New Music Monday: 28 September

Strung Out: Agents Of The Underground

“Black Gives Way to Blue,” Alice in Chains‘ first record in 14 years, as well as the first following Layne Staley’s tragic death is out this week, making a lot of waves. Surprisingly or not, the record sounds very much like the Alice most of us came to know and love in the early ’90s, contrary to most die hard fans’ lamentations. It’s a hard rock album, although you’ll find quite a reasonable amount of more mellow songs, as well as acoustics.

If trip-hop and ambient music is your cup of tea, you might find yourself interested in the new Zero 7 release, “Yeah Ghost,” the duo’s forth full length studio installment out this week. “Chicken Switch” is a very interesting remix album of various Melvins songs spanned across the band’s discography by a number of more or less obscure noise and experimental artists. What’s different about it, however, is that unlike usual remix albums where the remixer is given a single track to work with, for Chicken Switch each remixer was given a full album to work with and pull from to create their track.

I really enjoyed All Is Love, the first single we streamed last month off the new “Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack“, signed by Karen O and The Kids, and I’ve got a hunch I’ll prolly enjoy the rest of the soundtrack just as much. Contributors to the musical score include Karen O’s band mates Brian Chase and Nick Zinner, Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox, Liars’ Aaron Hemphill, The Dead Weather’s Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence from The Raconteur.

Other interesting new music out this week: Breaking Benjamin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Barbra Streisand, Foreigner or Default.

Melvins: Chicken Switch (remix album)