they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder. P. Ragusa
Kim Deal wastes himself again at Breeders-ritaville
How many good things have come into this world thanks to Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville”? Well, whatever the number is, let’s add one more to the count, since we owe him Kim Deal’s brilliant new solo track, “Coast.”
Inspired by a wedding band playing “Margaritaville” with, as Deal put it, “revealing levels of low self-esteem,” the tune takes on a gritty, oceanic tone thanks to a mid-tempo beat, breezy horns, and a vocal melody that begs to be sung along. It’s a perfect little ditty for indie kids and beach bums alike.
For her first solo release in a decade, The Breeders member is back with a vengeance, and by vengeance, we mean an intensely enjoyable, endlessly replayable, and wonderfully sweet cut that proves she hasn't lost any of her songwriting chops. Jonah Krueger
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