Indiecast - We Review The New Bon Iver Album + A Slew Of Singles From Big Upcoming Albums

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Steven and Ian begin this week's episode with some exciting news: Ian is writing a book (0:00)! Incredibly, it's an in-depth look at Childish Gambino's Camp. (Actually, it's about emo in the '90s.) Steven also presses Ian for his opinion on the new Black Country, New Road album, which he didn't bring up last week (4:30). From there, they do an extended lightning round on new singles from newly announced albums by Arcade Fire, Turnstile, Stereolab, and Pulp (15:17). Then they review the latest record by Bon Iver, which Steven likes more than Ian (45:53).In Recommendation Corner, Ian discusses the latest from screamo band Record Setter while Steven stumps for the podcast The History Of Rock Music In 500 Songs (56:51).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 234 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycasts. 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 a slew of new album announcements from Arcade Fire, Stereolab, Pulp, and more. And we also review the latest record by Bunny Bear. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. I hope his new Emo book has a chapter on Childish Gambino,

Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? Yeah, if not Childish Gambino, maybe like a post script where I talk about Kid Cutty's ability to bridge the gap between second wave or third wave emo and the emo revival. Because, yeah, I hear way more about Kid Cuddy than Childish Gambino, oddly enough. I just mean, I don't even want you to connect it to emo. I just want there to be an epilogue where you tell the story about Donald Glover walking up to you in a gym in Los Angeles. or him being at the same gym as you. Yeah. After you wrote the review of Camp where you gave it a 1.6.

I want to epilogue on that. Like that could, I mean, that could be the whole book as far as I'm concerned, but hopefully you can shoehorn that in. But yet, you announced last week book deal for Ian Cohen. Was this announced on Friday? Because it was after we recorded. This was after we recorded. And, yeah, I just imagine Steve feeling like Jay-Z when Memphis Bleak filed.

got like a hit single you know i've always been one hit away so you know now now i'm in the club um yeah it's uh for for for those who didn't see i i still haven't put it as a pin tweet yet but um yeah on friday announced a book deal where i will be you know probably estimated 2027 releasing a book called feeling neglected which is about 90s emo and the making of the Midwest so it'll cover everything from cap and jazz and Sunday day real estate and the book ends on Bleed American which is sort of like the never mind

or the chronic of its genre. It's sort of where it blows up but also the genre kind of dies. So yeah now I got to get around to writing it but yeah just super validating on so many levels just because the editor

the person I met with like she was reading modern baseball and Menzinger's reviews in college. if you're a music writer, you never know who's going to be able to, who's going to be able to help you out in the future. Plus, you know, I was like always going to the music section of the bookstore, having that like feeling Kanye talks about and will touch the sky where he's like, are all these dudes that much better than me? But now, yeah, now I got 18 months, 12 to 18 months to actually write this damn thing. So I can't wait for a 2027, Ian book episode. kind of the ones we did for you where you're going to have to do deep dives on Pedro the lion and braid.

It'll be fun time. Well, you know, you are talking about Midwest emo, so some of this is in my backyard. Absolutely. I assume you're going to be talking about the promise ring and all that stuff. That's very close to my backyard. That's in Milwaukee. Obviously, I grew up two hours north of there. I was aware of that stuff as it was happening.

I don't know if you can get some Citizen King in there as well. They're not emo, but it's the same era. Yeah, but I do think one of the guys from Citizen King did contribute to Woodwater. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. But also, you know, Raina Maria from Madison. So there's definitely Wisconsin in there. Not a lot of Minnesota, but definitely Wisconsin.

Love it. Love it. Well, long time coming. Congratulations. I remember, I think last week when we got done recording, you said you got an email with the offer. Yeah. So it was like, so right there it was happening. It was like literally after we get done recording, Ian Schip came in for the book.

So that's great news. Excited for that, 2027. When it's available for pre-order, we'll let you all know. But that's very cool stuff. Very happy to hear that. But we have things that get to Ian before 2027. We have commentary that I think you specifically have to make because last week, we didn't talk about Black Country New Road, even though they have a new album out,

Their record dropped last Friday. It's called Forever How Long. And I feel like the people out there are looking for an Ian Cohen take on this record. Because you've been a champion of this band. We've talked about them on the show. I have always taken the Liam Gallagher route with this band. Not for me, mate. Not for me.

Taking my headphones off. But you have been a champion of the band. And you didn't say anything in the last episode. I was a little surprised they didn't come up. I feel like maybe your silence is speaking volumes here, but I do want to get your take on this. I mean, the discourse about the record that I've seen this week is there's some disagreement, I think, in the fan base for this band.

And they have a very online fan base, by the way. It feels like their online representation. I don't know if it's like over-representing, because I feel like in the general world, their impact seems somewhat negligible, but, like, online, they definitely, have shooters. You know, there are people who are passionately engaged with this band, and there's a conversation going on about whether the departure of their previous lead singer

and songwriter Isaac Wood, whether that's just destroyed the band. I mean, it feels like they're a much different band now. They have female singers now, so you're getting the misogyny debate coming in. Like, are people hating on this record because there's not a guy at the front anymore? Are the fans just put off because there's women now more prominently featured? Or is there a legit David Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar thing going on here? Is this the Van Hagar edition of Black Country New Road? Now, I don't have a horse in the race because I thought they were irritating before and I think they're kind of irritating now. But as someone who loved ants from up here, that record, what do you think of this new album? Well, I think of this new album.

I'm the only person who should be able to speak on it because I get this nice middle path where I absolutely hated their first album too for the first time and loved ants from up there and yeah, because like there's oftentimes framed like there are people who love the Isaac Wood version of the band where, you know, like especially on the first album, there was, you know, name dropping of Slint and Kanye West. It was like very guy, online guy coded, very, very, rate your music coded, which, you know, Black Country New Road is enormous on those type of spaces. Indie heads, plays like Stereo Gump's comment section. And I loved Ants from Up there because it was kind of like an arcade fire without Arcade Fire record. It had that very

like mid-2000s big top quasi-emo, quasi-Prog feel to it. So I'm getting the sense that I might be an ant from up there only guy. With this new record, it was interesting to interview the band. Like ours was the one I did at Pitchfork was the first to publish. And, you know, I kind of had this expectation that if it wasn't necessarily going to be a like David Lee Roth for Sammy Hagar situation, it might resemble the conversation about Ghostbusters when they did the gender swap for that. Oh, man.

Awful. I mean, you know, I'm not saying it's awful that there were women in the Ghostbusters. I'm not saying that's awful. I'm saying that whole episode was awful on all sides, I would say. And I joked with them. Let me just tell you, like interviewing six people in a band at one time when they're in like three different Zoom rooms, that was very difficult.

Bands, don't do that. Don't do that, bands. Pick people, pick one person, two at the most to talk. You don't need six people. I'm sorry. There are limits to democracy. democracy does not belong in an interview situation. Yeah.

That was a real tough one, but I felt a little apprehensive going into it because I loved Anthem up there. And this new album is, you know, I knew I had the lead when one of the singers said, well, it's certainly not a guy's breakup album. Because, you know, that's the way I kind of framed it. I think that's what struck a lot of people as being so emotionally attached to Ants from Up There. And when people criticize Ants from Up There as like, you know, an online guys type of album,

it just reminds me of like the minor backlash that occurred with Celebration Rock back in 2012 where you have this record with like two guys singing about like chasing women and drinking beer and listening to rock music and male friendship. People were criticizing like, I don't know, this is a little too much for the fellas. Like, is that, it's like, yeah, that's kind of what the album is about. And to criticize it for what it actually is seems a little, I don't know, just dismissive of the audience. But, yeah, Black Country New Roads always been a divisive band in any shape. And this one in particular is, I mean, the crazy part about this is that it has, like, I think, an 87 on Metacritic right now.

It has been largely critically acclaimed, perhaps even more so than answer from up there. But this band now sounds like, if not a completely different band, it's like if Regine took over Arcade Fire and they started sounding more like the Decembrists or I think the one that sticks to me is like if all the, you know, the women in dirty projectors kick Dave Longstreath out of the band and just started going more in that sort of direction. It's, you know, there's connective tissue, but it's a completely different sound. It's a completely different sentiment. It might as well be a different band. I think there are people who are, you know, saying, well, they should

just call themselves a different name. I don't necessarily think that's true. It's still the same members. They didn't put anyone new in the band. So yeah, I think that they are going, I don't know. I think this is going to be a sort of thing that dies down after a couple

weeks because, you know, what album does have legs. I'm not as into this sound. Just, I mean, I'm not as into it. What? What I find is fascinating about Black Country New Road. It's a larger conversation. It doesn't have anything to do with the changing lead singers. It's how they have this classification or association with emo.

I feel like a lot of the fans of the band, the online fans, are coming from that world. And to me, it's an interesting situation because I feel like they're such a British prog rock band. Like they sound like a British prog rock band. They act like a British prog rock band. They act like a British Prague rock band. Even this thing with the lead singer is such a British prog rock band development. This is like Peter Gabriel leaving Genesis and Phil Collins coming in. I guess the female singers are like the Phil Collins of now. And there were people that were angry then about, well, you're not the same band that you were with Peter Gabriel and you shouldn't be called Genesis and you're maybe a more pop-friendly band with the new lead singer. Just the way they carry them,

I mean, you mentioned the Decembris. I mean, I feel like they already were like the Decembris, even before this dude left. Like, they just have that way about them, that sort of preciousness, as well as just musically. It's very proggy to me. And these are all things that I feel like should make me like them, because I actually like British Prog Rock and the affectations of that kind of music is something that I tend to enjoy. But I don't know. There's something about this band that, I don't know, whenever I've listened to their records, I don't want to dismiss it outright. I think because of the British prog rock that I hear in the music, it makes me feel like there's going to be a day when I hear this band and it clicks, and I totally love them.

So that's why I don't want to dismiss them out of hand, because I feel like there's that potential there. But anytime I've encountered them up until that magical point, if that happens. I just have sort of like a knee-jerk revulsion to what they do. It just irritates me instantly. But we've talked about this on the show. In a way, that's an endearing thing about them. And it does make me question that Metacritic score,

because I feel like the reviews should be more polarized with this band. You know, when this band is, it just goes to show what we often talk about in our fantasy drafts, like the one person on his staff that's going to be into the band is the one who writes about it. And I think maybe you end up with a representation that doesn't feel accurate because this band should always be pulling like the 70 Metacritic score. There should be like hundreds or like 30s for this band. I did overshoot. Right now it's at 83 because new reviews from some of your favorite Scraglars such as

Butnik Music and Pop Matters have come in. and they are less effusive than say all music guide or NME. So, yeah, I think that what they do is interesting and divisive. And, you know, the conversation around this band, you know, around a lot of kind of similar sort of deals is that, you know, divisive band is divisive. Like, how is that news? Also, I just do want to point out it did not make it into the interview,

but I did ask Black Country New Road if they had heard the new Lincoln Park album. Because at that time, they did something quite similar, not quite similar because, you know, their female lead singer, like, you know, replace a guy who died. So, and, you know, most of the time, like, the songs are of the same. They're still going to play the old songs. That's another thing that is important to know about Black Country New Roads that even after Isaac Wood left the band right before the release fans from up there, they didn't

play any of the new songs live. And they didn't really do that after they released for the first time either. So, yeah, that era is gone. You're not going to hear any of them do Goodwill Hunting or, yeah, anything else like that. So I'm interested to see where they go from here. Yeah. Well, very passionate fan base, interesting band, interesting conversation, which is all things that we appreciate on this show.

Let's get to the slew of new album announcements, because there were a bunch. this week. And we're going to do something we did last week. We're going to do a lightning round where we just run through all of these singles that have been announced from these albums. And we're going to do something a little bit different here. And let me know if you don't want to do this.

But I think it would be a fun idea. I want to assign numerical scores to each single. You know, we're going to go, you know, they used to do this I think in like British music magazine. The jukebox sold jury. The jukebox jury, you know, like you play a panel of people.

songs and then they give them scores. Have you ever seen that video it was on British TV in the 80s? It's like George Michael and Morrissey. No. And they're talking about music. It's awesome.

It's like Wham era George Michael and you know, Smith's era Morrissey. And believe it or not, but Morrissey's very condescending to George Michael. And George Michael is like super insightful and like a great guest. Like he has great things

to say about the songs. I think they ended up talking about a new order single, and George Michael starts talking about Joy Division, which is really interesting, you know, just getting his thoughts on Ian Curtis and that whole thing. Anyway, you can look that up on YouTube. It's a really cool video. I will absolutely look

that up. Yeah, it's great. So let's run through the slew of announcements, and we have to start with probably the biggest announcement of the week and certainly the most controversial, I guess, which would be the new album. coming from Arcade Fire.

They have a record coming out next month called Pink Elephant. It's out May 9th. I don't know why Arcade Fire wouldn't want a long album cycle preceding the record. They've had such good album cycles. Like all-timers, man.

Like Reflector and everything now, those are like, they just remind me of like watching Rhonda Sanis's presidential campaigns. They're just like, they should be studied. Yeah, I mean, everything now is, maybe that might be the best. The best, I'm putting best in scare quotes. The best for people like us.

Yeah. Album cycle of the century. Shout out to stereo, yum. Yeah, it's certainly in the indie rock world, it's hard to think of a more just fascinating debacle than. the Everything Now album cycle. That and Daddy's Home are like the Celtics Lakers of the 80s in this stretched metaphor of most valuable album cycles. I would say Daddy's Home is like the 2004 Pistons.

It's really good, but you can't compare it to an all-time great, like everything now. Like everything now is a whole other level. This is the first Arcade Fire record in three years. I think we came out in 2022. Yeah. Or maybe it was 21. It was 22. It was 22.

It's also the first Arcade Fire album to be released since Pitchfork put out their expose about Win Butler, which had multiple women accusing him of sexual misconduct. If you aren't familiar with this story and, shockingly, always in these instances, a lot of people are not familiar with these stories. I mean, we were talking about brand new recently about their reunion tour. I guess it's a reunion tour. It's a reunion tour. Yeah, yeah.

They're coming back together. Yeah. And the reactions to that, how some people have chosen to overlook the allegations against Jesse Lacey, which, by the way, there's another one that came out since this tour was announced, which, if you want to look that up about an underage girl accusing Jesse Lacey of, like, propositioning her. And the whole story is, like, pretty gross, actually. It's like, God, this guy is pretty despicable.

But anyway, Arcade Fire, they've had all this controversy because of this Win Butler story. And if you're not familiar with it, please look up that story on Pitchfork. I think it's worth reading. But this is Arcade Fire coming back. They're still on Columbia Records. I haven't seen anything about a tour. I assume that they're going to try to do like an arena tour to support this or a tour of large theaters. I really have no feel for like where Arkansas.

is right now in terms of their audience, I don't know like how big they are because you have this huge stain on the reputation of the band because of the allegations against Win Butler, which are always going to be brought up whenever this record is talked about. The record is certainly also going to be talked about less because of these allegations. I don't think there's any question about that. But then you also have the artistic side, and we are going to talk about the artistic side because this is a significant band, certainly in the indie world of the last 20 years. I mean, I've always had an ambivalent relationship with Arcade Fire. I was never like a big funeral person. I didn't put them on my list of best indie rock albums. That was a very

personal choice, but it is reflective of my personal taste. I've always found them in their prime to be sort of equally thrilling and annoying. All their records to me have great songs and songs I really don't like. And the third record Suburbs is probably my favorite out of those opening three. But even that record, I think, has some significant valleys in it.

But in the past 15 years, I would say that this band has been pretty bad. You know, like, Reflector, everything now in We, I think are not very good records at all. So in my mind, I think they've been on a pretty significant artistic declines. I think certainly popularity-wise they've been in decline. I mean, the previous record, we was pitched as sort of like a we're back record. We're going back to writing these earnest, big sounding songs,

which puts this new record in a weird spot because it's like, is this the We're Back Again album? Like, we're back for real this time. It's co-produced by Daniel Lanwa. Really? Yeah, which is enough to get my attention because I'm a degenerate Daniel Lanwa, like, addict or fan. I love him and I love his productions. But this single that came out this week, You're the Snake.

I thought it was, like, really weak and really underwhelming. As bad at times as I think. their last record was. I think that there are moments on that album where they, at least approximate the grandiosity that people loved from Arcade Fire, that people found thrilling from Arcade Fire. In this song, I don't know, you feel like it is trying to get there, but it never really achieves any kind of catharsis. It never really explodes. And I don't know. It feels very underwhelming. Yeah.

I mean... I had to say, too, though, like, listening to the song is better than watching the video. Like when you, like, when you want... I don't know if you saw the video. I've not seen the video, you know. It's like Win and Regine driving around,

like with face makeup and... They've been really into the face makeup. They love, like, the face makeup type... Guys is, like, I think Win painted like a flower on his face or something. And it's just like, oh, God, you're... You people are insufferable. I can't look at you.

So, like, listening to the song was better, but I don't know. It seemed so weak to me. Yeah, I think with we, I believe the first single they had was, like, the Lightning Part 1 and 2, which really did. Like, that was the song I really liked from that album because it was, you know, like their version of Beautiful Day. It's, we're reapplying to be the world's biggest band of the world, that quote that Bono tried it out back then.

And, yeah, I am very much a funeral. I wrote about the 20th anniversary of it last year. I felt pretty just that I mean I still love that record but like I go back to that and the suburbs for the feeling of the feeling rather than the feeling itself. You know, just what I could be bowled over by a band like that. But we is a record that I cannot recall the last time a band that I loved at one point put out a record that I more viscerally disliked than we. Something about it just came off as so phony. And the worst part is that it made both the kind of cynicism that they were doing on

everything now feel phony and their earnestness. So it just undermined everything they were trying to do. They've been following the YouTube playbook page by page for the past 15 years. And I think with, you know, like the allegations kind of tied. together with we's failures in that you couldn't see we as a failure anymore it was we and the other stuff but yeah the balloons completely popped because like brand new a big part of what i think made this band powerful is the communal appeal to be amongst other people who love this band as much as you do and that's gone like i just can't recapture that no matter how good the music may or may not be and

i have no interest in arcade firepoint small ball there's something about this single that feels very soft cell to me. You know, it's predominantly regime singing and the song itself doesn't really explode. It's kind of quiet and a weird kind of meter. And I think that's intentional. You know, I think that this is like the fact that it's a month-long release cycle as opposed to the everything now. I remember the reflector one. The album Rollout had a feature in Hollywood Reporter.

Like that's how, and I remember being there at the Capitol Records building when they did that performance. But I'm probably going to like try to review this album just for the love of the sport, you know, because that's, you know, it's an Arcade Fire album. It's just a weird, uncanny experience listening to Arcade Fire as a band that doesn't really matter anymore. Yeah. I do have no idea, I do have no idea of like how big this band is. I imagine if they were to play in San Diego, they might play the Observatory, which is like, you know, like a 1,500 cap room. They weren't even really able to do arenas at their peak. They were like one of those bands that was notorious for trying to play, like, hockey arenas and just having really, really piss poor sales.

And whenever they headline archa, or whenever they headline Coachella, which I believe they did twice, it was like pretty disappointing. As far as putting a number on this, are we using decimal points or just like whole numbers? Let's just do whole numbers. We're going to break against the tyranny of pitchfork here, decimal points. That's what we don't do here.

We don't score albums with decimal points. We do whole numbers here on Indycast. I'm going to give it like a five. I'm not mad at it. I don't remember it. I'm just going to, it's just Sort of there. I'm going to say a three.

Okay. Because I think it's a, it's a forgettable song. You forget about it as soon as it's done. I think what you say about the communal aspect of Arcade Fire, I think that's dead on. I, you know, them trying to be like you, too. I mean, I don't think they were ever as good as you, too. Like, whatever people want to say about you too, like, they made the Joshua Tree, and they made Octune Baby.

And, like, I'm sorry, Arcade Fire did not touch either one of those records. Like, listen to funeral and listen to the Joshua. Joshua Tree. And I'm sure there's going to people out there who email and say, well, funeral's better than Joshua Tree. And I'm sorry, son, but you're mistaken on that one. I mean, I'm going to be one of those guys too. Well, okay. Well, maybe we got to talk about that in the future episode. May 9th. But the similarity that U2 and Arcade Fire have is that U2 has to play stadiums or the gestures

or the flourishes of their music just don't make any sense, like to play where the streets have no name in a club. It just wouldn't make sense. That needs to be in a stadium to translate. I think Arcade Fire, you know, as they decline, the bigger gestures that they make, it just makes them look smaller, I think. Yeah. And there is something similar to them with Ryan Adams, I think, where Ryan Adams, he's had his own allegations, but it also coincides with a pretty precipitous artistic decline. So it's like certainly affected by the negative media coverage, but there's also this artistic thing going on that I think would have happened anyway. Yeah. Even without, so like Arcade Fire, I mean, the allegations are, I mean, that story is, if you haven't read it,

if you haven't read it and you're a fan, I would, I would recommend reading it. I would, I would implore you to read it if you haven't read it. But even without that stuff, I think the band themselves, I think for a long time now have been in decline. So definitely diminishing returns. It feels like with the band, but I'm sure we'll talk about the album on the show when it comes out. Let's get to Turnstile. Yes.

We talked about them a bit last week. We talked about the Billboard that was in Hollywood that was hinting at a new album coming out. And sure enough, there is an album announcement. It's called Never Enough. It'll be out June 6th. The title track was announced this week. It was released this week, and we've both have

heard it and perhaps you've heard it as well. Circling back to like my comment about Black Country New Road being kind of put into the emo camp, despite to my ears anyway, sounding like a British Prague rock band, I do think it's funny with Turnstile that they still have these like, you know, sort of hardcore scene bonafides or bonafides, if you will. And yet they're sounding more and more like a more stylish foo fighters to me. And that's what this single is. I mean, they, you know, we were speculating on whether they were going to make their Green Day Insomniac album, like where they try to prove we're still a hardcore band and they play, you know, really fast and punky type songs.

Or if they're just going to go full-blown alt rock. And judging by the single, and we haven't heard the rest of the record, so we don't know. but the single is full-blown K-rock, you know, radio single, just going for the whole thing there. And I think it's like a pretty good song. I like that side of them. I think that's why I like them probably, the alt-rockiness of their music.

I think it's why they've broken through to a bigger audience. But I mean, are we past the point of people being disliked? disappointed in Turnstile, like for not being hardcore enough? Did we get that out of our system with Glowon or are people going to react? Is that going to be part of the conversation with this album? It feels like a little late to be upset with Turnstile about this if they're going to be an alt-rock band, but I don't know if that's still in the ether. Well, I mean, this was happening since time and space in 2018. You can actually go back to the pitchfork review of time and space. Right, exactly. Yeah, and that is a real howler that. That,

one. But yeah, like people, because like, I mean, that was the thing from the beginning about them. People were like, oh, this sounds like Rage Against Machine. This sounds like 311, which, you know, any hardcore band can make a hardcore song, but they clearly had something special from nonstop feeling. I mean, they've been around for about a decade in the public eye. And to your point about like it's sounding alt-rocky and, you know, Billboard and Hollywood core, yeah, I've said this before in the show working at an alt-rock radio station from 20. 2001 to 2002 was very, very formative for me. And there was a time where I was legitimately moved by PODs alive and Youth of the Nation,

you know, might be not so much boom, listen to Morning View, like, have a good amount of love for that stuff. And so I have no issue at all with turnstile rewriting mystery, which this song is mystery. Like, it's the same sort of format as like a POD or like artisanal incubus. And I like it because they can do that. So many of the bands that have emerged post-turn style as the quote-unquote next turnstile like scowl or military gun, you know, for all their assets, they can't go this big. Turnstile can. They can possibly get that Queens of the Stone Age, Black Keys type spins for real.

So they might as well do it. I think the end of the song makes me believe that it will lead into something more traditionally turnstile. because they do like, you know, kind of full album statements. The one thing I will dock them points for, and the reason I'm going to go with, say, an eight rather than a nine, if you're going to make this style of music, do not self-produce, call Scott Litt, call Brendan O'Brien, call Ross Robinson.

I was going to say Ross Robinson is the man for the job, I would say. No, Ross Robinson's new metal. Scott Litt did Morning View, though. Well, and Ross Robinson, he made like the radio-friendly. Those records got on the radio. They were aggressive, but they had some pop appeal. So, yeah, I'm going to go with a seven for this. I think it's a good song.

I like this direction for them. It didn't totally knock me out, but I think it's pretty good. It's definitely pointing in a direction that makes me more interested in the record. I would have been less interested in like the Green Day Insomniac route. So I'm glad they're not doing this. All right, let's get to our next song. This is the latest, well, this is the single, I should say, from the latest album by Stereo Lab. It's their first record in 15 years.

The album is called Instant Holograms on Metal Film. I did not write down the name of the song. Hold on a second. Do you know the name of the song off the top of your head, you know? I don't. All right, this is not good professional podcasting here. The name of the song is... Probably something involving computers, right?

It's called Aerial Troubles. That's a very stereo lab. That's a very Stereo Lab album, song, Yes, it's the second track on the album. And again, like I said, this is the first Stereo Lab record in 15 years. I am a fan of Stereo Lab. I've always, in my mind, thought of them

as, like, the European Yola Tango. And that's not like a perfect one-to-one comparison. There are some different influences that Stereo Lab has. I mean, they're more European influences. Like they're a little more electronic than Yola Tango is. But they have a shared sensibility, I think, where it just feels like the members of these bands have, like,

absorbed every cool record from the 60s and 70s. Like, every cool, like, crout rock record and, like, art rock record and, like, jazz record or fusion record. It just taken all those influences and combine them into a band that just has impeccable taste and sounds great. And describing it that way might make it sound oppressive or like it's too snooty to be enjoyed. But I've always enjoyed both bands because I also think that they write really good songs and there's always like a great pop appeal to what they're doing. And on the new Stereo Lab single, which again is called Aerial Troubles from the album Instant Holograms on Metal Film, I like the song a lot.

And it is Stereo Lab doing stereo lab things. I mean, you do get that kind of motoric crot-rock beat going on. You have these arty influences bounced out by like a really poppy chorus. It's a pretty bouncy song. I think it's really engaging, but it also has that air of detachment. It's icy cool at the same time. I don't know. It's what you want from Stereo Lab.

If you like this band, this song sounds like it came from a record that could have come out in the 90s. which I think is always a compliment to a band of this vintage. It's always, I think, a red flag when it feels like a record's been labored over or when it feels like a band is maybe trying a little bit too hard to engage with current trends. Like, when a band does that and it works, I think it can be a brilliant thing. But it feels like veteran acts over time have learned lessons from like the veteran acts of old. and when bands like this come back, I feel like they're usually pretty consistently good.

Like we're going to talk about another veteran act here in a moment who also has a new single app, who I think did something similar on their song. But it's like, yeah, if you're going to come back, just do what you do, because what you do is distinctive, and that's why people like you. And I think Stereo Lab does that on this song, and I really like it. Yeah, you could have told me that this was the first Stereo Lab album

in like 30 years or five years. They just like have been, around and they have such a distinct thing. And to your point, like, that thing is they are, like, probably the cool, like, one of the coolest bands of all time, right? If you're looking at, like, their influences and, you know, their miracle content is also about, like, hard left politics and, like, the... Yes.

Yeah. They're very well curated. I would say even more than cool. I would say they're very well curated. It's, like, it's very, it's, like, very good taste. Yeah. Which, again, can be oppressive. You know, you and I sometimes rebel against that sort of thing.

But when you have really good taste combined with great execution, it's hard to, I think, dispute it. Yeah, because, I mean, I'm immediately, I mean, even though I had great experiences hearing Stereo Lab songs, like when I worked at the Gap in the late 90s, you would hear some of that stuff. There is something a little off-putting to me just how cool they are. Like total lack of shittiness. which I've alluded to on previous episodes.

But every time I go back and listen to stereo labs, like dots and loops, you know, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, you know, the big ones. I ask me, like, why am I not listening to more Stereo Lab? It is sort of like Yolotango in that regard where I'll listen to painful or I'll listen to, you know, the big ones and think, I should listen to more this band. Like, no, they are that good. So I have like kind of a remote relationship with Stereo Lab. Maybe 2025 is my Stereo Lab phase year.

They're going on tour. I think I'm going to try to see them. They're playing Minneapolis in the fall, and I've never seen them live. And I've heard that they're a great live band among their many attributes. Oh, shit, they are playing San Diego. I was like, there's no way they're going to play San Diego. We're not a Stereo Lab type of town.

But no, they are playing the Observatory, the same place that I predicted Arcade Fire might play. There you go. Yeah, I like the song. and I will promise to do a stereo lab deep dive this year. So I'm going to go, I'm going to give this single at eight. I really like it. I'm going to go with the seven.

Okay. All right. Well, well done. Yeah, a little like flip-flop with the turnstile thing because, you know, turnstile appeals to more my specific tastes. But I can say this is well done. It's seven with room for growth. All right.

Let's get to our next lightning run entry. and this is the latest single from Pulp, another veteran act. They're about to release their first album in 24 years. That's called Moore. It's going to be out in June, I believe. The single is called Spike Island. And again, this is similar to the serial app situation. I feel like this is Pulp, doing what Pulp does,

which is writing a big song or a song that feels big, that feels like a dancey anthem, good times, with like a little bit of intelligence in the lyrics. And I think it's interesting that Pulp is going to be playing with LCD sound system at the Hollywood Bowl because I feel like James Murphy always tried to do what Jarvis Cocker did in the 90s. It was a very kind of similar thing where it's like a dancey thing.

Again, very well curated, you know, with, it's like a combination of like disco and punk music going on. It's like that's what LCD sound system was doing. That's what Pulp was doing, but of course Pulp doing it with that more English flavor, that English stylishness. As far as like Pulps, classic material, I don't go super deep on them, but I am into their, I think what people would say is like the classic trilogy of Pulp Records from the mid-90s, which would be his and hers, different class, and this is hardcore. And I would say I like those records sort of in descending order. I actually feel like his and hers is like a little bit of the Dark Horse album. Maybe that's more of like the Brit Rock or the Brit Pop connoisseurs choice.

But I actually do like that record a lot. It's probably the one I listen to the most, even more than different class, even though I feel like that's probably their most celebrated because common people is on that record. But yeah, I like Pulp a lot. You know, in the Brit pop hierarchy, of course I have Oasis at the top. But I would personally put pulp over blur and maybe on the same level as supergrass. Got to wave the flag for supergrass. They're like the kinks of this scene because they get overlooked a little bit by the Beatles and the Stones,

the Oasis and blur of it all. But supergrass as the kinks comes in there. And pulp, I don't know what they would be in this. I don't want to call them the who. Maybe supergrass is the who and pulp is the kinks. I'm not sure. But anyway, good band. I'm going to give the song a seven.

Yeah. With Pulp, I was super into this band at 18 years old when this is hardcore dropped. And, you know, like, what does someone who's 18 years old living in suburban Philadelphia know about, like, seductive Barry or dishes? I think with Pulp, kind of similar to blur, the bands of that era that took a more lyrical approach to, you know,

Brit Pop, that was a pretty easy way to distinguish myself as like, you know, a smart guy in high school. And, you know, ironically, the older I get, the more I like the dumber big Brit pop bands and the less inclined I feel to go back to Pulp. One man you didn't mention, but that might be my favorite of this era is the verve. I don't know. Oh, of course. What do you think they would be, you know, because, like, they are like the, they are like just the hymbo shoegaze, psych, the doors kind of thing going on. Like Richard Ashcroft is such a good post-Morrisen hymbo.

You know, in a weird way, I almost think of them as like a Pink Floyd, like a Sid Barrett-era pink Floyd where Richard Ashcroft would be like that, well, Sid Barrett actually was really good looking too. But I don't know because like I feel like Ashcroft also went into hiding after Urban Hems became really big. Like they broke up after that and it was a weird thing going on there. So, yeah, the verb, I like the verb as well. Yeah, the rolling people is the dumbest best song of all time. Like Bitter's Sweet Symphony. I mean, that's probably the best song of that whole scene.

I almost want to put that above any of the great Oasis songs. It's certainly on, it would be neck and neck with Wonderwall and don't look back in anger. It's like the great brick pop anthem, common people you want to put in that conversation as well. But, I mean, God, Bitter Sweet Symphony. Urban hymns, man. What a record. But shout to the producer named Youth. Yeah. Yeah, I believe he didn't be here now, too.

That guy's probably got some stories. But, yeah, Pulp is, it's a band that, like, I associate them with, like, a time when I also got super into the Smiths as well when I put a higher amount of stock into bands that were clever. Also, you know, being in high school, like Disco 2000 is, you know, easily one of the best, like, jilted dude songs of its era. But, yeah, I think I'm ready to, like, revisit them now. I like this song. I think it's interesting that they're touring with LCD sound system because it's...

Well, I don't know if they're touring, and I know they're doing that one day. Yeah, they might just... Oh, they are doing the whole tour? Well, I have no idea, but yeah, they are doing the Hollywood Bowl. I know they're doing the Hollywood Bowl. It may just be that show. I think it is just the show. But, yeah, because they play, LCD played San Diego recently, and it was just them.

But these are like two, I think James Murphy and Jarvis Cocker are like two types of guys that music writers, like, relate to. If you think of the old David Lee Roth quote about how, you know, music writers like Elvis Costello because they look like them. I think there's like a choose your, choose your path, Western man sort of thing where you either identify with like James Murphy or you want to be Jarvis. soccer, you know, like the ride, well-dressed kind of observer of social, like social foibles or what have you. Yeah, I think that element of it, you know, is a little bit annoying, but whatever. I'm trying to get past that stuff. We're going to give this a seven. Kind of similar with Stereo Lab.

All right, well, that's the end of lightning round. And we're pushing it here. We're getting late into the episode. We're going to cut the mailbag. The mailbag always gets cut. It's like the Matt Damon of our show. Like Matt Damon always gets cut from the Jimmy Kimmel show. It's like a running bit there.

I don't know how up you are on Kimmel bits. Anyway, we got to review the new Bunny Bear record. It's out today. It's called Sable Fable. This is the fifth Bunny Bear long player, which for those who care, for me anyway, it means that Bunny Bear has passed the five albums test because for me, this is a really good record.

I wrote about this for Up Rock, so you can read my more in-depth thoughts there, if you wish. But, you know, this record, it's interesting how it's been talked about because Justin Vernon, he's been doing like a lot more press that he normally does. Like he was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and he was on a rival podcast with cast in the name. I'm not even going to say the name of it. Associated with the New York Times.

And he's on a bunch of other things. And the way this out of... album has been framed as, as like, this is Justin Vernon's, like, return to sort of accessibility, or this is Justin Vernon being happy or, you know, making more straightforward music. And I think there's some truth to that, especially, like, the beginning of the record. I mean, it's an interesting album because he put out this EP last year called The Sable EP, and the first three songs on this record were on that EP, and they're the first three songs, like I said on the record, and then there's like the rest of the record that he made.

And the first three songs feel a little separate to me. The rest of the record, he was working with this producer Jim E. Stack. And there is this sort of like lo-fi sound to like a lot of the other songs on the record. And it's this hybrid of like sort of Americana sounds. There's like a lot of pedal steel on this record. And then there's like a real like 90s R&B feel to like a lot of the songs, which is why People keep using the word sexy to describe this album. I might have used the word sexy in my review.

Well, he's used it too, right? He's used it too. Yeah, it's definitely part of the narrative of the album. I mean, I push back at this storyline a little bit, because I do feel like the last Bunny Bear record, which came out six years ago, I mean, a long time ago, called I-I-I. I actually thought that that was his return to accessibility album,

like after making 22 a million in 2016, which was like the big sort of provocative. anti-fame record of the Bonnie Vare catalog. I feel like I was clearly a record made for Vernon to play in arenas, which is what Bunny Bear did. I mean, they went on tour, they played a ton of shows. That was a pretty great tour. I saw it here in the Twin Cities.

I think they played at the XL Energy Center in St. Paul. And it was like maybe the best sounding arena show I've ever been to. So it was a really good production. he had a really great band at that time. Now, it sounds like he is backing off from touring, or he's said that in interviews. It's unclear exactly what his future is as a touring actor. There's no tour book for this album as of now.

I think the album itself, it sounds a little more homemade. I mean, if you want to talk about it being a throwback to the first record, I think it is like that album in that regard. It feels a little more intimate, maybe. but it certainly is engaging. I think the songs are really good. And, you know, I'm curious for your take on this, Ian. I know you're not as big of a Bonnie Bear guy as I am.

I'm a bit of a Wisconsin homer with Bonnie Bear, I have to admit. Like, he's one of those artists that I've seen develop over time just because I'm from, I was living in Wisconsin during his rise. So I saw him play the little club, then like the theater, then like the arena and that whole progression. So I definitely have the Wisconsin Homer thing with him. But I think it is fair to say that he is one of the most influential indie artists of the last 20 years, not just on indie rock, but on music in general.

I mean, I think if you look at everyone from like Zach Bryan to McGee to like Lil Yachty to, you know, Bibi Bridgers, like artists across many genres, I think can claim Bunny Bear as an influence. I think because of the sort of elasticity of his music. Like I said, on this record, there's Americana, meeting R&B. I mean, he's always been good at mixing genres. There's also something with his songwriting style where, and I think it's an innovation. Other people may disagree. Some people might say he just writes bad lyrics.

But I do think that one of his innovations as a singer-songwriter was to de-emphasize lyrics and to make it more about sound. You know, like the singer-songwriter sitting on a stool and writing these personal sort of literal songs. Like that wasn't what he did It was more about How the words would sound Or how the words and the vocals would sound In combination with the music

He thought about that kind of stuff I think in ways that singer-songwriters really didn't Before him And I think that's been influential And it's been fascinating I think to see that effect on other people But what are your thoughts on this? Do you like this record?

Has this changed? your feelings about Bunny Bear at all? Well, you know, I'm happy that it's sitting at a 90 right now. I'm Metacritic because... Oh, right. My last thing. Yeah, is on my team. DJ Coz, what are you doing?

75. It's Coatsey, by the way. It's DJ. No kidding. Someone wrote in. Someone wrote in to correct us on this. We had an email, so that will be a mini mail bag. Someone wrote in to say, it's DJ Coatsy, that Coz.

Oh. I was thinking like Coz or like Mark Kozillick or like Kazi or like Kazi or what. It's spelled like Coz. So, you know, dude, throw a tea in your name if you want people to pronounce it correctly. Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, I do like that fact, you know. And to your point, I think Boni Vair maybe of any indie artist of the past century, like 25 years, has like the most solid, for lack of a better term, hood pass amongst genres and generations of, I mean, I can't think of anyone who more, who's like more kind of like well respected among.

I'm like beyond generations as well. Like I don't, I think he never kind of goes out of style maybe because he releases album so infrequently. You know, him being on those Kanye albums, he has lived to tell the tale. That is not a mark against them, maybe because he stopped being on them. But, you know, there's something about him that's always kept me at a distance. Even like the, you know, for Emma, forever ago, I never really got super into that. Like, the self-title is probably my favorite of the bunch because,

Perth kind of sounds like a blown-out American football song. But otherwise, I think that the emphasis of the lyrics is very important, but sometimes I'll catch what those lyrics are. And like, oh, man, I kind of wish I didn't know what that was. I appreciated what he tried to do on $22 a million. I-I-I, like I didn't really like that one at all. But, you know, this album to me is an example of an artist trying to, I guess, not catch up with the artist he's influenced,

but just kind of play on a similar game. I know Mickey's on this album, so as Dijon, who is someone who takes a very, very obvious influence. And I think Frank Ocean is someone who's also taking a lot of Boney Bear influence. So I think guys like Dijon and Mickey are like Boney Bear and Frank Ocean, like dovetailing.

And it does, the sequencing is very interesting because it puts Sable, or Sable was the EP, right? Yeah. Yeah, it puts it right at the front and after that it takes on this kind of Coachella core R&B indie hybrid, which, you know, I don't know how derogatory or complimentary this is, but I could hear this at an H&M. I can hear this at the mall.

It's really well produced. The sounds are super interesting. And I just think it's the sound that doesn't connect with me. I think it's in a way, like the way you talk about like Los Campesinos or Black Country New Road where it's, I appreciate the crap, but it's just not for me, mate. Maybe I do need to see it live. I have the sense that his pitchfork 2021 headlining set might have been his last show ever. I was hearing whispers about that. That show was incredible, by the way.

Like all the songs that like didn't really do much for me from 22 a million and II really popped live. It was really incredible to see how many people are involved with making it. Yeah, I don't feel like, I do want to listen to this more. I do like how it ends. I think that stuff is interesting. But I don't see myself being like taking the stump for it. Like this is, I will respect it. I am not going to fight against it.

But I'm going to let you take the platform here because you've clearly thought about this artist. much more deeply than I have. To me, it's just like, I respect it, but I don't connect with it. Yeah, and I can totally see that, and I was expecting you to say that. So I wasn't surprised at all by that. I would just say, you know, like whenever artists, especially artists that are Justin Vernon's age, and he's like, I think he's like a little bit younger than I am, he's probably like mid-40s, I don't believe for a second that he's done performing. I could see him not performing with that band anymore. But, you know, is he never going to, you know, is he never going to like just pick up a guitar and play a show with like some configuration of musicians or just

by himself, I have a hard time believing that that's not going to happen. I just feel like when artists make these sorts of declarations, they just want to make it clear that they don't necessarily want to do what they've done in the past. And that's how I take it. So Bonnie Vair, whatever you want to think of it as. And that's, I guess, part of the magic of that name is that it can be pretty much whatever he wants it to be. It could be him by himself. It could be him with eight people. It could be him with like 25 people. It could be him with like a power trio. You know, it doesn't really matter. Whatever he says bunny bear is, that's what it's going to be. And I think it's probably going to be pretty great. We've now reached part of our episode that we call

Recommendation Corner where Ian and I talk about something we're into this week. Ian, want you to go first. All right. So, record setter is a band. They're from Denton, Texas, who in my view, released the best Screamo album of the entire decade. It came out in 2020 called IOU Nothing, which was an insanely good year for Screamo music. But a lot of those bands from that era haven't really put out much in the time since, records that are being one of them. And so they finally released the follow-up to IOU Nothing called Evoke Invoke. It's an EP, but come on, it's 21 minutes long. That's basically album length for the genre. It is not quite as intense. as IOU Nothing, but still, you know, for very intense, more like mid-career Tushé Amore

or stuff from, you know, The Wave post-hardcore, gang vocals, tapping, really catchy. And also, I think, you know, one of the important things about them is IOU Nothing is kind of a not a concept album. It's about their real life, about transitioning. And a lot of their albums, a lot of their songs lean into that. Evoke, Invoke does that as well. Because I kind of put them alongside Home is Ware, another band that takes trans issues and puts it in very compelling music.

They just released a new song this week. That new album is awesome. Can't wait to talk about that one. But yeah, I'm glad to be back into the gym, lifting weights because I had tennis elbow for a while. Couldn't do it. But now I'm back, and record setters really set in the mood there. So we're back on our gym music thing.

Record setter, Evoke, Invoke. So we've talked about a lot of music in this episode, so I'm going to pivot here a little bit and talk instead about a music podcast. It is the best narrative music podcast I've ever heard, and I would say hands down the best. And it is called A History of Rock Music and 500 Songs, and it's hosted by a British music critic and journalist named Andrew Hickey. You may have heard of this show. it's been around for a long time, going back, I think, to like 2021, maybe 2022. And if you look at the iTunes rankings, it's usually in the upper reaches of the charts on the music podcast side. So the show doesn't necessarily need my endorsement, but I talked about this on Twitter this week,

and there were quite a few people who hadn't heard about it. So I thought maybe I'd talk about it on the show and encourage you to listen to it after you listen to Indycast, of course. But as you can tell from the title I mean this is like an insanely ambitious show There's already been Actually I don't know how many episodes there's been He's covered 177 songs

So far But some of the songs have multiple episodes Like the most recent series that he did Was on this Beach Boys song called Never Learned Not to Love Which if you're not a Beach Boys fan Or you don't know about their history This is the song that Dennis Wilson co-wrote

with Charles Manson, or it started out as a Charles Manson song, and then Dennis Wilson took it and turned it into a Beach Boys. And this series on the show, it's a four-part series, and it's about the Beach Boys, but it's also about Charles Manson. There's also a lot about Leadbelly in this series, the great folk singer who wrote Cottonfields that was covered by the Beach Boys on the album 2020, that Never Learned Not to Love is on.

It's like an eight-hour series on just this one song. Before that, he did like a four-part series on Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. And presumably I haven't listened to it yet, but he's probably going into the history of Rolling Stones and other sort of tangential things that you don't realize are connected to the Stones, but because he's such a great storyteller, he brings it in and he shows you why it's connected. So he's clearly done more episodes than there are songs. And the idea is that he's starting in 1938 and he's going to go to 1999.

I haven't listened to the series in order. who have told me I should. I've just been cherry-picking songs so far, and I'm currently, like, in the late 60s, Los Angeles scene, which is an era I love. But eventually I'm going to go back and listen to the whole thing. But it's an incredible series, very well researched, very well written. Andrew Hickey, like I said, he's British.

He has, like, a really cool voice, which I think is an underrated aspect of a podcast, especially narrative podcasts. It's actually fun to listen to him talk. that adds to the show as well. Again, could not recommend this enough. I learned so much listening to this series, but it's also super entertaining. And again, he just finds connections between things,

not just musical but historical, that you would have never guessed going into it. Just brilliant storytelling. I can't speak highly of it enough. It's called The History of Rock Music and 500 songs. Listen to it. listen to us first, but listen to him second. It's a great show. Definitely check 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. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix Taped newsletter. You can go to Uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.