Led as always by songwriter John Darnielle, The Mountain Goats remain a distinctive pleasure in a landscape plagued by homogeneity. Theirs is a steadfastly intelligent, ever-evolving body of work that’s impossible to confuse with anyone else, even as the sounds often surprise. Their latest breakthrough, Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan, out November 7 on LP, CD, cassette, and digital through Cadmean Dawn, moves into the territory of the stage musical and welcomes backing vocals by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

A full-blown stage musical might seem like a bit of a descriptive overstatement for a songwriter with numerous concept albums in his discography. This album’s predecessor, 2023’s Jenny from Thebes, has been categorized as a rock opera, and in fact, Darnielle has called it a “fake-musical.”

But as it plays, Through This Fire exudes legit stage musical qualities, and straightaway with “Overture,” an ornately scaled orchestrally arranged opener, courtesy of longtime Mountain Goat multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas, that would certainly be appropriate for a theater production.

Naturally, and fairly, Through This Fire will be assessed as a considerable departure in terms of instrumental thrust, but that’s not really anything unusual for John Darnielle, a guy who began his musical journey as part of the lo-fi “movement” by strumming a guitar and singing into the microphone of a boombox.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | UMe, the centralized global catalog division of Universal Music Group, is proud to announce the launch of Vinylphyle, a new audiophile vinyl reissue series dedicated to presenting essential albums across multiple genres with uncompromising sound quality and packaging.

Billed as “A premium vinyl experience for people who love vinyl,” the series will debut on November 14 with four landmark titles: The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Exodus (1977), The Band’s Northern Lights–Southern Cross (1975), celebrating its 50th anniversary, and Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song (1962). All albums will be available exclusively at uDiscover Music and via the artist’s official online stores where applicable. Following the launch, Vinylphyle will continue with two releases per month, spanning genres and eras to build a library of must-own records.

Each Vinylphyle release will feature all analog mastering from original sources by an elite group of today’s top vinyl cutting engineers. The LPs will be pressed at the world-class Southern California-based audiophile vinyl record pressing plant Record Technology, Inc. better known amongst vinyl lovers as RTI, on 180-gram black vinyl.

Similar in presentation and execution to Blue Note’s acclaimed Tone Poet series, the production and packaging seek to honor the stature of these recordings and will include tip-on wrapped gatefold jackets in satin matte finish, printed on clay-coated board, with archival poly sleeves and a four-panel insert featuring new liner notes by notable music journalists, personalities, and fans. Backed by RTI’s craftsmanship, these releases are produced at the highest levels and include extensive quality controls at every step of the process, from mastering to plating to pressing and printing, ensuring a superb final product.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | There’s a tension that runs through the music of Los Angeles-based duo, Born Rivals, the kind that only exists between brothers. Born from years of creative friction, John & Paul Thornley channeled their differences into something undeniably their own. The sound is lush and deliberately crafted, channeling American heartland grit through a ’90s Britpop lens. Commanding drums anchor cascading guitars and intricately layered keyboards, while vocals turn from half-mumbled to soaring in a breath, punctuated by sibling harmonies that seem to argue and agree simultaneously.

Purple Western Skyline, their self-produced album arriving November 14, 2025 via Sheltering Sky Records—a label founded by John Thornley to maintain creative control— carries the marks of its unusual birth. Recording began in a Hollywood studio just before the lights went out in early 2020 and not long after, kids arrived. New life intervened with its own demands. What started as an attempt to control the process became an exercise in surrender.

While they worked largely alone, chasing a sound that belonged to them, certain collaborators proved essential: Cian Riordan (St. Vincent) and Andrew Lappin (Cassandra Jenkins) brought clarity to the mix, Michael Harris (Arctic Monkeys) and Justin Long (Grace Potter) lent engineering expertise, Sam KS (The War On Drugs) provided drums, and Lindsay Pitts Lazarus (GEMS) contributed the project’s first outside vocal, a duet that opened something new. The songs became what they needed to be, made in the margins of a changing life.

When it came time for the artwork, they used David Hockney’s “joiners” as inspiration. Hockney’s technique of bringing the viewer into the photo rather than capturing frozen moments resonated with them. Making the album followed a similar process: fragments stitched together, time layered over itself.

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Celebrating Chris Difford on his 71st birthday. —Ed.

From England’s green and pleasant land, an unprepossessing and pleasant band—Squeeze aren’t out to change your life, just to provide you with friendly and understated pop gems, domestic and romantic tableaux of the sort that won me over even when I was at the height of my Anglophobia.

The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau more or less summed up my sentiments when he wrote of Squeeze’s 1982 compilation Singles – 45’s and Under, “They’re so principled in their unpretension, so obsessed with the telling detail, that their lesser moments are passively minuscule—not unfine when you squint at them, but all too easy to overlook.”

People are always talking about Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook as if they’re the McCartney and Lennon of the early eighties, but back me against a wall and the only Squeeze songs I can name are “Tempted,” “Pulling Mussels from the Shell,” and “Black Coffee in Bed.” And I considered myself a fan. Not a huge fan, but I saw them live on a pier in New York City once. Pity I was three sheets to the wind and almost fell off the pier.

But just because I don’t remember most of the songs on Singles – 45’s and Under doesn’t mean they’re not worth hearing. There’s a real warmth to Squeeze’s music, even if Difford and Tilbrook are rather cool customers. They’re Apollonian formalists, and pure popcraft is their strong suit. I’m talking immaculately put-together songs with smart words about heartbreak and occasionally irresistible melodies.

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In late-’70s Minneapolis, guitarist Bob Mould, drummer Grant Hart, and bassist Greg Norton came together to form one of the great trios in rock music’s long history. Burning bright for most of the ensuing decade, Hüsker Dü exploded out of the hardcore scene with ferocious speed, only to incrementally increase the melody without turning down the amps. On November 7, Numero Group releases the 4LP live set 1985: The Miracle Year, which posits the smack-dab middle of the ’80s as the band’s peak in terms of productivity, execution, and songwriting acumen. Soaking up the 43 songs, it’s impossible to argue.

Consisting of a complete live set from the venue First Avenue in Minneapolis on January 30, 1985, spread across two LPs and then an additional batch of live songs from various locales during the same period sequenced onto two more LPs, 1985: The Miracle Year might appear to be an undertaking best suited for an intensely devoted listenership.

However, time spent with the collection establishes a gripping momentum that thrives on an extraordinary level of precision, the band dynamic taken to an extreme, and a ratcheting up of intensity that teeters on the brink of sheer mayhem. This is especially the case as the First Avenue set (dubbed the “Minnesota Miracle”) blazes forth, the trio in the throes of a particular, peculiar positive energy that can only really exist when a group endeavor explodes far beyond any reasonable expectations.

As part of the SST Records elite that changed rock music forever, alongside Minutemen, Meat Puppets, and Black Flag, Hüsker Dü succeeded through a defiant tenacity and a relentless desire to keep pushing the possibilities. These bands were never supposed to progress beyond a local phenomenon. It all gets a thorough examination in 1985: The Miracle Year’s booklet essay by Bob Mehr.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On November 1, 2024, The Cure released their widely acclaimed album Songs Of A Lost World. The night of the album’s unveiling, The Cure performed the record in full for the first and only time at London’s Troxy in front of an audience of 3,000. Now, fans will get to watch the whole show in cinemas worldwide before a physical Blu-Ray and DVD release in late December 2025.

The Cure: The Show Of A Lost World is a remixed, recut, and 4K remastered film of that night’s whole 31-song show. Directed by Grammy-nominated Nick Wickham, with a new Dolby Atmos sound mix by Robert Smith. The film includes all 31 songs performed that night, featuring the complete live performance of Songs Of A Lost World and a special five-song set to celebrate 45 years of the Seventeen Seconds album.

The Cure: The Show Of A Lost World is being released via Lost Images, Polydor/Capitol Records, Mercury Studios and Trafalgar Releasing. Tickets at cinemas around the world will go on sale on November 20th at 2pm GMT/10am EST/6am PST. Further details are available at thecurelostworld.com.

Initially formed in 1978, The Cure has sold over 30 million albums worldwide, headlined the Glastonbury Festival four times, and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. They are considered one of the most influential bands to have ever emerged from the UK and will be playing live across Europe in Summer 2026.

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Remembering Bert Jansch, born on this date in 1943. —Ed.

There might be no better time than the present to be a record collecting fan of Bert Jansch. Vinyl reissues from all stages of the Brit-folk guitar linchpin’s career have been flowing into the racks for a while now, and we’re currently experiencing a crescendo of material from the late singer-songwriter.

The 1960s was flush with fingerpickers, and Bert Jansch was amongst the very best. Adding to his appeal, the Scottish troubadour was also a capable vocalist, solid songwriter, and a deft collaborator, first teaming with fellow guitarist John Renbourn; in short order the duo co-founded the progressive folk combo Pentangle.

Jansch’s eponymous debut and its follow-up It Don’t Bother Me, both issued in 1965, have endured as classics, and for those wishing to become conversant with the man’s work, they are the place to begin; last year Superior Viaduct issued the LPs singly, and both will be part of Earth Recordings’ upcoming box set of Jansch’s output for the Transatlantic label.

This period remains the most lauded stretch in the guitarist’s oeuvre, in part due to its consistency and sharpness of focus. 1966 brought third album Jack Orion, which both extends from and contrasts with its predecessor, the opening strains of banjo in “The Waggoner’s Lad” picking up where It Don’t Bother Me’s finale “900 Miles” left off. The instrumental switch intertwines productively with Renbourn’s guitar, as his role, having commenced on the prior disc’s “Lucky Thirteen,” is deepened across four Jack Orion cuts to positive effect.

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There’s something quietly magnetic about Lōwli’s debut album Window in the Woods. The project of Irish composer and songwriter Róisín Lowry, Lōwli has been steadily carving a name for herself in the Irish neo-classical scene over the past few years, and this full-length release feels like the moment where it all comes into focus.

Recorded in Treehouse Studios, Co. Wicklow, Window in the Woods is a beautifully brooding collection that blurs the lines between modern classical composition and dark, cinematic pop. It’s the kind of album that creeps up on you, full of hushed intensity and emotional precision.

At its core lies a vintage 1920s Forster upright piano, whose soft imperfections lend a deeply human quality to the record. Around that, Lōwli layers sweeping strings, atmospheric percussion and ambient textures, creating something that feels both fragile and expansive. Her voice—rich, controlled, and hauntingly pure—floats above it all, particularly on standout tracks “Undone” and “Ground Above You,” where she balances vulnerability with quiet strength.

The instrumental moments are just as affecting. Pieces like “Lament” and “Islands Are Falling” strip things back to their emotional essence, evoking the restrained melancholy of Agnes Obel or Nils Frahm. It’s music that demands stillness, the kind of record you put on late at night, when the outside world finally fades away.

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Celebrating Adam Ant on his 71st birthday. —Ed.

Who’s better qualified to talk about New Wave legends Adam and the Ants than a real, live ant? Or better yet, anthropomorphic cartoon superhero Atom Ant? I recently caught up with everybody’s favorite atomic-powered New Frontier insect at a retirement anthill outside Phoenix, Arizona, and took the opportunity to ask him a few questions about the band that invented Antmusic.

Before we start, how’s Secret Squirrel?

Squirrelly. Very squirrelly. All of that International Sneaky Service stuff went to his head. I was always having to remind him it was only TV. I occasionally get coded letters from him with handwritten return addresses from places like Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But they’re all postmarked Erie, Pennsylvania.

So what do you think about Adam and the Ants’ striking visual image?

It’s a disgrace to Family Formicidae. Real ants don’t wear make-up, although we do have our fair share of Goth Kids. Don’t get me wrong; in one sense their look is a return to the campy outrages of Glam Rock, and I don’t know a single ant who doesn’t love him some Glam. Hell, even their patented two-drummer Burundi beat is a salute of sorts to Gary Glitter.

What was your response to the “Antpeople Phenom”?

I took it as a left-handed complement to our eusociality and this mythical notion that we share some kind of “hive mind.” Hell, if that were true we’d all like straightedge–if that ain’t a terrifying example of programmed hive behavior, I don’t know what is. But speaking for myself, I think Antpeople are good people. You could do worse than imitate us. Let’s face it: acting human certainly hasn’t gotten the human race very far. The shit you people do on a daily basis is appalling. Cooperation and peaceful crisis resolution just aren’t your thing. Remember the episode where arch-enemy Karate Ant and I faced off and ended up having a friendly chat? Donald Trump would have called him “Little Rocket Man” and escalated that little contretemps into WWIII.

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