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Calpurnia
Scout
Royal Mountain Records
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Calpurnia is a Vancouver, Canada-based quartet led by singer/guitarist Finn Wolfhard (of Stranger Things and It fame), also featuring lead guitarist Ayla Tesler-Mabe, bassist Jack Anderson and drummer Malcolm Craig. Their six-song debut EP, Scout, a giddy, rock riot that (with pretty clever lyrics) that Pavement, Sunflower Bean, and Twin Peaks fans will definitely dig. |
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Manic Street Preachers
Resistance Is Futile
Shornday Limited
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Resistance is Futile – Manic Street Preachers' thirteenth album – finds the Welsh stadium punks working from an emotional palette they are not immediately associated with. From the cascading opening of "People Give In" to the scattered resonance of "The Left Behind," the album is very much the work of a band demanding to be heard and joined, at full volume. |
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Olivia Chaney
Shelter
Nonesuch
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Recorded in a crumbling 18th-century cottage in the austere hills of the North Yorkshire Moors, Shelter is the starkly beautiful new album from London-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney. Produced by Thomas Bartlett (David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, The National, St. Vincent) Shelter features eight original songs, along with a few choice covers – all performed by Chaney and Bartlett, with strings provided by Jordan Hunt. |
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Shannon Shaw
Shannon In Nashville
Nonesuch
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Shannon Shaw, the captivating vocalist, bassist, and founder of Shannon & the Clams, strikes out on her own with Shannon In Nashville. In a nod to Dusty Springfield's classic Dusty In Memphis, Shaw made her own pilgrimage down South to collaborate with The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and a congregation of revered old-school session musicians. The result is a masterclass in hard grooving heartbreak. |
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Mike Shinoda
Post Traumatic
WB
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In the months since the passing of Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington, co-lead singer Mike Shinoda has immersed himself in art – writing, recording, and painting – as a way of processing his grief. The result is a personal 16-track album that, despite its title, isn't entirely about grief, though it does start there: Ultimately, Post Traumatic is an album about healing. |
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Chromeo
Head Over Heels
ATL
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Head Over Heels showcases Chromeo's catchiest singles to date, yet it is – first and foremost – a cohesive body of work. Head Over Heels to be a collaborative celebration where their favorite artists' signature touches could intermingle, including superheroes of funk's past, present, and future like Raphael Saadiq, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkinseven, Jesse Johnson (The Time), and more. Tales of Mazda Miatas and miscellaneous romantic misadventures abound. |
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Lily Allen
No Shame (Explicit)
PRW - WB
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Lily Allen's highly anticipated fourth album, No Shame, might be her most personal and insightful. Working with choice collaborators, including Mark Ronson, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig and Cass Lowe, Lily says her goal was to make an album that is "as truthful as possible." Tracks like “Trigger Bang,” "Three," and the hazy, stripped back "Higher" find Allen as vulnerable as ever, yet still cheeky. |
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Mean Girls
Original Broadway Cast Recording
ATL
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Mean Girls is a new musical based on the hit film starring Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan. Fey wrote the musical’s book (she wrote the film, too), and found a perfect triumvirate of creative partners: Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, Emmy-winning composer Jeff Richmond, and Tony-nominated lyricist Neil Benjamin. It’s funny AF… And makes us hope that a 30 Rock musical is next. |
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The Wild Feathers
Greetings From The Neon Frontier
WB
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The Wild Feathers' Greetings From the Neon Frontier finds the band embracing their more countrified influences, while retaining the heavy harmonies, gritty guitar playing, and smart, tight songwriting that brought them to prominence. With influences ranging from The Eagles to Tom Petty, the album reunites the band with award-winning producer Jay Joyce, who oversaw the group's 2013 self-titled debut and 2016's Lonely Is a Lifetime. |
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Jesse Dayton
The Outsider
Blue Elan Records
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Jesse Dayton’s 10th studio album, The Outsider, was literally recorded while on tour in Atlanta, Denver, Nashville and Austin and was mixed by Grammy-winning engineer/producer, Vance Powell (Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Jack White). “It’s a lot like The Revealer,” says Dayton, “But even more stripped down with some sweet acoustic guitar songs and some raw electric guitar work.” More country records should rip this hard. |
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Midge Ure
Orchestrated
BMG
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Musician, singer-songwriter, producer, Midge Ure has worn many musical hats over the years. However, working on a fully orchestrated album has been a new venture for Midge: "The record took eighteen months to make, but a lifetime of work to achieve." A collaboration with Ty Unwin, this aptly-titled new album features stunningly re-imagined orchestrated versions of Ultravox hits and Midge Ure classics. |
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SANGO
In The Comfort Of
Last Gang
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Sango makes beats. At least, that's how he sees it. The rest of us know the truth: the Seattle DJ/producer conducts symphonies – from heady jazz to gospel, jittery club music to combustible baile funk, future-bass to mellow trap-soul. In the Comfort Of, is the start of a journey enriched by our host's history, guided along by an array of boundary-pushing guests. It bumps too. |
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Culture Abuse
Bay Dreams
Epitaph
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Bay Dream elevates Culture Abuse's melody-heavy garage punk to new levels, while drawing inspiration from artists as eclectic as Sly and the Family Stone, Paul Simon, and reggae legend Billy Boyo. With the album's lyrics largely informed by songwriter/frontman David Kelling's relocation from San Francisco to Los Angeles, physical and emotional movement informs every song on Bay Dream. Fans of Yuck and Swervedriver take note. |
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This Wild Life
Petaluma
Epitaph
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This Wild Life met as outcast drummers in their hometown of Long Beach, California, and eventually formed a well-received punk act. They started to notice that their fans seemed to gravitate toward the duo's acoustic material, which inspired their current incarnation. For Petaluma they made their brightest and most up-tempo record – opening the door to some of their most honest and explorative songwriting to date. |
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The Interrupters
Fight The Good Fight
Hellcat/Epitaph
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The Interrupters are an L.A. based four-piece bound by their rebel spirit and deep love of punk, rock, ska and 2 Tone. They make super high-energy rock-n-roll that's equal parts catchy and confrontational. Their third album, Fight The Good Fight, was produced by Rancid's Tim Armstrong, sounds No Doubt crossed with Rancid, yet ten times as tough – both musically and lyrically. |
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Talos
Wild Alee (Deluxe Version)
BMG
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One listen to Wild Alee – Talos’ debut album – and his architecture background begins to make perfect sense. Blending elements of electronic pop and soulful R&B with hypnotizing synth-scapes and haunting vocals, Wild Alee is grand structure: Perpetually reaching skyward with foundations dug deep into the soil. Talos writes music as a form of escape – and Wild Alee is a place you’ll seldom want to leave. |
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Cowboy Junkies
All That Reckoning
Latent Recordings
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Whether commenting on the fragile state of the world or on personal relationships, All That Reckoning is arguably the most powerful album the Cowboy Junkies have ever recorded. While the music is characteristically easy to listen to, the gentleness is juxtaposed with rock that can be jarring. "It's a deeper and a more complete record than we've ever done before," says guitarist / songwriter Michael Timmins. |
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Ray Davies
Old Country: Americana Act 2
Legacy
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The continuing story of The Kinks co-founder's journeys through America, as depicted in his 2013 memoir Americana and the acclaimed album of the same name, Our Country: Americana Act II picks up several intriguing musical threads from Davies' extraordinary catalog and reinterpretations of songs written for various projects over the years. Davies is backed, once again, by guitarist Bill Shanley and The Jayhawks. |
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LISTEN HERE
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LISTEN HERE
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The Record Company
All of This Life
Concord Music
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The L.A.-based rock/roots trio of Chris Vos (guitar, lead vocals, harmonica), Alex Stiff (bass, guitar, vocals) and Marc Cazorla (drums, piano, vocals) has already been hailed by LA Weekly for "making bluesy music that would sound more at home in a sweaty, backwoods Mississippi juke joint," while Time Out has described their sound as "reminiscent of some of the best acts of the '50s and '60s – like if John Lee Hooker and the Stooges had a well-behaved love child" – which is a lot more fun than it sounds. Says Vos: “Our sound has a lot of early rock n' roll but with a greater emphasis on the drums and bass. We aim to make the speakers move." And they do. |
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Bullet For My Valentine
Gravity
Spinefarm
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Gravity finds Bullet For My Valentine rewriting its own future – finding new ways to invent heavy noise and remaining unshackled by the legacy that comes with being masters of their trade. The four musicians have stretched their creative wings like never before, delicately balancing film-score electronica and icy synths in their hard rock hellfire. With drummer Jason Bowld joining founding members singer/guitarist Matt Tuck, axe-man Michael ‘Padge' Paget, and bassist Jamie Mathias (part of the Bullet story since 2015), Gravity is the sound of a band reborn. Produced and mixed by Carl Bown, Gravity is an album of true craft and vision – an ambitious labor of love with the weight and the punch you’ve come to expect. |
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Mt. Joy
Mt. Joy
Dualtone
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Steeped in folk-rock tradition and powered by the intuitive creative connection between Matt Quinn (vocals, guitar) and Sam Cooper (guitar), the songs on Mt. Joy's eponymous debut depicts a place where the mundane and the fantastic collide. Opener "I'm Your Wreck" describes "monsters in [the] closet, using up the wi-fi" as it cycles from its desperate, spiraling verses to its swinging, stubbornly optimistic coda, while the loping, plaintive chords of "Younger Days" meditate on the fear of choosing the wrong path. "Sheep," is a post-Trump salvo on political and social despondency. Taken together, the LP is a startlingly open document, wracked with the anxieties and fears that come just as life seems to start working out. |
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Guns n Roses
Appetite For Destruction
IGA
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Right out of the gate Guns N' Roses' music was primal and gritty, with a solid hard, bluesy base. They were dark, sleazy, dirty, and honest – everything that good hard rock and heavy metal should be. While Slash and Izzy Stradlin ferociously spit out dueling guitar riffs worthy of Aerosmith or the Stones, Axl Rose screeched out his tales of sex, drugs, and apathy in the big city. Meanwhile, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler were a limber rhythm section who kept the music loose and powerful. Just over three decades later, Guns N' Roses' highly influential debut Appetite For Destruction gets its first ever album remaster from the original analog tapes – and it’s never sounded livelier or grittier! |
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The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) is a national level organization comprised of the best independent record stores in America. CIMS was founded in 1995 with the goal of uniting like minded independent store owners, giving them a more powerful voice in the music industry. The stores that make up CIMS are all very different, but we share the same desires – to be the heart of our communities, to super-serve our customers, to support and develop artists, and to share our love of music.
For more information about CIMS and the stores in our organization, please visit cimsmusic.com or find us through social media with the #cimsmusic hashtag. And please remember to always shop local by supporting your neighborhood record store.
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