Alternative Album Chart: the best new indie and alternative albums this week
This week, Jack White surprisingly returned with one of his best albums in a while: No Name. It’s a deeply imaginative record packaging his swaggering energy into a colourful mass that points to his future while evoking familiar flecks of his work with The White Stripes. The follow-up to 2022’s Entering Heaven Alive is yet another accomplished effort that bolsters his revered cultural standing.
Brimming with his potent licks and riffs, expressive vocals, and a whole load of dynamism, it is modern garage rock at its finest. Despite the lack of promotion before he released it into the ether, it may well be one of the contenders for album of the year. It is wholly entertaining from start to finish, with White’s magnetism leading listeners throughout; in this case, it really is true what they say: the greats never go out of style. It has all the trappings of a contemporary classic. If this were 2002, it would be heading straight to the top of the charts.
It’s not just White who has pricked our ears up this week. On his second album, Grim Iconic… (Sadistic Mantra), Tacoma’s J.R.C.G. provides a compelling and challenging record for our times that brings his internal dissonance and that of the modern era into full focus. The collection of pulsating tracks blends traditional punk energy with innovative electronic twists. In a world overflowing with easily accessible and often meaningless content, this firmly kicks back against the contemporary norm.
Following these two differing highlights, South African country star Orville Peck has supplied his third album, Stampede. Another brilliant offering from the celebrated artist, it contains an array of future staples, including the cinematic collaboration with genre pioneer Willie Nelson, the cover of ‘Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other’.
As ever, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Find this week’s Alternative Album Chart below.
The best new indie and alternative albums this week:
No Name – Jack White – [4.5]
The headlines of recent times purport that rock ‘n’ roll has been murdered in its sleep and the digital age has finally brought about the death of moribund analogue. If that makes Jack White’s latest effort ‘retro-gazing’, then he’s doing it in such a way that could revive the corpses of Robert Johnson, Freddie King and the other outlaws who electrified modern culture into life. It’s strictly analogue rock ‘n’ roll, and it obliterates any narrative spelling the end of either.
Within a single bar of blistering blues he showcases how it is the lifeblood of all popular music in a manner that could have the Pope wobbling saloon doors off their hinges in his leather cassock within 15 seconds of listening. ‘Old Scratch Blues’ bursts out of the gates like a howl, roaring with classic White Stripes energy, but this time with an ensemble of guesting musicians. And in true DIY style, it was produced, mixed, and even pressed to vinyl and released by White.
No Name is the former White Stripes and Raconteurs rocker’s sixth solo release, arriving two years on from Entering Heaven Alive. Its build-up, or lack thereof, has been significant. Without a word of warning, it emerged as a free vinyl gift at his recent charity gig and appeared in the bags of customers at his Third Man Records stores. Subtly, this surprise release heralded the old-school ways of live music and tangible discs in an age where culture is increasingly content to be enjoyed from home, and art is a free bit of data, toppling the creators from their throne. No Name is the antidote to this in every way.
Grim Iconic… (Sadistic Mantra) – J.R.C.G. – [4]
The second J.R.C.G. album, Grim Iconic… (Sadistic Mantra), exists at the nexus of opposites and harnesses the full force of the friction this space produces. The man behind the operation, Justin R. Cruz Gallego, is from a Latino background and was born in the arid desert clime of Tuscon, Arizona, but grew up in the wind-beaten Pacific Northwest, two wildly distinct environments. This internal dissonance is what fuels this challenging but highly accomplished effort. Marrying his sunny roots with his love of punk and DIY, this fusion makes for a compelling listen.
With the album, he achieves a personally affecting force. I have a cultural background far removed from the rain-soaked East Yorkshire I grew up in and find resonance in Gallego’s tale, as will many others in the modern age, making Grim Iconic… an album perfect for our times. Blending the influence of electronic experimentalists like Oneohtrix Point Never, whom he loves, with gritty punk and his expressive drumming – heavily inspired by Latino rhythms – this convergence of markedly different realms and its constant pirouetting on the precipice of melodic refinement and complete dissonant horror is very powerful throughout.
Stampede – Orville Peck – [4]
When we think of country music, there are stereotypical images of brooding white men donning denim, suede, and cowboy boots, drinking whisky, singing about their sweetheart or their country, again and again and again that come to mind. However, over the past few years, those images have steadily been ushered out as modern artists, along with more modern mindsets, are dominating the genre, making it more accessible worldwide, more user-friendly for marginalised groups and generally just a more exciting movement. At the front of this is Orville Peck, and on his new album, Stampede, he shows us why.
Stampede is one of the most moving, fun and versatile albums of 2024. Laced with classic country sounds throughout, Peck flourishes as he explores his emotional range, writing an exciting mix that touches upon love, loss, lust and freedom. Every song has an accompaniment by a talented vocalist or musician who complement Peck’s sound perfectly. Not only that, but the album includes well-known covers that seem carefully picked out, not just great songs but representations of the influences that seem to have gone into making this wide-ranging record.
Cellophane Memories – Chrystabell and David Lynch – [3.5]
David Lynch has honed a directorial style so singular that an entirely new adjective was concocted to describe it. The term Lynchian has many tangible properties – a surrealist screenplay, dream-like visuals, and gorgeous soundtracks usually contributed by Angelo Badalamenti. But, more than anything, the term seems to describe a certain mood, a mood that extends beyond Lynch’s work in the director’s seat and into the many other art forms he has tried his hand at.
Expectedly, that mood finds its way into Cellophane Memories, Lynch’s latest offering and his third collaborative album with singer and former Twin Peaks star Chrystabell. Inspired by a vision the director had during a wander through the trees at dusk, the record is just as mysterious and dreamy as any of Lynch’s visual offerings. If you have a rough idea of what the word “Lynchian” pertains to, you probably have a pretty solid idea of what Cellophane Memories sounds like.
Million Dollar Baby – Pixey – [3.5]
“Maybe I’m just a dreamer, make my mind a machine,” Pixey – the fittingly dainty stage name for the ethereal Elizabeth Sinead Hillesdon – sings on the closing track to Million Dollar Baby. While this might be skipping ahead, ‘The War In My Mind’ follows an exciting whirlwind of light indie-pop treats and showcases why Hillesdon deserves to break free from being a Liverpudlian secret.
Million Dollar Baby, Hillesdon’s sweet yet assured debut, feels less like a slow burn but in a gathering graceful manner. The singer’s Ellie Rowsell-esque featherlight vocals depict an artist free from the shackles of expectation, fully immersed in her own artistic vision, ready to present her creation to the world in all its glorious messiness without forcing it on her audience.
Still Willing – Personal Trainer – [3.5]
The peak of the summer has come and gone, but the endless supply of optimistic indie pop continues to dominate the airwaves. Far too often, in the case of modern indie, artists demonstrate a distinct lack of authenticity or originality, leading to the incredibly broad landscape of so-called landfill. In answer to this, Amsterdam-based outfit Personal Trainer have dedicated themselves to breathing new life into the genre, through an eclectic blend of styles and songwriting themes. Seemingly, though, this diverse sound comes from the inspiration of just one man.
After bursting onto the scene with the triumph that was Big Love Blanket, Willem Smit – the man behind the Personal Trainer moniker – received a considerable amount of attention, and rightly so. Of course, this newfound success brought with it more than a few challenges, and Smit manages to encapsulate the essence of that personal journey within the grooves of the latest album, Still Willing. Drawing upon a vast range of influences, from the colossal sounds of shoegaze to the tender indie folk of figures like Elliott Smith, it is difficult to summarise the record succinctly. More often than not, however, the record focuses on indie pop optimism.
The Well I Fell Into – Why? – [3]
Why? are now almost three decades into their reign of urban hymns. Headed by Yoni Wolf, the assembled collective are now even more assured in their experimentation with their first release on the Cincinnati songwriter’s new label, Waterlines. That’s a confidence that shows in the bountiful skill and innovation resplendent on The Well I Fell Into—a record that has an ambient heart, hip-hop overture and emo indie affectation, all blended in a manner that stirs up interesting juxtapositions and notes of dissonance.
From an objective standpoint, inventiveness and talent are all there for the lauding. However, without a label to pose any questions, there is also a touch of self-indulgence detectable in segments when everything becomes a little overblown, perhaps creating something unique but also deriding beautiful mingling moments of ambience and soaring strings with pounding synth bass and 808-beat drops that serve as a showcase of mixing skill more than they serve the mournful songs.
Alas, as you settle into the fact that the record feels a little crass and the songwriting is riddled with dated sentiments that hark back to Wolf’s early days as an artist, the truly astounding production drags you back into objective praise and away from subjective questions about artfulness. Thus, it’s an experiment akin to Mac ‘n’ Cheese ice cream, innovative, impressive but perverse and polarising in equal measure.
