Indiecast - New Albums by The Strokes, Charli XCX and ... Pat McAfee?

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Steven and Ian open with a conversation about a new Jimothy, one of the most lasting characters in the Indiecast universe (1:01). After that, they talk about a possible "worst album of the year" candidate from ESPN personality Pat McAfee (7:47) and some gross happenings occurring at Noah Kahan shows (17:33). Then they discuss new releases from The Strokes, Charli XCX, Pete Yorn, and others (27:22). In Recommendation Corner, Ian recommends Citrus Jr. and Steven recommends Miles Hewitt (49:12). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indicast is presented by Amazon Music. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about new albums by The Strokes, Charlie XX, and Pat McAfee. Oh, my goodness. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He's the world's biggest Jimithy fan.

Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? You see, that would be true for every single week that we've, recorded this podcast except this one because I don't think that we've gotten more hey you guys need to cover this you guys need to cover this DMs and emails than we did for jimothy the raccoon maybe for like the geese chaotic uh the geese chaotic uh the geese chaotic good story but this is definitely number two with a bullet yeah i mean so we've been doing the show now mostly under uninterrupted for six years I think our six-year anniversary is just about now or around now.

Yeah, whenever arcade fires, the suburbs came out. Whatever, well, whenever the... 10-year, yeah. Yeah, it would have been the 10-year anniversary. No, it would have been the... Yeah, 10-year. Anyway, I feel like one of the most enduring things we've talked about on this show is the British rapper Jimothy, who we haven't talked about in a long time.

That episode, I looked this up. This was in 2021. It was actually almost exactly five years ago. So it was a year into the show. We started talking about this guy, Jimothy, that was covered in the New York Times, British rapper. And they did a profile of him.

And the headline was, Jimothy's Flex looks a little different. I don't know if you remember that headline. Of course I remember it. We may have covered Jimothy in 2021, but we have definitely threaded Jimothy. in little jokes and asides for the ensuing five years. It's not the one where we can look at the outline and figure that out.

But what I'm saying is I feel like our listeners have kept Jimothy alive. Oh, absolutely. I feel like they bring it up a lot more than we do. I don't remember the last time you or I referenced Jimothy, but when I speak to Indycast listeners when they email us or maybe we see them at a show, I hear Jimothy references come up more than like pretty much anything else we've talked about. Like that is the legacy of the show. I feel like ultimately we're going to get the most credit for boosting Jimothy even more than the New York Times.

So anyway, you fast forward to this week and there's a story. Again, the New York Times covers Jimithy again. Only this time it's not the rapper. As you said, it's a raccoon described as a stout raccoon. which has a special condition is, quote, an example to all of us that you don't have to be perfect to be loved. Do you know what that means? Apparently, Jimmy The he's from Seattle.

This is not a British raccoon. You get the British rapper. You got the Seattle raccoon. He's silly and round, apparently. So he's fat, like a fat raccoon? Is that what we're doing with him? Yeah, I think there's like a spinal condition. And it's a shame that we could say his flex literally is quite,

different. I mean, like, that's like the second, that's the second level of Jimithy jokes. Like, knowing who Jimothy is is the top level, but knowing that his flex is different. Yeah, you know, I'm hoping that by the time this airs, people still remember Jimothy the raccoon. But, you know, whether or not that happens or whether or not, like, we get like kind of the milkshake duck thing happening, we're still going to be making Jimothy jokes here on Indycast. As long as long as as we breathe air on this podcast. Well, is this person, whoever named this raccoon, is this a reference? Is this like an Indycast listener possibly?

Like, are they, because where do you get Jimithy from? They've either, they're either familiar with the rapper or they're familiar with our show. I'm not aware of any other Jimothy out there. Is this a common name? Is this something that you would just reference without knowing the context we're talking about? Do we have more monthly listeners than Jimothy? I think that's the question. That is the question. I'm just wondering, Seattle Zoo, are you listening to Indycast? Is there a mole inside the Seattle Zoo? Can you drop us a line? Can you just confirm where the name Jimithy came from?

I wonder if this is a stealth joke, because if it is, we're incredibly honored if that is the case. If it's not, that's fine. I appreciate you keeping Jimothy alive. Yeah. In one shape or another. I do think it's funny that when you Google Jimithy New York Times, that the raccoon now comes up first. I know.

It's not the rapper. That's really tough for me because every time I make a Jimothy joke, I have to remember whether I'm talking about him or kid G. Well, that's the thing. I was going to bring up Kid G. The New York Times,

they had this run for a while where they were doing these wacky stories about rappers Jimithy was one and then earlier that year in 2021 I don't know Was this like a post-COVID thing? Yeah I was not to say Our brains were broken

We all needed something Like Jimothy is actually This is like such a COVID type story Oh yeah And well kid G For those who don't remember This was the story about I think the headline was

Rapp's new country emo Superstar Which I've We were all waiting for it because the lineage of rap's country emo stars goes back decades and when we were in the pandemic we were all wondering is COVID going to break the chain of great country emo stars in rap music and fortunately the New York Times told us about kid G I mean the kid G thing is funnier to me in a lot of ways Jimithy is a funny name so that's why it's stuck around but the whole kid G

Which I looked up Kid G, by the way, on Spotify. He does have a couple songs that have a ton of streams. Okay. Apparently he has an album that came out this year, which is in like the five digits of streams. So, you know, like 20,000. So not a lot of streams for his latest record. Apparently we're looking for the next, next country emo superstar and rap

because it's no longer Kid G. He was it in the early 2020s for country emo rap. Now we need one in the late 2020s. I don't know who that's going to be. New York Times. Are they on this? Can we get a video on this on Instagram maybe? I don't know.

But so Kid G's been forgotten. Jim, if he lives on, maybe Kid G can get a raccoon named after him. Yeah, or like a possum or like a stout or something along those lines, something related. What was that a stote? Stote. I think that's like an animal that's like kind of furry.

It's like kind of like a leased. or something like that or a weasel. I know this because it's all, it's in the New York Times crossword a lot. Okay. I'll take your word for it. I like your knowledge of small furry animal. This is small furry animal cast. Yeah.

At the top. Let's do a quick sports cast here, which is also an indie cast. Half and half, music cast. Pat McAfee, ESPN personality, wearer of tang tops, a guy who's kept AJ Hawk employed for doing nothing for years. Just, AJ Hawks never said a word on television as far as I know. But anyway, Pat McAfee, he announced this week. I think he's announced this already earlier in the year, but he announced a release day.

He made a record. I don't know if you're familiar with this Ian. I'm not. I thought it was a joke. I still think it's like a joke, but I think I'm not clear on it. Yeah, I'm not clear if it's serious. Like, is he kidding? He put out an album cover, and he has an album title for this.

And I, let me pull this up. I already had it up. It's called Diary of a Polarizing Figure. And he's on the cover, and he has his arms crossed, and he has his, looks like his left hand on his chin, and he's looking defiant, kind of like an Eminem, kid rock type pose, I guess.

And then there's a book in the background. It's open. It says, Dear Diary. And he's teasing the album this week with a tweet. This is what he tweeted. He said, for as long as I can remember, my mere existence has made people hate my guts. Dot, dot, not the full ellipsies. The two-thirds ellipsies.

I've been writing songs about it for 20 years, and it's time to let that a-H-T. I guess it's like a thing. Like maybe he has like an accent where he pronounces things a certain way and it's like understood like within his fan base. That's what I'm guessing. Is he from Indiana? I know he played for the Colts. Is he, I wonder if he's from India. I don't know if that's like an Indiana accent.

Indiana is a, you know, because he's got the. He's from plum, Pennsylvania. Okay. And he played ball in West Virginia. So I think he's like kind of like Allegheny, like kind of, yeah, like that's sort of like, Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, sort of thing. So Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Indiana, that's like a triumvirate of, that's like three different kinds of redneck, really.

Yeah. Being bred into him. That's a pretty amazing thing. A lot of headlines and narratives, this is back to the tweet, again with the two dots, he doesn't like the, he doesn't like the full ellipsies. If I was to die, I'd like my kids to know exactly who their dad is. and then it says August 14th, 2026. The album has a parental advisory sticker on it too.

So you know, going to be dropping some serious language. I love this. I hope it's a real album. I plan on covering it. Whether I'm writing about it on my substack or hopefully we'll talk about it here. It combines a lot of things that a lot of my interests.

You've got sports. You've got potential album, like worst album of the year candidates. I'm very interested in that. And also, you know, he's a guy from Indiana who's working in the style of getting the ring, Guns and Roses song. Because I assume this album is just going to be him calling out people that have wronged him. Which, by the way, he announced this album, I don't know if it was the same day, but it's the same week. A bunch of ESPN people got laid off this week again, like high profile, on-air talent, got laid off. Meanwhile, McAfee is like one of the only people that they're still paying now.

It's like him and Steve at A. Smith, basically. So he's, it's a very Axel Rose in 1991 type stance that he's taking where you're on top of the world, but you're also taking shots because you feel like you're under siege. It's amazing to me. Are you excited about this album? Am I alone here? I mean, it's going to be terrible. I mean, if it exists, I mean, I...

So you're skeptical about it existing. You're like the guys saying Santa Claus doesn't exist. Yeah. It's like Christmas week and you're like, no, Santa's not coming. Yeah, I'm thinking like if it... I do like how the album title remind me of Tony A.O's thoughts of a predicate felon. That was pretty cool. But beyond...

And I think the font's kind of 2005 rap as well. But beyond that, like, guaranteed there's like a puddle of mud blurry type song. on this for like all the you know all the chuds going to like child support court or whatever i think that's probably the entire aesthetic right don't you think it's probably like a puddle of mud post grunge there's i mean there's one song like that i think i think it's like if not rapping like kind of like a spoken word like kid like in the way that like kid rock doesn't really rap but he's more like talking and a rap like cadence that's what i'm thinking it's going to be this like not rapping but like sort of a spreckens gand or whatever that phrase is for all the british guys

talk. But I got to ask you this because, like, you know, you're, you're from the Midwest and you've been on certain sports shows and bringing up that again. And I think just, oh, yeah, due to the... Are you going to try to get on Find Bomb when your email book comes out? I hope so, man. Like, I've written 5,000 word blog spots about, like, Death Cap for CUNITY and Georgia football in 2005. Like, I can absolutely thread that needle. I'll slip you the producer's email. And I'll just be like, maybe I'll CC, I'll be like, hey, Ian, because I have to admit, I was on, I've been on Feinbaum, I think, twice. The first time I was on, I think it was like four or five years ago.

And that's how I learned who Paul Feinbaum was. I did not know who he was. I would have probably been more nervous about going on his show or I would have appreciated how weird it was that I was on his show talking about. I think I was talking about Pearl Jam. I think I was talking about that book. Yeah. Because the producer liked Pearl Jam. It helps to write about sports friendly artists.

I think that is what got me in there. But anyway, sorry, you were saying you were going to ask me about... Yeah, just like, yeah, just due to that. And by the way, hot rod circuits in the book, they're from Alabama. Holler at me, Paul. All right. I'll hook you up. I'll hook you up, baby.

But yeah, I mean, just kind of due to the fact that you write about, you know, bands like Pearl Jam and you two and, you know, just the classic rock, sort of the greater galaxy and you just have like this massive reach. I imagine you deal with a lot more chuds and, troll, like sports chuds and trolls. Not so much like the music ones. But do you know anyone who's like, yeah, man, Pat McAfee? Like, I need to see this guy when I turn on ESPN.

I'm just kind of fascinated because there's like this America B, I guess you would call it, that wants to see as much Pat McAfee as possible. And like every day I go to the gym, I see like the barstool sports version of around the horn or whatever it is where it's like, you know, four guys who wear golf polos every day, but they have that one going out shirt when their wife makes them go out to dinner or something like that, and they're talking about, like, Sophie Cunningham. Like, do you have, like, a barstool explainer in your midst? Like, you have your friend who works for rock radio.

Right. No, to be honest with you, I don't have a lot of sports chuds, as you would say. I don't feel like that's really part of my engagement or people that, if they're reading me, I'm not hearing from those people. So, yeah, I don't really have any insight in that. I mean, presumably people like McAfee. I mean, I would hope that people like McAfee if he's, again, become like one of the only people that's on that channel now, it feels like. I mean, or it's like McAfee and Stephen A. Smith and then a bunch of people that they can pay less money to, essentially. And so, I don't know.

I mean, it seems like with McAfee and Stephen A, both of them, It's almost like going beyond whether people like them or not and just full on embracing being a wrestling heel. It seems like they've both gone down that path where it's better to be talked about than it is to be liked. And maybe this is the final form that ESPN takes because it feels like, because they're going to be an ESPN in 10 years? I don't know. I mean, honestly, I mean, I feel like at some point, the streaming platforms are just going to decide that they want all the sports rights and they'll just outbid all the cable networks and then they'll be done. Just like TNT. Like, TNT still exists now that they don't have MBA?

I mean, when was the last time anyone watch TNT? I mean, they are probably just showing, you know, what? What's that show? like Franklin and Bash. Do you remember that show? Franklin and Bash, Rizoleon Isles. I'm definitely out of my depth talking about TNT shows,

but I know what you mean. Just watching, yeah, just wall-to-wall, Franklin and Bash. Like the TNT version of ridiculousness, you know, like what MTV does now. So I feel like they're in their final form

where they're just going to have a few people who are wrestling heels and that's going to be the last stage of ESPN. It feels like that's what we're in right now. Yeah, everything is shitty. Like, I think that's kind of the overall arc of things right now. Yeah, well, that is a good segue into our next segment here. I didn't even mean that.

And I'm going to apologize in advance for talking about this. I don't feel good about it. And I feel like we may lose listeners because of this segment. Just understand that it's the douged. days of summer. We don't have a whole lot to talk about this time of year. There's a new Strokes album out today as we're posting this, but we didn't get the streams, or at least I got the stream on Wednesday, and we're recording on Thursday. So not a ton of time to talk about that album. I think we're going to review that in earnest next week. So we're left with this story.

It's about Noah Khan. The biggest pop folk singer right now, I would say, in America, playing stadiums. Put out his record The Great Divide earlier this year, big hit. We talked about him a bit on the show. I think he's... I'm not the biggest fan of the world of his. I think he's okay. I think he has some songs that are okay.

Seems a little forgettable, but I think he's pretty good at writing lyrics. He's got some songs I like. I don't know how you feel about Noa Khan. Do you have any Nookan takes? Yeah, he seems like he's a force for good. And, you know, every time I see his picture, he makes me think of, like, what happens when you're doing a creative player in EA college football and you accidentally put braids on a white guy.

Like, he's got that look. And it brings me great joy. But he does a lot of stuff with mental illness. He's doing a lot of awareness with that. It seems very positive for the world. And again, like his songs are. solid. I think if you imagine a hugely successful pop folk singer playing stadiums, he's the best version of that. Yeah. That kind of middle of the road music, it could be, you could do a lot worse

than Noah Khan. Anyway, he's had this thing lately, and I don't know how this got started. It feels at this point like it's a self-perpetuating thing that got talked about in the media, and now it just seems to be happening, almost like people are self-aware about it. But there's this thing with Noah Khan concerts where people apparently are going to the bathroom in their seats. Not with a diaper on or a depends adult under garment, you know, the way a gentleman would. If you were a gentleman or a lady who didn't want to use a bathroom, you would strap on a depends adult under garment or, you know, a large diaper. these people apparently are just dropping trial and peeing because they don't want to miss the show, I guess. Like they're so locked into Noah Khan that they're like, I can't miss this song about, I think you, I would say, I remember an old episode I said Massachusetts is where he's from.

I think it's Maine or Vermont. Somewhere, New England. Let's say New England. It's definitely Vermont. Is it Vermont? Okay. Sorry. Vermont.

You're singing a. song about Vermont and depression. You don't want to leave. So people are just like peeing in their seats or sometimes worse than that. I'm going to read from a stereo gumpost about this from this week. No Kahn's The Great Divide Tour kicked off last month and there's been no shortage of controversy. The Philadelphia show on June 26. This is your backyard Ian. Made headlines after an attendee went number two in their seat. My God. And then skipping ahead here. Apparently, this is a threads post this is from a different show reads as follows Noah Khan 10 out of 10 the woman who turns section 125 into a bathroom

0 out of 10 my biohazard urine soaked purse in everything inside it skipped the right home and went straight into the city field trash can so this is in New York City spending a thousand

dollars on tickets to Noah Khan? Yeah if you buy like two two or three tickets maybe like you know the dinner beforehand i i could i could see it damn wasn't supposed to end with replacing my belongings due to a feral creature turning a section into her personal toilet yeah apparently i don't know if it was at this show but there was like uh i think it was the same section yeah this was the same show apparently there were like two girls who snuck into this

section it's like section 125 so pretty good section presumably pretty close. And they just like pulled down their underwear or whatever and just peed right there. What the hell was wrong with people, Ian? What is going on in our society here where people just want to enjoy sensitive folk pop? And you got people just deprecating, urinating all over the place. This is like Woodstock 99 here, but every day. Yeah, I mean,

Look, I love the fact that you have to get a few clicks in before Noah Khan says he shit himself on stage in Charlottesville. And you know what? I wasn't even going to touch that. I feel like we've tortured our listeners enough if they're still listening to this episode. Yeah. But okay, fine. I guess we're giving them the full package here. Yeah, but I'm thinking back, you know, on the subject of these post-COVID 2021 stories, you know, along with Jim at the.

I'm thinking like when Turnstile was like the coming back. Like they were one of the first bands that people were like really stoked to see when concerts started opening up and someone took a shit in the Mosh pit. Like that was funny. And it's like, yeah, it's turnstile. Like what do you expect? But yeah, I need to know if this is happening at like Zach Bryan shows or, you know, somber shows. I mean, maybe not somber because he doesn't make like 80 minute albums. But yeah, I, I, from the sound.

of things like, I mean, you've gone to marathon length shows, seated gigs, jam shows. The way you're talking about this leads me to believe that this is not happening there. I've never seen this. Look, you know, I, well,

I do have a story about this, but I'm not going to tell it because I feel like this is way Amazon exclusive content. Yeah, exactly. But I don't know. It's strange because there's something going on right now in parallel to this that I've observed.

And other people have talked about this as well, where you go to shows now and people don't drink like they used to. You look at the concession stand. The lines don't seem as long. Drinking in general among younger people is way down. So seeing that in conjunction with this, it seems very contradictory. Because if there was like some, you know, trend of like wanton drunkenness, You know, people just out of control. They're binge drinking.

It wouldn't excuse this. It's still inexcusable and gross and terrible and never, ever, ever do this. Talking to the young people out there and the old people too. It might be even harder for the old people to hold it in sometimes. But there's no excuse for it, but I would understand it. Like, people were just really intoxicated. But apparently people are doing this when they're sober. Or maybe they're hitting the vape pen or something.

I don't understand it. What is wrong with you, though? To do it out in public, too, apparently with no shame. You're not going in a corner somewhere. You're not like under the bleachers. You're not hiding in the shadows. You're just out loud and proud. I don't know.

It's really weird. And Noah Khan, why is it always happening to him? It's very strange, you know, kind of conflation there. You wouldn't think Noah Khan would be the P guy, but he is. That's his rep now. Yeah, but I think it's kind of, well, Noah Khan just with his overall aura of like vulnerability or whatever. It makes a certain kind of sense. But I'm telling you, like, yeah, I'm confused by this because like when I go to concerts or especially festivals, like, I am so trying not to have to go to the bathroom.

Like I am doing everything within my power to avoid that. Like, I was thinking about doing a coffee table book about like the picture, like taking pictures of people's faces when they leave. the porta potty's in Coachella. It is just the range of human experience, the look on their faces. I think that, you know, if I ever finished my first book, maybe that'll be my second one.

Well, you know, I've stopped drinking. I haven't had a drink in several months now. And one of the side benefits, one of the many side benefits of that is going to a show and you save a bunch of money. But also, yeah, you don't have to go to the bathroom. You don't have to, like,

give up your spot on the floor because you've had however many beers and you have to get rid of it somehow. You know, if you're only there drinking a bottle of water or whatever, you're good for the entire show. So if you're not drinking and you're still doing this, I don't know what's going on. You might want to see a doctor, maybe your bladder,

you've got some sort of condition going on where you can't hold it in. I don't know. This whole segment I feel bad about. Again, I apologize to our listeners. for talking about this. Hopefully it was enjoyable. Hopefully it didn't create mental images in your mind that were disturbing as you were driving to work

or doing your workout or whatever it is you do when you listen to this show. I can't promise we won't do this again. Yeah. We might do it again if it's news, but anyway, let's talk about the week's new releases a bit more than what we had last week. We're coming into like a busier time.

now for new releases. There's a lot of stuff coming out in August. We've already talked about the Pat McAfee record that's obviously going to be the biggest release of that time. But you know, there's a lot of big records coming out in August. But we had some big ones come out today. Let's talk about some of them. Alex Cameron has a new record out today. It's called Late to Set. Australian singer-songwriter. Kind of has like an ironic persona thing going on, an alter ego on stage. I don't totally get it. I know there's people that are big on him.

If you know Alex Cameron, you're really into what he does. I've dabbled in his records. I was a little confounded, I guess, by what was going on. I didn't totally get it. I respect what he's doing. I like the idea of having an alter ego

doing something more meta or high concept, not just the standard singer-songwriter thing. With his music, though, It hasn't totally connected with me, but I do think it's potentially interesting. I don't know. Have you gone deep with Alex Cameron? I mean, this guy's just been around for so long, and I know people who are into him. And I know he's definitely like a guy that a type of guy is into.

Like, you know, if you're still kind of wishing all music sounded kind of sort of like Nick Cave, I guess, you know, it's the Australian piece. but yeah, like this seems like something that if I had it, I don't think I reviewed it in 2013, but like if I did, I wouldn't be surprised. That's kind of what I think of Alex Cameron as. Yeah, like he's never totally broken out, but he definitely has a strong cult following, at least here in America.

I'm not sure what he's like in his home country, if he's a little more popular over there. But anyway, new record late to set is out today. We have a new Charlie XXX album. It's called Music, Fashion Film, The Three Greatest Things in the World. We were talking about this a little bit. Charlie X-CX, of course, one of the bigger pop stars in the world at the moment. Her last record, Brat came out 2024, was a huge phenomenon,

was, I would say, the consensus pick among critics as the album of the year. We've also talked about it on this show, feeling like a record that in a way signifies an era that seemed to be ending even as it was emerging. The tweet that Charlie did, Kamala is Brat in the summer of 2024, feels like it happened 20 years ago. Honestly, it feels like a time that we've already kind of moved beyond in a lot ways. She's still a huge star. She did that soundtrack to Weathering Heights. Was that earlier this year? I think it was, right? It was absolutely this year. I had the same reaction, yeah.

And her film was also out around the same time, which I've never seen. Have you seen the movie that she made? I have not seen it yet. Do you remember what it was called? The problem or something like that? The moment. The moment, yeah. Sort of a self-satterizing mockumentary type film, but also filmed on her actual tour.

So there's a little bit of, is this real? Is this made up aspect to it? The trailer did not look good. But I am going to see this eventually. I think it's an intriguing project, but obviously I'm not in a hurry to see it. I haven't seen it yet.

So he has this new album out today, and we were talking about, Like, what is the heat check on this record? Like, are people excited about this album? I think it's a little... The reception to Brat, I think, was so overwhelming that maybe that's distorting things a little bit for this record. I'm not sure what the advanced single situation was.

I don't... There was that song that she put out... Was it just called rock music? Yeah. Yeah, like, her rock song. And she had that comment about... Dance floor is dead. Dance floor is dead.

And it seemed like she backed off from that. She did an interview where she was saying that she was maybe not in a great place mentally, which I totally understand. She's been under the microscope for a long time. I could see that I wonder if there's some sort of disenchantment maybe with how she's been talked about. It seemed like for a long time she was really feeding the media beast. and she's been around for a long time. You know, she's been putting out record since the early 2010s.

Very beloved by many people started off more of the indie pop space and then became a genuine pop star. There's a little bit of a feeling of a hangover with this record. Again, we have not heard it. I don't know. I'm not even speaking about it musically, but like in terms of how it's being received, and maybe even with Charlie herself,

I wonder if there's a little bit of a post-brat burnout what am I going to do now do I actually want to be as exposed as I have been is there a drawback to that is there maybe something nice about not as many people paying attention to me a lot of these things seem to be circling around this album yeah I think that this is this feels very 90 you know 90s person says it feels very 90s but like between the cover art and the album title. What is the album cover again? Can you describe that for us? It's like John Kale, Martin Scorsese, and a fashion guy. I should know this, man.

We don't know the fashion guy. We are two very unfashionable people. Yeah. But yeah, she's referencing kind of old head, godheads. Yeah, three guys, like two of them very old. And there's just something very self-consciously. like maybe it's like an Anton Corbyn type picture like that's what I think of where it's like a very 90s like hey we're scaling back intentionally now granted like the music itself is still very brash but yeah I'm like wondering as I do with just about everything I do wonder like whether people are checking for it I mean like all people at work are talking about are either the odyssey or like Love Island or like the World Cup but like I think even relative to

an Olivia, the Olivia Rodriguez album, or the last Sabrina Carpenter album, or even Gracie Abrams. I'm not seeing as much, like, chatter about this amongst the same people, like, at work who were really, really big on Brat. So, yeah. And Elaine is open for music. I mean, again, this has been kind of a sparse year for big ticket albums. So you would think that, oh, there would be a hunger for a Charlie XX record. Like, oh, we can fire this back up. But the Brat thing, had a long tail. I mean, it went into earlier this year.

I mean, with the, with the movie that she put out. And then you had the Weathering Heights album. And I don't know if there's just fatigue with Charlie XX. If she hasn't been away long enough, I don't know. But I get the same sense that you are,

that the proportion of conversation to her stature feels a little out of whack. Yeah. And maybe this is like a good sort of, again, this album might come. out it might be brat too but um yeah i do think that uh she's so not self-conscious but like conscientious about like her image and everything that like this this isn't this might be like i don't know like what happens with like the most recent like lord records you know where it's not like if it doesn't

hit as hard as the previous one it's not because like it won't be seen as like i don't know like a step down or a failure or a dud it's more just like okay this person is conscientiously perhaps reining things in in a way that's like very, very conscientious. So I'll be interested to see what happens. There's a new record by Nick Hakim out today called I Can See, an indie R&B record, Stereogum, this is their album of the week. I have not heard this album.

I don't know if you listen to any Nick Hakim music. Man, this is just like, it just makes me think of like 2000. This is like 2017-ish type stuff. Right, right. I think of Nick Hakeem. I think of like 2017. Yeah. We've often talked about this being the North Star for music critics.

You think that's still the case, or is that more of like a millennial music critic thing? I wonder if Jen's, because I feel like just thinking about our indie albums draft or, you know, our fantasy albums draft, I feel like those albums are not the same lock for, critical claim that they were maybe a few years ago. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm a little early on this trend that I'm trying to hash right now. But I wonder if that's more of like a millennial music writer thing and if Gen Z has a different take on that.

Because it really is like what, like that kind of record became like what, you know, like the five-star Bruce Springsteen album was, you know, for people our age. you know the thing where you just roll your eyes at like oh god okay again this got a great review it felt like a lot of artists in that lane maybe getting that but i don't know maybe not maybe i'm early on hashing that it's a feeling i have though well i think what this is something that will probably get hashed out when blonde turns 10 this year well that's a different story though yeah that's that record transcend no it's it does transcend but i'm thinking about like the long tail influence of frank ocean you know like where music just all

sounded like that? Well, I think that permeates a lot of music, though, that isn't, I don't think that's specific to genre, the sound of that. I think that, I mean, we'll talk about the Strokes record in a minute. I think there's, you could even point to things on that record that I would trace back to Frank Ocean, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, liquey sound of the new strokes record. Well, should we do, well, no, let's, let's hold on a second.

We have some other albums in the middle here. Pete Yorn Yeah Indicast's favorite All the Beauty His new album is out today Do you listen to late period Pete Yorn at all

Ian? If by late period You mean anything after Morning Music for the Morning After Then no See I I Well I mean

I for sure go after music After the first record Music for the morning after Day I forgot Can we get a shout out for that Second record That's a good record Nightcrawler, I think, is a good record, this third album.

I saw that on vinyl at an antique store in Appleton this past weekend. And now I'm feeling like I should have bought it. That was a fine, dude. It was only like 15 bucks. I bet I can go back there in six months and no one's going to buy that. I don't know if there's any other people from Appleton who have lived there ever that would care about Nightcrawler by Pete Yon. as much as me.

But I could be wrong. Maybe I'm giving it away. Someone listening locally is going to go pick that up. But yeah, I don't know. He put out a record a few years ago. It might be longer than that. Arranging time, which is pretty good. I interviewed him, I think, on my old podcast for that.

Anyway, enough Pete Yorne. Punch Brothers, the unsung adventures of Punch Brothers. I'm guessing you don't have anything to say about Punch Brothers, Ian. I get him confused with the Pernice brothers. The Pernice brothers. Ah, there you go. Shaniah Twain, new record out today. Little Miss Twain is the name of it.

I almost picked this for the fantasy album's draft. Did I actually pick it? I don't think he did. It was on my board just because I just feel like anyone that's going to review that now is going to be reviewing it with an eye on. oh, we have to correct any type of misunderstanding from critics that occurred in the 90s. You know, you see that happen sometimes. I think especially with female artists from the 90s who weren't respected critically,

whatever they put out in the 2020s, it turns into a think piece about how bad critics used to be. And then as long as the album's not terrible, the new album, then that will make the new review. good. So I feel like she's going to get that. I'll stop you right there. I'll stop you right there and say the queen of me, her last one got a 61. Oh, really? Yeah. A 5.2 at pitchfork. Well, maybe she's are, okay, well, maybe she's already had this then. Okay, well, I'm exposing my ignorance here late period Twain, so I apologize for that. Let's get to something I do know about. The strokes. They have a new album out today called Reality Awaits. I've heard this album. I got the promo stream yesterday.

So I've heard this album, I think about three times. I'm going to wait to talk about it. We'll talk about it next week. It'll be on streaming platforms by then, and then you can listen to it and hear what you think. I saw one review for it that Rolling Stone did. I don't know if they got the stream earlier than I did. Otherwise, they did a review very quickly.

You know, like in an afternoon. I will say that I don't think this is an album that you should listen to for an afternoon than write about. It's definitely not a grabber type record. It's definitely the strokes fusing with the voids a little bit, although not as crazy as the voids, but there's some voids like things. And I'm referring to Julian Casablanca's solo project, by the way.

But I did want to talk about the strokes a little bit just because I saw them last Friday. I teased this on the show that I was going to go see the strokes for the first time ever, which is a little weird because I just wrote a book about them. So I'm seeing them after having written a book about them. But, and I'm going to write about this on my substack too next week. But I thought it was fascinating and really interesting that I would say 90% of the people around me at the show were like ages 15 to 25.

There weren't that many people in my vicinity that were my age. So like most of the people that were like younger than is this it? which I think speaks well to the strokes in their career moving forward. I mean, the songs from the new abnormal, I would say got it. I would say it was the biggest response of the night, really. Tied with some songs from the first record. But like the songs in the middle were more muted in terms of the response.

Like reptilia people got excited for. But the adults are talking, selfless. Oh to the Mets was the last song. in the set, which I think is just what they do now. And it was a huge response to O to the Mets. That's the last song on the new abnormal. It was definitely a situation, and you see this sometimes with legacy bands

where the older songs that the older fans know aren't as big of a deal. It's the songs from the new record that people take seriously. I just think that that would be surprising to a lot of people who are older. I hear this from people like our age who are like, why would young people care about the strokes?

They're always amazed by this, but they have a huge younger audience. And it's so obvious when you go see them live, and they love that record. I think that record, which didn't get a great response critically, is I think much, it's a much bigger deal than I think people like us, maybe not me, maybe people like you, Ian, give a credit for it. I think they had a lot of impact on people. Yeah, I mean, when I saw that you posted today about Rush and just kind of going through their career, maybe this is, I don't know, the new abnormals, I know the timeline doesn't sync up, but maybe it's like, you know, like power windows or like one of those kind of late career ones that was like inordinately popular. I think it's more like, and look, it's not as huge as this record, but I would make the analogy to like Californication, something like that.

That's a good call. Where the chili peppers have had a couple different rounds now, where there's an audience that just, they love the record that came out when they were 14. And you talk to chili peppers fans who are in their 20s and 30s, and they don't care as much about blood sugar sex magic, but they like love Stadium Arcadium. And like people like us are like,

what the hell are you doing listening to Stadium Arcadium? And they swear by it. They're like, oh yeah, I bought a best, buy and you know, I listen to it all summer, you know. And I scoff at that, but I've, I've had relationships with bands like that, too, where they were an older band. I love steel wheels by the Rolling Stones. I mean, how insane is that? So I think it's, I mean, California, obviously like 10 million sold much bigger record than the new abnormal, but I think, on a smaller scale, I think it's like that for this generation. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know,

with like Interpol being as big as they are now, like there's a pretty easy explanation, which is that they got like super big in like south america and mexico and um you know with like deaf tones kind of a a similar sort of uh thing but they're different in that like some of their older stuff got really really popular just not the older stuff you would expect um so but yeah with this but deaf tones are also super influential like obviously on a lot of what you would consider to be a cool music but the strokes is yeah the new abnormal there's the secret sauce where I can't figure out like what it was that made that pop. And yeah, I mean, I do remember in 2016, 2017, when I go to FYFest in Los Angeles,

I would just see so many strokes T-shirts, so many. And those people, like, those probably aren't the people you're talking about being at the show because they would have been like, I don't know, 10 at the time. Look, I think it's cool, you know, it's that people are getting into the strokes. it's interesting that them being this generational rock band took like 25 years but hey i'm sure i'll read all about that journey in your book yeah i mean this is something i wish i had actually written about more i touch on it at the end of the book but i do think there is a phenomenon with the strokes where people are a it's an inverse of what you would expect where i i feel like

people who were around at the time when they first came on the scene are actually more cynical about them than younger people who came in after the fact. I think typically you see, oh, the older fans are more nostalgic or they're more prone to romanticize a band. Whereas I feel like when I talk to people my age, they're always like, oh, the strokes, are they still around? Or like, oh, yeah, they had one good album and then they faded away and who cares about them? but you talk to younger people and they're much more likely to look at their career in its totality

and to care about albums that aren't Is This It or Room on Fire. I mean, I think the new abnormal is actually like a great record and I do write about this in my book. I think that record was unfairly judged. It came out like right when the pandemic happened. So that in a way maybe colored the reception

in a negative way initially, but I think it helped it in the long run. There's something about that record that feels very appropriate for that initial shutdown period in the same way that is this it did accidentally after 9-11. I mean, it's an interesting instance of like a career rhyming in a weird way, like where, oh, the strokes end up really mattering when they accidentally coincide with a disaster. You know, and I think in a way that album means as much, talking about the new abnormal,

it means as much to people that were really impacted by the shutdown, which were, I would say, is disproportionately young people. And the same way that, like, if you were young in your 20s, when Isissa came out and 9-11 happened. I feel like I'm giving my entire review of this album in this thing. I should hold back a little bit for what I'm going to be writing next week, but I think there's something to that for sure yeah plus i'll get to listen to the album as well like i did not get it on wednesday because i have not written a book about the strokes it was hard to come by i had to ask a lot for it but yeah excited to get more into that next week we've now reached the part of our episode that we

call recommendation corner where i and i talk about something we're into this week uh ian want to go first yeah so i've just been so busy at work and celebrating my wife's birthday and all these things that just tend to distract me for finding new music, but I somehow stumbled upon, this is like a real I found this off Reddit type pick. It's gotten some traction in the Twitter Emoverse or the emo Twitterverse, whatever you want to call it. This band's so green that they talk about playing high and dry at a battle of the bands in their band bio, but they are a band from San Diego, Oceanside specifically called Citrus Jr., not to be confused with Kiwi Jr. They had an EP Pete called Athens Georgia. So you know what? I'm sold on this. They put out their album called Sign My

Cast a little while ago. And this is really fun, but also like really skillful. Midwest emo circa 2011, not necessarily like the new kind where it just sounds like Hot Mulligan. I like Hot Mulligan, but you can't be Hot Mulligan and try to sound like them. It's very much in that basement, 2011 seeing title fight in Algernon. It's raw. These guys know how to write hooks. They know how to write it, put songs together. And it's just really cool to hear a band doing it at this level, where it's like, yeah, if I were to see them in San Diego, they'd probably be playing a a house show to 20 people. But there's something to it. I'm really excited to see where they're going with it. Citrus Jr. Sign my cast. And I want to talk about a singer-songwriter

based in Massachusetts named Miles Hewitt. I've been talking about this guy a bit on my substack, and I also did an interview with him for Up Rocks a few weeks ago. He has an album. It's finally out today. It's called Vain Glory. And I think it's one of the more ambitious records that I've heard in a long time. Miles Hewitt has actually a really accomplished poet.

He went to Harvard and studied poetry, like literally went to Harvard. So he has that kind of academic background. But as a musician, he has ensconced himself with this kind of, the cream of the crop of, like, great musicians that are working in New York, Brooklyn area. And if you look at the liner notes of his record, it includes musicians who have contributed to artists' albums like Destroyer, Cass McCombs, Andy Schoff. Those artists, I think, give an indication of the kind of music that Miles Hewitt makes. Although I would say that his record is maybe a little more grandiose even than some of those artists I just mentioned. There's a real orchestral quality almost to this album.

Especially like, I mean, there's a song called Fortune and Her Orchestra, which is at the top of the record, one of the best songs on the album. I would also say that along with some of those more indie rock artists that I mentioned, I would liken this album to some of the grades of 70s British folk, you know, people like Nick Drake, for instance. There's some of that deep melancholy that exists on this album as well. But it's not just like a personal, you know, sort of heartbreak type album, that you might expect. It actually takes like a much wider philosophical view of just humanity at the

moment and where we exist at this sort of nexus of like technology and AI and what that means for us as people and what the future holds for society. And it's a fascinating moment to be living in. It's a dark moment to be living in. That's a scary moment potentially. And these are all things that that Hewitt writes about in his music. And more than that, like, he, evokes, I think, the dread of the times right now, while also delivering music that's really beautiful and well-performed and well-written. It's a record that I've really enjoyed ever since I heard it a few months ago, and I'm excited that it's out. I think people are going to be into it. Feels like another one of those potential slow-burn type records that maybe you don't get into

this week, but you get into eventually, and then over time it becomes a record that people really cherish. Again, the artist is named Miles Hewitt. The record is called Banking, glory, highly recommend checking it out. That about does it for this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news reviews and hashing out trends next week.