Queens of the Stone Age
Carnavoyeur
If you’ve been waiting for this band’s Great Leap Forward, it may have just arrived; a succulent rock exercise in machine gun drums, pterodactyl guitars and the progeny-of-Peter Murphy vocals; a band now so confident in its metallic skin that it can bend shapes without losing its fast-car form and speed. There’s a post-Bond spy cool that establishes the song’s dark weather, but pretty soon we’re in a Mick Ronson stew of string bending riffs that give way to cascading strings that give way to a sound built beyond what we’ve come to expect from QOTSA: reaching for epic permanence while still storing the drums in buddy’s garage. It’s hard to shake this one once you’ve worked through it. Very fine.
Stream and pre-order on their website HERE
Charlotte Cornfield
Could Have Done Anything
Charlotte Cornfield has always seen and heard the world through a wide-lensed view-master — the neighbourhood in a world and vice versa — but this album uses home as its canvas; protagonists leaving then returning, ‘the road less travelled’ as the one that ends up at your doorstep. Its tambourine, acoustic guitar and piano textures, as well as Cornfield’s voice, remind me of the work of Carole King, and its lyrical confessionals evoke other fine singers from that era, including Laura Nyro and Shari Ulrich. The production works like slippered feet on soft floors— I privately wondered whether this should be better stored as a fall record— but a gorgeously patterned song like “Cut and Dry” likely works in all seasons. Like much of the record, a friendly, modest beauty prevails. I ended up feeling better about myself, the world, and my friends every time I got to the end.
Listen and purchase on Bandcamp HERE