On Tuesday night at the National in Richmond, VA, my very favorite Swedish metal visionaries, Avatar, proved once again that few metal bands understand live performance as they do. Their “Don’t Go in the Forest” tour stop in Richmond felt less like a traditional concert and more like a theatrical journey into controlled, delightful chaos—equal parts horror carnival, death metal spectacle, and celebration. Supported by Texas death metal crushers Frozen Soul and Italy’s symphonic extremists Fleshgod Apocalypse, this stop on Avatar’s tour delivered nearly four hours of energy, musicianship, and off-the-charts atmosphere.

Frozen Soul opened the night with a set that hit like a punch to the face. Hailing from Ft. Worth, Texas, Frozen Soul’s (Chad Green, Michael Munday, Samantha Mobley, Matt Dennard, and Chris Bonner) death metal immediately set a punishing tone for the night. Frontman Chad Green worked the audience with the experience; he connected with the crowd through his booming voice and somewhat surprising heart.

The band performed shrouded in darkness at the National—this was unfortunate as it obscured the full charisma of Green’s stage presence and made capturing that charisma challenging. Nonetheless, his raw, death metal vocals pierced the darkness and hit the crowd like an ice storm.

There was no elaborate stage production, no unnecessary tricks, just pure heaviness delivered with icy force. Even early on Tuesday night, circle pits had already begun opening across the floor; the dedicated metal fans hurled themselves into chaos created by Frozen Soul. Frozen Soul’s latest album is appropriately titled No Place of Warmth, released this year.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | From October 15–18, 2026, Acoustic Sounds will host the inaugural Vinyl Summit, a landmark gathering at the center of the analog universe, inviting audiophiles, vinyl collectors, and dealers into an immersive, four-day experience at the helm of high-fidelity sound.

Featuring a behind-the-scenes look at Acoustic Sounds production scale, record fair, hifi show, and world-class live performances in multiple venues, The Vinyl Summit marks 40 years of Acoustic Sounds, celebrating the past, present, and future of audio excellence. Interested dealers can access more information on The Vinyl Summit here.

Founded in 1986 by Chad Kassem, Acoustic Sounds began as a one-man mail-order operation that has since grown into both a global analog powerhouse and the standard-bearer for audiophile vinyl.

Over four decades, Chad has built a fully independent analog ecosystem spanning mastering, pressing, printing, recording, and distribution—all driven by uncompromising standards and an obsessive commitment to superior sound. Dubbed the “wizard of vinyl” by The New York Times, Chad has spent 40 years redefining what it means to hear recorded music at its highest fidelity.

As Acoustic Sounds enters its fifth decade, The Vinyl Summit stands as both celebration and culmination: a living expression of craftsmanship, community, and conviction. What began as Kassem’s personal mission to “save the world from bad sound” reaches its greatest heights this fall, with a four-day, fully immersive experience, offering attendees the opportunity not just to hear the music, but step inside how it’s made, preserved, and experienced at the highest level.

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Celebrating Brian Eno on his 78th birthday. —Ed.

What a divine creature: In the first half of the 1970s the pre-ambient Brian Eno flitted about England’s glitter rock scene in fantastical glam attire, making an indelible mark on Roxy Music’s first two LPs with his VCS3 synthesizer and “tape effects” before moving on to create two utterly idiosyncratic art rock masterpieces with Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, both released in 1974.

On the former album, Eno utilized a boldly original approach to recording that placed a high premium on happy accidents that were not really accidental; Eno very deliberately lined up a cast of studio musicians he felt would be incompatible with one another just to see what would happen. In his own words he organized the situation “with the knowledge that there might be accidents, accidents which will be more interesting than what I had intended.” He then doubled down on the oddness by “treating” instruments and doing a lot of heavy condensing and mixing of the recorded tracks, some of which ended up sounding nothing like what the musicians played in the studio.

In short Eno puts chance in charge, and like any good gambler chance works in his favor. Marcel Duchamp abandoned art to play chess; if Eno were to retire, he would no doubt take up craps. Not enough random variables in the game of kings.

Art Rock with a sense of humor and none of the grandiosity, Here Come the Warm Jets is a collection of beautifully textured songs filled with staggering performances by the slew of stellar performers Eno gathered together because he thought they didn’t belong together. All of Roxy Music (excepting Bryan Ferry) were on hand, as were guitar aces Chris Spedding and Robert Fripp; other players included members of King Crimson, Hawkwind, Pink Fairies, and Matching Mole. They don’t seem like such an incongruous bunch to me–Spedding excepted, there’s a decided tilt towards art- and prog-rock–but if Eno considered ‘em an Odd Bunch, well, he’s the guys with the ears.

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I recently spoke with Linda Perry, frontwoman of 4 Non Blondes and one of the most prolific songwriters and producers of the past three decades.

After “What’s Up?” became an era-defining hit in 1993, Linda stepped behind the boards and wrote and produced some of the biggest songs in pop music: Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful,” Pink’s “Get the Party Started,” Alicia Keys’ “Superwoman,” plus work with Dolly Parton, Adele, Miley Cyrus, Celine Dion, Ariana Grande, Joan Jett, and Courtney Love. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015, and made history in 2019 as the first solo woman nominated in the Grammy’s Producer of the Year category in fifteen years.

Now, Linda is stepping back to the front. Her first solo album in over 25 years, Let It Die Here, was released May 8, 2026 via Kill Rock Stars/670 Records. The 17-track record is a raw, cinematic reckoning with grief, family, and survival, written and recorded alongside the making of her new documentary of the same name.

Linda Perry: Let It Die Here, directed by Don Hardy, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is rolling out theatrically through Mercury Studios and Evan Saxon Productions: New York was on May 8, Los Angeles today, May 13, with screenings continuing through May and June in San Francisco, Palm Springs, San Diego, Denver, and London, with many featuring live Q&As and acoustic performances from Linda.

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Half Man Half Biscuit—the only band in rock history to break up due to, in their words, “musical similarities.” Half Man Half Biscuit—the geniuses who brought us such brilliant songs as “Joy Division Oven Gloves,” “National Shite Day,” and “Horror Clowns are Dickheads.” Oh, and let us not forget “Styx Gig (Seen by My Mates Coming Out of A),” which could be the funniest song this side of Randy Newman’s “Wedding in Cherokee County.” I should add that in 2005, they released an LP entitled Achtung Bono.

What else do you need to know about Half Man Half Biscuit? Well, they’re witty, incorrigibly sardonic, and their band motto (as found on their website) is “Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime.” What you also need to know is they’re from Birkenhead, Merseyside (okay, maybe you didn’t need to know that) and are prone to writing songs replete with obscure pop culture references to people, places, and things (e.g., “Dickie Davies’ Eyes,” “I Hate Nerys Hughes”), a Yank like me has to Google to make sense of.

And this can be a problem, unless you’re willing to either a) let the obscure pop cultural references sail right over your head or b) be prepared to Google up a tsunami.

What else do you need to know? Well, guitarist/songwriter Nigel Blackwell was “still robbing cars and playing football like normal people do” when he co-founded the band with his confederate in arms, vocalist/bassist Neil Crossley.

Oh, and early on (when they needed the publicity), the band was twice invited to perform on The Tube, Channel 4’s live music show. Thanks but no thanks, they said. Playing live on TV would have kept them from watching TV, where their local football team, Tranmere Rovers, were wallowing at the bottom of League Two.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ween’s beloved country music detour, 12 Golden Country Greats, turns 30 this summer and Rhino is celebrating by remastering the album and expanding it with more than 20 unreleased demos and outtakes from the Nashville sessions.

12 Golden Country Greats (Deluxe Edition) will be available July 31 on 3CDs and 3LPs, with a color-vinyl version available exclusively from Rhino.com and Ween.com. The Deluxe Edition will also be available for streaming and digital download. Pre-order here. Previously unreleased track “Bad Day In Brownsville” is available digitally today.

To make 12 Golden Country Greats, Dean Ween (Mickey Melchiondo) and Gene Ween (Aaron Freeman) traded the Tascam four-track cassette recorders of their early years for the professional polish of Bradley’s Barn near Nashville.

Produced by Ben Vaughn, the duo recruited The Shit Creek Boys—a group of elite session musicians including The Jordanaires, who had previously backed Elvis Presley. Sticking to Nashville tradition, Melchiondo and Freeman provided only vocals, allowing veteran players like pianist Hargus “Pig” Robbins and fiddler Buddy Spicher to handle the instrumentation across songs like “Piss Up A Rope,” “I’m Holding You,” and “Pretty Girl.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings and HighTone Records proudly announce the long-awaited return of Boone Creek—the self-titled 1977 debut from the boundary-pushing supergroup featuring future bluegrass luminaries Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, Wes Golding, and Terry Baucom.

Long out of print and previously unavailable outside its original release, the album returns across all formats—marking its first vinyl pressing in nearly five decades, alongside its debut on CD and streaming platforms (including hi-res digital). In addition to the original album tracklist, this reissue includes four recently unearthed bonus tracks salvaged from the long-lost session tapes—startling, left-field performances that show Boone Creek pushing the form into truly uncharted territory.

Arriving on June 26 and available for pre-order, the release is previewed by Boone Creek’s soul-stirring take on the Flat & Scruggs bluegrass classic, “I’m Gonna Settle Down,” available to stream/ download now. The track showcases the dazzling musicianship and fiery chemistry of four bluegrass masters coming together to form Boone Creek.

In 1976, Skaggs (mandolin, fiddle, guitar, lead and harmony vocals) and Douglas (Dobro, harmony vocals), fresh off of their tenure with bluegrass powerhouse J.D. Crowe & the New South, joined forces with songwriter Golding (guitar) and Baucom (banjo) to create a daring new sound that honored bluegrass tradition while boldly expanding its possibilities.

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Celebrating David Byrne on his 74th birthday. —Ed.

How is it that sometimes, not always but just sometimes, the LP you swore your undying love for and allegiance to back in the day fails, after not having heard it for a long time, to set you on fire? It makes you feel like a turncoat.

Such is the case with Talking Heads’ seminal 1980 LP, Remain in Light. When it came out, I couldn’t find enough good things to say about it; it was flawless, an unparalleled work of synthetic Afrocentric genius, and I would have sworn under oath to the 1981 hearings of the U.S. Senate Commission on Un-American Influences on Rock’n’Roll to that effect. Now it fails to move me as it once did, and I’m left feeling like Benedict Arnold—a traitor to an album I once would have set off firecrackers in my pants for.

On Remain in Light, Talking Heads and co-conspirator Brian Eno eschewed the band’s heretofore twitchy new wave paranoia in favor of a liquid African-based sound that incorporated Byrne’s new stream-of-consciousness approach to writing lyrics, and it worked like gangbusters. Everyone I knew loved it and played it continuously. The hypnotic beats, the great percussion and insane guitars, the syncopated layers of backing vocalists, and David Byrne’s new and more ecstatic vocal delivery all contributed, as did Brian Eno’s far from negligible vision and musical and production skills, to create an album that was truly contagious.

On the LP, Byrne abandoned (for the most part) his characteristic deadpan irony for a potpourri of disparate influences: African rhythms, the fire and brimstone cadences of holy roller preachers, the studied speaking delivery of Nixon underling John Dean’s Watergate testimony (seriously!), and even the new-fangled rap of Kurtis Blow (seriously again!) Throw in a novel free-associative approach to the lyrics and what the Heads ended up with was an album that was radically different from their previous LP, 1979’s excellent Fear of Music.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | For more than four decades, Osaka, Japan’s legendary pop-punk trio Shonen Knife has remained one of the most beloved and influential underground rock bands in the world.

Formed in 1981 by sisters Naoko and Atsuko, the band built an international cult following through their infectious mix of punk rock energy, sugary pop melodies, and lyrics celebrating everyday joys like candy, animals, food, and fun. Inspired equally by ’60s girl groups, classic punk, and the Ramones, Shonen Knife created a sound entirely their own—bright, joyful, loud, and irresistibly catchy.

Over the years, the band earned admiration from artists across generations, including Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and Redd Kross. Kurt Cobain famously championed Shonen Knife in the early 1990s, helping introduce them to a massive international audience during the alternative rock explosion. Since then, the band has toured relentlessly around the globe, performing everywhere from intimate clubs to major festivals including Lollapalooza, The All Tomorrow’s Parties, and Riot Fest.

Now in 2026, Shonen Knife return with one of the most exciting releases of their storied career: Let’s Knife Re-Cut, a vibrant reimagining of their breakthrough 1992 album Let’s Knife. To be released July 10, 2026 through Good Charamel Records, the album revisits the songs that introduced the band to much of the Western world while infusing them with decades of live performance experience and renewed punk-pop power.

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Remembering Bobby Darin, born on this day in 1936. —Ed.

Although quite far afield from our current pop charts, Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer were once thoroughly of the commercial mainstream. However, their full-length collaboration, originally released on Atco in 1961, finds the pair in a nostalgic and jocular mood. Loaded with older tunes and a theatrical, at times vaudevillian rapport, Two of a Kind succeeds through expert delivery, obvious mutual respect, the bulls-eye backing of Billy May and His Orchestra, and the production expertise of Ahmet Ertegun. 

Waxing autobiographical as a record reviewer can be a dangerous move (though rock scribes have often successfully flouted the “rule” against it), but in considering Two of a Kind’s saturation of personality it feels appropriate to plunge deep into the realm of the first-person. And so; allow me to confess that pre-rock pop vocalizing in the big band mode has never been my favorite scene, and has in fact persistently nagged around the edges of blind spot.

There are of course exceptions, most of them jazzy and female, but the flat fact is I’ve never been that enthusiastic over Bing. Or Sinatra. Or Bennett. Or Dean (sorry, Nick Tosches). Or Torme. Though I do like Louis Prima, especially with Keely Smith (that better, Nick?) And hey, as relevant to this piece, I’ve long been fond of Bobby Darin.

Due to his early hits, Darin is sometimes pegged as a rock ‘n’ roll-era figure who broadened his horizons upon youth music’s decade-closing stumbling block, but he was actually a singer-songwriter, and a solid one at that; “Splish Splash” was reportedly co-written on a dare, and “Dream Lover” stands up as a likable example of ’50s teen pop crooning.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings announce the return of Danny Elfman’s celebrated scores for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) and Back to School (1986) on new color vinyl editions. Recreating the original double-feature vinyl presentation, the release revives a fan-favorite Danny Elfman double bill on a single-LP package.

The collection features Pee-wee’s Big Adventure on side A—the first collaboration between Elfman and director Tim Burton, and the launch of one of cinema’s most celebrated composer/director partnerships—and Elfman’s score for the rowdy ’80s comedy classic Back to School on side B. The release follows the 40th anniversary of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure last year, while Back to School celebrates the milestone in 2026. In addition to the “Rocket Red” variant, Barnes & Noble will offer an exclusive “Tequila Dance Green” vinyl, while VareseSarabande.com will carry a striking exclusive “Rebel Splatter” vinyl. These new pressings arrive June 26 and are available for pre-order now.

Actor Paul Reubens created Pee-wee Herman while performing with the Groundlings in the late 1970s, later transforming the character into a stage show and an HBO show in 1981, eventually leading to the 1985 feature film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Directed by Tim Burton in his feature film debut, the film follows Pee-wee on his wildly eclectic cross-country search for his stolen bike, the Red Rocket. Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman was brought in to compose the score, and a dream pairing between filmmaker (Burton) and composer (Elfman) was born.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Wewantsounds is delighted to present the first official reissue of the highly sought-after 1979 classic, Summer-Time Love Song by The Milky Way.

Originally released on the Seven Seas label in Japan and produced by the legendary Makoto Matsushita—the visionary behind the cult album First Light—the album is a premier example of the sophisticated sound that defined the era. Featuring the cream of Japanese musicians, including Yasuaki Shimizu, the record offers a superb mix of AOR, jazz fusion, funk, and bossa nova. Remastered for vinyl by Colorsound Studio, this deluxe reissue features the original artwork, an OBI strip, and a 4p booklet with a new introduction by Paul Bowler.​​

Wewantsounds continues its Japanese reissue program with the first official international release of one of the most sought-after City Pop albums out of Japan, the 1979 classic Summer-Time Love Song by The Milky Way. Originally released on the Seven Seas label, the album was produced by Makoto Matsushita with Kazuo Nobuta, representing a peak of the sophisticated studio craft that defined the late-’70s Japanese transition into high-fidelity AOR and Jazz-Fusion. ​

The album serves as a vital precursor to Matsushita’s own 1981 cult masterpiece First Light. Here, he and Nobuta lead the cream of Japanese session musicians—including the renowned Yasuaki Shimizu—through a superb mix of AOR, funk, and Brazilian music. From the sun-drenched bossa nova rhythms of the Jobim classic “Wave” to a sophisticated rendition of Boz Scaggs’ classic “Harbor Lights,” finishing with the dreamy rhythms of “Endless Summer,” the record is a masterclass in elegant funky arrangements and relaxed harmonies. ​

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