Tuesday, November 09, 2021

It's a new release ... Tuesday?! The Kickback and Glimmer have both just released pretty spectacular songs.


Wait, what?! New music on a Tuesday? What year is this anyway? I kid, of course, and to an old like me, Tuesday was long the day for new music.* While the headline is cheeky, I am actually quite excited about the two new songs debuting today that I'm sharing with you.

First up, we have locals The Kickback, whose recent return from a long hiatus that I recently celebrated continues with their latest song, "Kare." As I hinted a few weeks ago, the fact the band is intentionally releasing new music a single song at a time is directly tied (in my mind) to the dense construction of each song. "Kare" sounds 100% like The Kickback, though I can see why longtime fans might be a little more confused by the band's shift in direction from straightforward rocking and/or rolling. But this not only makes total sense to me, this is a completely natural progression for the group. 


Next up, Jeff Arthur is better known to longtime readers and the front person for Dead Stars, one of my favorite groups to come out of NYC in the past couple years. Like just about every other band on the planet, Dead Stars hit a bit of a roadblock during the pandemic, so Arthur decided to make some of his own truly solo tunes under the Glimmer moniker after a yearlong break from music. On "Breathe" he plays all the instruments and recorded the tune in his home studio, and it doesn't sound terribly different than the work in Dead Stars. Which is to say, melodic yet heavy guitars and killer melodies, so it's pretty great.



*Also, I would not complain if the industry ever decided to move new releases back to Tuesdays. Maybe this is the start of a small but stubborn movement? O.K., "movement" may be wishful thinking, but you get it. And wouldn't you rather have time to sit and live with new albums throughout the week instead of shoving them into your earholes every Friday to get them in before the weekend?


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