Sup Nutmeg Squad. We’re in that beautiful two-week period where people aren’t complaining about the weather being too hot or too cold. And speaking of the world being a beautiful place, guess who released their best album yet this week? Boatweiler! See, the joke there is that The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die released their best album to date this week, and I references the world being a beautiful place, so you may have expected I would have said that, but instead I said something else. God, I am hilarious. Anyways, while this week wasn’t as wonderfully busy as last week, we did get some of the best songs of the year IMO. Which songs, specifically? You gotta keep reading, that’s how this works! Many of these bands are also playing live shows now (check out our event calendar for Only Good Gigs [tm]), so if you go, make sure you take a mask and don’t be a weirdo.
Our special picks this week are wildly ambitious and excellent The World is a Beautiful Place record, Illusory Walls, the new Boatweiler EP/LP, Every Industry and Profession, and T!LT’s new slick surprise EP, Glass.
Check out this Bark List’s songs below, and as always, if you like what you hear: share it with a friend! And if you have the means, consider buying their music. Spotify is nice and all, but unless you plan on streaming a song multiple hundred times, Bandcamp is best. I know that tracking down songs on Bandcamp can be a pain in the ass, so if you discover new music on Spotify, consider throwing your playlists into this tool to quickly track down the Bandcamp page of these artists: https://hypem.com/merch-table/ .
You can follow us on instagram and twitter for more music during the week.
Albums + EPS:
Big Fang – Everything & Nothing at Once, Part 2
Fuzzy power pop maestros Big Fang released Part 1 of Everything & Nothing At Once earlier this year, and by surprise, they gave us the other half this week. Some songs here familiar, some new, but all terrific. Parts 1 and 2 will easily go down as one of our favorites of 2021.
Boatweiler – Every Industry and Profession
Straight up indie rock that feels like mid-00s Death Cab for Cutie when they were still worth a damn and I mean that in the best possible way. We’ve loved every Boatweiler EP, and this one is no exception.
Frederic Anthony – 2020 Singles
Fred launched the new band Peasant in 2021, and that band has played some of the killer songs he released in 2020. This collection of 2020 Singles feels like it’s capping off this era of Anthony’s solo work as he turns his attention to Peasant. It legit feels like a greatest hits record.
Green Light – Future Self
Perhaps CT’s best secret at the moment, Green Light released an album barely over a year ago. They’re already back with Future Self, a wildly enjoyable indie pop record. It’s a bit of a change in style, as they’ve embraced their melodic side, and it pays off with an album of straight up hits.
Skeleton Yaks – Cruelty of Yaks
Jake Gagne, local madman, has unleashed Cruelty of Yaks, a slippery, mercurial, adventurous, fun record and creative reboot. There are two competing threads on this record: melody and chaos, and both sides shine. When you buy from bandcamp, those proceeds will go to the New Haven Housing Fund.
T!LT – Glass
New Haven neon pop hunks.
The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die – Illusory Walls
Just when you think you have The World Is A Beautiful Place figured out, they completely change it up on you. When they announced Assorted Works in 2019, we quietly wondered if this meant that the band was beginning to enter into a slower, more complacent phase of their existence. After all, Ass Works collected the band’s rarities and loose ends, so it felt like a neat little bow to signal the start of a hiatus or long period of silence. And uhh, we were so goddamned wrong lmao. Illusory Walls is an incredible achievement. It features not just the band’s most ambitious songwriting ever, but also their best lyrics and melodies. We cannot overstate how wild, fulfilling, and wonderful this record is.
Singles:
American Thrills – “Blue Collar”
Kevin Ensign – “The Narrow Path / One and the Same”
King Bongo – “Sunburnt / Boys Gone Crazy”
Mighty Tortuga – “Virtue (feat. AJ Perdomo)”
Trace Mountains – “Eyes on the Road / Heart of Gold”
Trashing Violet – “Eggs”
Ever since catching a Trashing Violet show in 2019, we’ve been craving new music from the Fairfield County band. The band is fronted by Marisa Bloom, who also runs the must-read Rockmommy. “Eggs” is a fiery, biting punk song all about mediocre men high on their own supply. You know the type — the ones who make awful eggs for breakfast and expect you to be amazed by their romantic spirit. Best played loud with friends.
