mclusky have returned with new music (and some not-so-new music) in the form of a mini album called i sure am getting sick of this bowling alley, which ipecac recordings will release on 20th march (digital) and 1st may (vinyl). it will be released in the following formats: digital, black vinyl, ipecac/band translucent red vinyl and the rough trade exclusive variant, crystal fuchsia. today, they share the track ‘as a dad’.
‘as a dad’ is a song about several things.
the first of these several things are men who begin sentences / clauses with ‘as a dad…’. which is fine as long as the sentence / clause bears no relevance to the actual experience of being a dad. occasionally though, the prefix is appropriate (about 1/7). society must bend to this.
the second of the several things is a modern child’s wonder at how much it must despise its male progenitor in the early stages of life. the mother is all. the father can fall down the stairs and die in a puddle of his own slippers, and that’s okay.
the third, and last i can be arsed to list, of the several things, is something to do with the pride of being replaced by your offspring. i look forward to gradually fading into the background (unless i die suddenly in an avalanche) and becoming a grey footnote set against a sofa. when i stop breathing i hope nobody notices for at least an hour – this means that whatever board game is being played at this family gathering i’ve just fantasised is at least competitive (and wasn’t an expensive waste of time and money).
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if you happened to catch the new peaky blinders movie this past weekend, you might have heard ‘people person’ on the big screen along side music from nick cave and fontaines d.c. the song is from the band’s 2025 release, the world is still here and so are we. the movie is in cinemas now and on netflix 20th march, and the soundtrack is out now.
Experimental Hip-Hop legends dälek offer up another new single from their latest full-length album, Brilliance of a Falling Moon.
Conceived, composed, and produced by Will Brooks (aka MC dälek) and Mike Mare, Brilliance of a Falling Moon is a sprawling, uncompromising record that speaks to the political timbre of the day. Taking its name from a section of Erik Larson’s 2011 novel In The Garden of Beasts, the album paints a fiery portrait of life and resistance in fascist America.
Today the duo share their latest single ‘Knowledge | Understanding | Wisdom’, which feels like a call to arms and reminder of the power that we can have in the face of the oppressor.
“’Knowledge | Understanding | Wisdom’ is righteous defiance in the face of those who attempt to keep us uninformed or misinformed. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of the oppressor like these three interwoven concepts.” – dälek
The Melvins and Napalm Death join forces for Savage Imperial Death March (10th April, Ipecac Recordings), a true collaboration – not a split, but a new album featuring members of both bands.
The album shares its name with the bands’ Savage Imperial Death March tours from 2016 and 2025, but marks their first full-length studio collaboration under the moniker.
Yesterday, the first track from the album, ‘Tossing Coins Into The Fountain Of Fuck,’ premiered with Jose Mangin on SiriusXM’s Liquid Metal.
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The album was recorded at the Melvins’ Los Angeles studio, with Buzz Osborne (vocals/guitar) and Dale Crover (drums) joined by Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway (vocals), Shane Embury (bass), and John Cooke (guitar).
“I have loved the Melvins forever and their outlook on music,” Embury explains. “A chance to make an album of eclectic musical madness with them was truly an honour and a whole lot of fun, which surely is the whole point! Let’s do another one soon.”
“Napalm Death are one of my favorite bands ever,” Osborne says. “It was an absolute pleasure and a dream come true to do this collaboration with them. We wrote songs together. I would write a riff and we would learn it and record it right there. They wrote stuff and we would learn it immediately as well. It was truly a 50/50 partnership.”
"Funny how life turns out sometimes… collecting hard-to-find Melvins 7-inches on Bleecker Street in 1989 and then touring twice and doing an album with them within the following 35 years,” Greenway adds. “Had a great time with it all, and nice to work with fellow travellers in the Melvins who also couldn’t care about pandering to ‘demographics’. I felt myself almost babbling lyrically during the recording, and that alone made for very fun recording times."
Savage Imperial Death March pre-orders are available now. The eight-song album will be released on CD, digitally, and across four limited-edition vinyl variants: Black As Your Soul, Indie Exclusive Obnoxious Orchid, Ipecac Exclusive Absurd Aqua, and Revolver Exclusive Neon Coral. An abbreviated version of the album was released during the band’s 2025 tour as a hyper-limited vinyl/CD edition. This iteration features new Mackie Osborne-created artwork and two new tracks (‘Awful Handwriting’ and ‘Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy’).
mclusky have returned with new music (and some not-so-new music) in the form of a mini album called i sure am getting sick of this bowling alley, which ipecac recordings will release on 20th march (digital) and 1st may (vinyl). it will be released in the following formats: digital, black vinyl, ipecac/band translucent red vinyl and the rough trade exclusive variant, crystal fuchsia.
this follows their album the world is still here and so are we which was released in 2025.
content. it drives the modern music world. photos. opinions. more photos. more opinions (please note – not all photos and opinions are bad, just 99 per cent of them). how about – and indulge me here – music? that content-y enough for you? fact is we can’t stop writing, at least at the moment. it’s fun (that’s all it needs to be). it’s the common denominator of band. only death will slow us down (note – it won’t stop us).
the idea for this release started as a bit of a stop-gap – a thing with which to help promote the north american tour – and ended up as something else entirely. ‘i know computer’ and ‘as a dad’ are new and are singles (they may make the next album, who can say, it’s already half-recorded and you will like it). damien probably likes ‘i am computer’ a bit too much but that’s okay, the heart wants what the heart wants.
‘spock culture’ and ‘hi! we’re on strike’ were recorded during the the world sessions. why didn’t they make the album? i’m not sure. lyrically they are important historical documents, up there with the pusheen the cat books and/or the US constitution.
‘fan learning difficulties’ and ‘that was my brain on elves’ have only had a digital release before and are, to quote british children from forty years ago, ‘skill’. hopefully you can agree that i – and by osmosis, all of us – have read a lot of books. – falco x
Experimental Hip-Hop legends dälek return with their latest full-length album, Brilliance of a Falling Moon. Taking its name from a section of Erik Larson’s 2011 novel In The Garden of Beasts, the album paints a fiery portrait of life and resistance in fascist America.
Conceived, composed, and produced by Will Brooks (aka MC dälek) and Mike Mare, Brilliance of a Falling Moon is a sprawling, uncompromising record that speaks to the political timbre of the day.
With the album announcement they share the track "Better Than", about which dälek says;
“Better Than encapsulates the new sound and feel of the record perfectly. It conveys the anger, frustration, and defiance of the moment. Sonically, it is somehow simultaneously, sparse and stripped down, yet complete and dense. A new wall of sound built only of the absolutely necessary elements.”
Spotlights, the beloved trio of Mario and Sarah Quintero with drummer Chris Enriquez, release Rarities, a remastered nine-song compilation of early and rare tracks spanning the band’s full discography on 21st November via Ipecac Recordings.
A preview arrives with ‘050809’, the first song the now married Mario and Sarah Quintero ever wrote together. “Sarah and I had been talking about making music together before we were even dating,” Mario shares. “05/08/09 is the day we became an item.”
Hear it here:
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Rarities traces the band’s evolution, from their debut single to standout tracks from their 2023 Séance EP. After relocating from San Diego to New York in 2013, the band released their first EP, Demonstrations, in 2015. That was followed by the Spiders EP and their full-length debut, Tidals, in 2016 – releases that drew attention from artists like Deftones, Shiner, If These Trees Could Talk, and ultimately led to their signing with Ipecac Recordings.
Now, after a decade of releases, the band is reflecting on these songs, all of which are appearing on vinyl for the first time. “It’s a really fun listen,” Mario adds. “You can hear and feel the development of the band over the years, not only musically but emotionally and production wise as well.”
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The band will be selling copies of the Rarities vinyl on tour, and via the Ipecac website. Tickets for the band’s shows supporting AA Williams are on sale now, via Ipecac.com/tours.
LIVE DATES IN SUPPORT OF AA WILLIAMS:
27/01 – UK Norwich, Arts Centre 28/01 – UK Milton Keynes, Craufurd Arms 29/01 – UK Nottingham, Bodega 30/01 – UK Manchester, Deaf Institute 31/01 – UK Glasgow, G2 01/02 – UK Leeds, Brudenell Social Club 03/02 – UK Birmingham, Hare & Hounds 04/02 – UK Bristol, Strange Brew 05/02 – UK London, Bush Hall 06/02 – UK Southampton, Papillon 07/02 – BE Diksmuide, 4AD 08/02 – FR Paris, Nouveau Casino 10/02 – FR Toulouse, Le Rex 11/02 – ES Barcelona, La Nau 12/02 – ES Madrid, Villanos 13/02 – PT Lisbon, Casa Capitão 14/02 – PT Porto, Mouco 15/02 – ES Donosti, Dabadaba 17/02 – FR Grenoble, l’Ampérage 18/02 – IT Milan, Legend Club 19/02 – CH Aarau, KiFF 20/02 – DE Munich, Live / Evil 21/02 – AT Vienna, Chelsea 22/02 – CZ Prague, SUBZERO 24/02 – PL Warsaw, VooDoo 25/02 – DE Berlin, Neue Zukunft 26/02 – DE Cologne, Gebäude 9 27/02 – NL Eindhoven, Effenaar 28/02 – NL Utrecht, Tivoli Cloud Nine
mclusky released their first album in 20 years, the world is still here and so are we, last week. they’re sharing another video today which is directed by remy lamont, and that’s for the track ‘autofocus on the prime directive’, which is one of the songs from that album. there are also a lot of live dates coming up which you can look at below if you like.
falco offers; “autofocus on the prime directive is a series of patently untrue statements set to music by a man who can barely dress himself. the title is not a reference to star trek in any way but if it was I hope you’d understand.”
dälek share a new track ‘The Essence’ ahead of European tour dates this May. The experimental hip-hop pioneers are currently in the studio working on their follow up to Precipice and have given fans a taste of what’s to come in this new single.
“The Essence is a window to where me and Mike are at right now. We quite literally took it back to the essence on this joint. Straight up me on the MPC 3000 and Mike on Processed guitar, playing off of each other as we created the track. Lyrics and flow are central to the joint and dictated the direction of the production and how we sculpted the arrangement.
As always there are layers to the meaning but I also wanted to be crystal clear on what I was spitting. There are minimal to no overdubs. We somehow kept the heavy “wall of sound” feel but stripped away superfluous layers to just the parts and pieces that were needed to complete this as a “dälek” song. This is just a taste of what is coming.” – Dälek
The lyrics of ‘The Essence’ are full of defiance and energy, something which the band will no doubt bring to their live shows; "We had civilizations interconnected throughout history/Our art and architecture composed with sacred symmetry/I’m seeing these past lives vividly/Refuse to let them kill our joy wit bigotry."
dälek live 2025:
May 20th – Berlin, DE – Neue Zukunft May 21st – Vilnius, LT – Kirtimai Cultural Center May 22nd – Tallinn, EE – Paavli Kultuurivabrik May 23rd – Helsinki, FI – Sonic Rites Festival May 24th – Budapest, HU – Instant-Fogas May 26th – Prague, CZ – Palac Akropolis May 27th – Brno, CZ – Kabinet Muz May 28th – Vienna, AT – Flucc
mclusky was one of those bands which built a cult following without ever really breaking through in the period they were active, in the period which spanned from 1996-2005. None of the greats are ever appreciated in their time, of course. Their albums would fetch premium prices second-hand, in the years after they called it a day, and my local Oxfam had prohibitively-priced copies of a couple of them for a while, which got progressively more tired and shelf-worn. With Future of the Left, Andrew Falkous found a wider audience while still doing much of the same, but as loved as they became, there was always a sense among fans that ‘they’re bloody brilliant… but they’re not mclusky’.
Of course, nostalgia has a large part to play here, and it’s almost inevitable that practically no second or subsequent band, however popular or successful, will experience the same affection as their forebears, unless, perhaps, they’re The Foo Fighters, in which case that affection is misplaced anyway.
mclusky flirted with occasional comebacks, while Falkous would release solo work as Christian Fitness. But, somewhat unexpectedly, the Wikipedia note on Mcluskyism (2006) that ‘This compilation is, without doubt, the final chapter in Mclusky’s nine-year saga, as Falkous informs in the Mcluskyism liner notes, “that’s it, then. No farewell tour… no premature deaths (at time of writing), no live DVDs…”’ First, there was the EP unpopular parts of a pig in 2023, and now, here we have it: their first full-length album in a full two decades. What has happened? I really don’t know, but seemingly from nowhere, a stack of bands from the Jesus Lizard to Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, have re-emerged with their first new albums in twenty years or more, and they’ve not been some second-rate, tepid late- (or even post-) career cash-ins, but up there with the best of their work.
‘Is it any good?’ people will be asking. ‘Is it as good as the old stuff?’ Anyone who has heard lead single, ‘way of the exploding dickhead’ will probably already be thinking that the answer to both of these questions is in the affirmative, and they would be right. the world is still here and so are we is indeed up there. As they put it, ‘it was important not to cos-play the past but also not to flubbity-flub over everything like a gang of big stupid flubs.’ Yeah,. There’s definitely no flubbing, or flab here. This is lean and full-on, and sheer quality.
It’s ‘unpopular parts of a pig’ which launches the album in a scratchy blast of cutty treble, a skewe(re)d tumult of stop / start angular punk which is frantic and irreverent, compressing elements of Nirvana and Shellac and Butthole Surfers, Dead Kennedys, and the Jesus Lizard into a manic two minutes and twenty-one seconds.
It was often the case, especially in the 70s, 80s, and 90s – before streaming, essentially, but while record company exploitation and the industry gravy train was racing at a seemingly unstoppable pace – that the singles, which would lure you in to buy an album, were the only decent songs on it, and you’d feel pretty bummed and short-changed at having forked out £7.50 for an LP or cassette – unless if had been one of your bonus purchases through Britannia Music – when you might as well have just paid 99p for the 7” and not bothered with the album. This may still be the case in some instances, now that the album format is supposedly dead in the world of the mainstream, where people only stream the songs they know already as part of the playlist they’ll loop for weeks, but beyond the mainstream, it feels like the album is stronger than ever, and acts are committed to making albums which are 100% quality from beginning to end. This certainly rings true for the world is still here and so are we.
Of the album’s thirteen songs, only three are over three minutes in duration, and it feels like there’ve compressed and distilled everything to achieve peak intensity. The bass is absolutely immense, a thunderous boom that dominates the sound, leaving room for Falkous’ guitar to wander and explore sinewy tripwire picked lead parts and discordant textures.
‘people person’ also released as a single, lands with a swagger and showcases a gutsy bass-led groove, while also highlighting the sarcastic, ironical humour and misanthropy that’s integral to both mclusky and FOTL: bursting with pithy one-liners and sharp commentary, it’s everything that makes them so loved and so bloody great. Elsewhere, the more overtly mathy ‘not all the steeplejacks’ channels the spirit of Shellac rather nicely.
the world is still here and so are we is gritty, unpretty, full-throttle, and fiery. It’s a racket. And yes, it’s fucking mint.
Melvins 1983 – the lineup featuring Buzz Osborne and original drummer Mike Dillard – offer a second preview of Thunderball (out 18th April, Ipecac Recordings) with today’s release of ‘King of Rome’.
The charging track once again features contributions from avant-electronic artists Void Manes and Ni Maîtres, with Osborne saying of the song; “The ‘King of Rome!! Hot Cross Buns! This song is a hot little punk rock number. I hope all of you enjoy it and tell your friends.”
Aural Aggravation 