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This week, I’ve got another four albums for your listening ears. There will be three new albums from the past week (on a monday to monday basis) and one classic album we’re celebrating the anniversary of.
Right Now! – The Third Mind
3/5
Sometimes, you just need some old fashioned psychedelic rock to scratch that particular itch– and the third album from California-based group The Third Mind: “Right Now!” is here to do just that. This album immediately drew me in for two reasons– the striking album art, and the tracklist featuring a rock cover of Pharoah Sanders’ “The Creator Has a Master Plan”, which is otherwise a spiritual jazz track.
The vocals here are perhaps what jumps out most immediately, the vocals are ethereal, high-pitched and folk-inspired. Dave Alvin, the vocalist, sounds a lot like Geddy Lee of Rush and it works excellently for the unique sound they’re putting together.
The psychedelic rock is of course the main influence, but there’s also a pretty hefty folk influence, not just in the vocals, but in the slide guitar and slightly bluesier solos that appear on tracks like “Shake Sugaree” and “Reno, Nevada”.
Though I’d be lying if I said the folk inspirations were my favorite parts of the album. The true excellence comes in tracks like “Darkness, Darkness” with Hendrix-inspired guitar solos that encompass the near seven minute track, perfectly balancing Alvin’s softer vocals with heavy, distorted guitar work.
The album also flows together excellently, with tracks fading in and out of each other that makes the 47 minute long record go by much quicker– this fading allows for softer tracks like “The Creator Has A Master Plan” to perfectly flow from the more intense “Darkness, Darkness”.
To all Jimi Hendrix fans, remind yourself that he is underrated in regards to his influence with a listen to this new record.
Bleeds – Wednesday
4/5
New from the former University of North Carolina at Asheville students and alt-country group Wednesday is their sixth album– “Bleeds”. This album emphasizes– put simply– life. The harsh, shoegaze-inspired sound is colored by stories from adolescence, stories about love and about death.
Their latest record shows a continual growth from their sound, reveling in an evolution and fusion of country, shoegaze, post-rock and noise-rock in a way that still manages to feel genuine to the heart of the band. While there is a healthy blend of these genres in each and every track, some take more from one genre than others. The opening track, “Reality TV Argument Bleeds” is a powerful, distorted, energetic take-off for the record that feels straight out of a My Bloody Valentine EP, whereas songs like “Gary’s II”– a sequel to their much beloved “Gary’s”– feel straight out of a dylan-esque roots rock album.
The combination of these sounds feels effortless– though at times, dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that it teeters on the edge of uneven and perhaps too bipolar in its jumps from hazy noise rock to country classics. Though that doesn’t take away from the quality of the individual music– but the record is missing a slight sense of completeness.
What does give the album its totality is the lyrics. In just over 35 minutes, the lyrics– beautifully sung by Karly Hartzman I might add– tell us so much in just that short span of time. The lyrics are down-to-earth in a way that lots of music struggles to find these days.
From “Reality TV Argument Bleeds”– “Burning from the screen, You and your broke dick sincerity”, humorously suggesting that someone can never ‘finish’ what they start. From “Townies”: “Catchin’ up with the townies, Some have gone but most are still around, The ghosts of them surround me, They hang on tight until they drown”, speaking about the ever-present doom that comes from living in a dead-end town watching everyone leave.
Everyone should support our hometown heroes by listening to this album– but fans of shoegaze and alt-country will particularly appreciate their latest and greatest work.
LSD – Cardiacs
4/5
Cardiacs first formed in 1977, which makes a 2025 release a bit of a shock for longtime fans of the prog group. Cardiacs make what is referred to in music circles as Zolo, for artists who fuse new wave, progressive rock and punk in a quirky manner. Recordings for “LSD” started as far back as 2006, and it’s clear this behemoth of a swan song was handled with extreme care in the near-decade long production period.
Their latest project is without a doubt, grand. Clocking in at just under 90 minutes, the 17 tracks that compose the album offer a larger-than-average serving size of their fun, energetic rock. If anything, making the album any shorter would be a disservice to the quirky energy that it emanates so authentically during its run-time.
The prog influences are clear, and despite the 2025 release date, you could easily tell someone it was released in the ‘70s prog renaissance, and that is not intended as a diss at all– unless you’re someone who dislikes that style of music. If anything that vibe is something that hasn’t been authentically reproduced by a credible name since that era, and it is utterly refreshing to hear it tributed so successfully.
The album draws heavily from artists like Rush, Gentle Giant, Genesis and even has sprinklings of King Crimson and Electric Light Orchestra. Vocal harmonies on “Men In Bed” & “Woodeneye” reminiscent of the medieval choirs that score Gentle Giant records, the near eight minute long “Skating” has fast twinkly guitar solos in odd time signatures reminiscent of Rush and the wide instrumentation gives classic Electric Light Orchestra.
Like all good prog-rock, the lyrics are totally nonsensical, serving more of a melodic purpose than a lyrical meaning one. On “Spelled All Wrong”: “Shows it blows my bright side, It pierce my bright side wide open, The only way to Jag”. This being just one of many examples of avant-garde lyrics that effortlessly weave through the polyrhythmic instrumentation and bring forth a beautiful collision of genres.
For those who love progressive rock of any era– throw yourself back to the golden-age with this goodbye-present from Cardiacs.
Paranoid – Black Sabbath
4.5/5
For some genres, early takes on the music feel rough, grimy and unfinished. Early takes on electronic music dating as far back as the 1930s can sound like an evil robot, straight from a sci-fi horror movie. Early pop music mostly consisted of vaudeville soundtracks that offer little outside of novelty for listeners now. When it comes to metal though– there is always a reason to go back to Black Sabbath.
For readers who have lived under a rock, Black Sabbath is the heavy metal group from Birmingham, widely credited with the creation of metal as a genre– that’s not to say metal didn’t exist before their debut. Artists like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple were co-pioneering distorted guitar riffs and before even them The Beatles had released “Helter Skelter” on The Beatles. It’s to say that they are credited with the first two metal albums; and their sophomore album, “Paranoid” strikes right to the core of exactly what metal should be: Loud, powerful, and filled with guitar solos.
Recording and release of “Paranoid” started and finished in 1970, just months after their self-titled debut, and evolves heavily on the foundation they started. In the transition from their first to second album, one can feel metal becoming what it is today. The riffs are catchier, the songs are shorter, and the message is angrier. While Black Sabbath’s sound on their previous album (and the slower, heavier songs on this one) would eventually be referred to as “doom metal”, this album brings the pace up, and the harmonica down.
Being raised in a traditional factory town in the midst of an economic downturn instilled a clear, anti-establishment message into the young band, just look at the powerful opener, “War Pigs”, with lines as on the nose as “Politicians hide themselves away, They only started the war, Why should they go out to fight?, They leave that all to the poor, yeah”, criticizing both capitalism and the politics that result from it. In “Electric Funeral” we see into a dystopia of constant, hyper-evolved war, with lines like “Robot minds of robot slaves, Lead them to atomic graves, Plastic flowers, melting sun” , both penned by bassist Geezer Butler.
That is, of course, only half the appeal of Black Sabbath– the other half is the wild drumming, electric guitar work, and powerful lyrics masterfully screamed by John “Ozzy” Osbourne. The riffs on this album remain some of the most iconic and catchiest to this day after over five decades. Despite being written as a filler track, the titular “Paranoid” has perhaps one of the best guitar solos in all of music and an insanely catchy riff to boot.
With the political message as relevant as it ever was, the guitar work as catchy as they ever were, and the album’s 55th anniversary just this week, if you haven’t listened to “Paranoid”, what are you doing?
