Five Finger Death Punch (FFDP or 5FDP for the hardcore fans) is the archetypal band everyone loves to hate. Nonetheless, their fanbase continues to grow album after album. Their frontman, guitarist Zoltan Bathory, is a fervent advocate of the pro-gun movement and has supported Donald Trump on numerous occasions - something that’s made the five musicians a point of contention across America. The band took a stand against wearing masks in the middle of the pandemic with their video for the single Living the Dream in 2020. The band’s redneck attitude is as much about metalcore as it is about stadium choruses, all wrapped up in a layer of bling made in Las Vegas, their hometown. With such a pedigree, it’s not surprising that each new release divides opinion.Nothing stops FFDP; not even death. Quite the contrary in fact. Having closely brushed against the reaper’s robe, two band members—Zoltan Bathory and singer Ivan Moody—decided to focus on this subject, transforming their last studio production into a concept album, something unheard of until that point. This record uses the same basic recipe: the opening single, ‘Welcome To The Circus’, alternates big metal riffs and catchy choruses, whilst the tracks ‘Afterlife’ and ‘Pick Up Behind You’ feature melodic vocals that instantly evoke a time when neo-metal reigned supreme on the American airwaves. The polished compositions and production also bring the band’s new soloist, Andy James, into the spotlight. He replaced Jason Hook who quit the band after 11 years.If you trek to the centre of this saturated jungle that’s alive with FM vocals, you’ll find the band rubbing shoulders with trap rhythms on ‘Judgment Day’, which leans towards current urban music but without the auto-tune. Five Finger Death Punch will hardly surprise its audience despite the discreet musical experimentation that they’ve dotted here and there. However, this album confirms that they’re still a huge machine that was born to perform live and get crowds moving. Though it might seem to lack spontaneity, their music is perfectly conceived and is guaranteed to get fists pumping and heads banging. © Chief Brody/Qobuz

Now in his ninth decade on Earth, John Cale has always been a collaborator. From his earliest and most experimental days working alongside La Monte Young and the complementary-but-challenging creative relationship he had with Lou Reed, on through his post-Velvets work with everyone from Terry Riley and Squeeze to Brian Eno and Danger Mouse, Cale is probably the only artist who worked with both Nick Drake and the Stooges—and absolutely the only one for whom it seems completely natural. Still, as he recently turned 80, it may be understandable for one to look at the lineup of guests on MERCY—crowded as it is with fashionable contemporary-ish artists like Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso, Fat White Family, Weyes Blood, and others—and think that Cale may have decided to lean back and let the cool kids take the wheel for an art-rock take on Santana's Supernatural. Nothing could be further from the truth; this is very much a John Cale album, aligning (as much as a John Cale album can) with its most immediate predecessors. The last decade or so has found Cale working more with noisy, electronic textures, and MERCY bristles with a dark and dissonant futurism. It is—much like FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE, the most recent release from longtime co-conspirator Brian Eno—a deeply pessimistic record, touching on the unique perils of our recent dystopianism as well as the inevitable reckoning with one's mortality. While a couple of solo numbers like "NOISE OF YOU" are gentle and straightforward, Cale is working in a decidedly out-there mode for much of the record, bringing along his collaborators for the ride. Whether utilizing them as faint filigree (Sylvan Esso's voices barely register as an echo in the shadow of Cale's powerful singing on "TIME STANDS STILL") or allowing their eccentricities to tilt the axis of a song's vibe (the way that Animal Collective manage to interpolate the melody of "Video Killed the Radio Star" makes "EVERLASTING DAYS" feel a whole lot less morbid than it actually is), there's a clear two-way street with these interactions. Perhaps the most tantalizing is "MARILYN MONROE'S LEGS (beauty elsewhere)" with Actress, a track that starts out as glitchy, dissociated ambience, only to coalesce into a muscular piece of driving electronic art with Cale's voice barely holding on. Throughout, Cale approaches this work like an artist half his age; he is continually challenging himself (and his listeners and collaborators) with work that's always adventurous, occasionally beautiful, a bit unpleasant at times, but never dull. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Saxophonist and clarinetist Shabaka Hutchings is a real connoisseur of sounds and fusions, and a true explorer. Each of his new musical expeditions pushes him further towards the top of today’s jazz scene… Born in London in 1984, he grew up under the Barbadian sun before moving back to England in 1999 where he joined the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Here, he caught the attention of saxophonist Soweto Kinch and started hanging out with big names like Courtney Pine and Jerry Dammers from the Specials. In 2011, Shabaka launched Sons of Kemet, a surprising quartet featuring a tuba and two drums. A complete oddity, halfway between a marching band and a chamber orchestra, that blends jazz, Caribbean and African music, Egyptian influences, and flavours from New Orleans and Ethiopia. The aptly titled The Comet Is Coming – no relations to Sons Of Kemet – is another adaptation of jazz language. But does it still qualify as jazz? It doesn’t really matter. As a sort of electro-drip-fed Sun Ra of the third millennium, Shabaka Hutchings – who calls himself King Shabaka here – is supported by a duo composed of Danalogue on the keyboards and Betamax on drums and percussions. It’s a rather avant-garde programme set to overpowered percussive rhythmic and hypnotising brass improvisations. Sun Ra, as we said… It’s hard not to mention him who was idolised (or hated) for his lengthy compositions and mind-blowing, almost psychedelic performances as well as for the odd cosmic philosophy he preached. The Comet is Coming’s second album, Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery, remains profoundly attached to its time, in which Shabaka injects his philosophy with contemporary elements far removed from master Ra’s semantic like when he hands over the microphone to rapper/spoken-word performer Kate Tempest on Blood Of The Past. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Radiohead's admittedly assumed dilemma: how to push things forward using just the right amounts of the old and the older in order to please both sides of the divide? Taking advantage of their longest running time to date, enough space is provided to quench the thirsts of resolute Bends devotees without losing the adventurous drive or experimentation that eventually got the group into hot water with many of those same listeners. Guitars churn and chime and sound like guitars more often than not; drums are more likely to be played by a human; and discernible verses are more frequently trailed by discernible choruses. So, whether or not the group is to be considered "back," there is a certain return to relatively traditional songcraft. Had the opening "2 + 2 = 5" and "Sit Down. Stand Up." been made two years before, each song's slowly swelling intensity would have plateaued a couple minutes in, functioning as mood pieces without any release; instead, each boils over into its own cathartic tantrum. The spook-filled "Sail to the Moon," one of several songs featuring prominent piano, rivals "Street Spirit" and hovers compellingly without much sense of force carrying it along. Somewhat ironically, minus a handful of the more conventionally structured songs, the album would be almost as fractured, remote, and challenging as Amnesiac. "Backdrifts" and "The Gloaming" feature nervous electronic backdrops, while the emaciated "We Suck Young Blood" is a laggard processional that, save for one outburst, shuffles along uneasily. At nearly an hour in length, this album doesn't unleash the terse blow delivered by its two predecessors. However, despite the fact that it seems more like a bunch of songs on a disc rather than a singular body, its impact is substantial. Regardless of all the debates surrounding the group, Radiohead have entered a second decade of record-making with a surplus of momentum.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

In 1992, on the cusp of her 40th birthday, Lucinda Williams recorded a remarkable fourth album: Sweet Old World. A perfect treaty of country rock crossed with blues, which reaffirmed her status of Queen of Americana, a status she would again confirm in 1998 with her masterpiece Car Wheels on a Gravel Road… 25 years later the songwriter from Louisiana had the amusing idea of recording the whole Sweet Old World again, renamed This Sweet Old World for the occasion. Surrounded by guitarist Stuart Mathis, bassist David Sutton, drummer Butch Norton and, on the steel-guitar, the great Greg Leisz (who also worked on the 1992 album), Lucinda Williams allows us to marvel once again at the handling and content of these incisive songs but with a more contemporary sound. With a few alterations to lyrics here and there and changes made in the track listing, this reinterpretation is nicely complemented by a few original titles. © MZ/Qobuz

There's an element of Zen that's involved when listening to Nightwish -- you don't question the pageantry or analyze the music; you just let go and enjoy the experience. Perhaps it's no surprise then that End of an Era beings with "Red Warrior" from The Last Samurai booming over arena speakers while thousands of fans roar their approval. It's a dramatic introduction for a band that specializes in theatrics, all of which are captured on the album. There's the crowd, the blast of pyrotechnics, the echo of the music filling a cavernous arena. Recording a band this layered (Guitars! Drums! Vocals! Keyboards! Backing tracks!) in a setting like this is always a risky venture, but the sound quality on End of an Era is exceptional; it manages to capture the vastness of both the venue and the act without being marred by reverberation or uneven tone. Vocalists Tarja Turunen and Marco Hietala soar above it all, their delivery all the more impressive considering that this would be their last concert together -- Turunen was dismissed from the band after the show. Fortunately, Nightwish don't appear to have brought their internal tensions on-stage. The group is in its element here, and its energy doesn't diminish a bit over the course of the two discs it takes to capture the tour-ending show. The biggest strength of End of an Era is its ability to re-create the concert experience; the band is at the forefront, but the cheering, clapping, and chanting of the crowd are included as an integral element of the music, not a separate entity. There are points on the album when this becomes a detriment (particularly during slower, quiet numbers like "Stone People"), but there's nothing more authentic on a live recording than capturing the requisite concertgoer whose duty it is to break the mood by shouting at inappropriate times. In the end, this dedication to realism is a minor complaint when compared to the benefits, as demonstrated to great effect with the opening number, "Dark Chest of Wonders." This piece brings it all together -- the song itself, dark, theatrical and operatic, with Turunen's rich voice floating over power chords, a charging rhythm section, an orchestral backing track, and the enthusiastic crowd at her feet. It's a fine choice to open the concert, and the recording re-creates everything but the visuals. The vibe continues on "Planet Hell," the first of several songs to showcase a Turunen/Hietala duet and solos by keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen and guitarist Emppu Vuorinen. Powerful performances and dark, romantic themes continue to dominate throughout End of an Era, but this does not mean that the album slows down or becomes monotonous. Instead, each song plays to the band's strength and uses the crowd's energy and enthusiasm to drive forward and craft memorable moments. As in the beginning of the concert, the final songs are rousing, passionate, and dramatic. "Creek Mary's Blood," a lament inspired by Dee Brown's novel of the same name, benefits from the talent of Native American musician John Two Hawks, who also appeared on the studio version of the song. After an extended flute solo (the above-mentioned "Stone People"), Two Hawks sings and plays in a striking duet with Turunen, whose operatic tremolo stands in contrast to her partner's straighter tone. The proceedings take an abrupt turn immediately afterward as Nightwish launch into a rollicking cover of Gary Moore's "Over the Hills and Far Away," transformed into a power metal epic as Holopainen and Vuorinen trade riffs between verses and choruses. The disc comes to a close with the sprawling, gothic "Wish I Had an Angel," a looser and more straightforward rock song that sees Turunen and Hietala alternating their vocal duties for what would be the last time. It's a satisfying ending for a symphonic metal extravaganza, but the real pleasure comes in knowing that it can be experienced all over again.© Katherine Fulton /TiVo

Controlling Crowds, Pt. 4 is part of an ambitious multi-disc series by British electronic/rock/trip-hop collective Archive. Controlling Crowds was released in 2009 in two parts -- a double-disc record dubbed Pts. 1-3 and the single-disc Pt. 4. Curiously, both were issued on the same day. © Sergey Mesenov /TiVo

"[T]he 18-year-old Detroit native proudly wears her heart on her sleeve. And with melodies that match the strength of her incisive writing, Moriondo’s BLOOD BUNNY has made her one to watch, if you weren’t already."© TiVo

a-ha's recording career hit the skids in America with its third release. But in the U.K., the album became the group's third straight to peak at number two, though it charted for a shorter period than the first two albums, and there were four Top 25 hits -- the title track, "The Blood That Moves the Body," "Touchy!," and "You Are the One." (Also included was a-ha's 1987 theme from the James Bond movie The Living Daylights, a U.K. number five that missed the U.S. charts.) Even in a country with a demonstrated affection for Scandinavians, however (remember ABBA?), that was a fall-off, if the decline was more gradual, and three albums in, a-ha wasn't demonstrating any development from its first hit, just more of the same and a little less distinctive.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

a-ha's recording career hit the skids in America with its third release. But in the U.K., the album became the group's third straight to peak at number two, though it charted for a shorter period than the first two albums, and there were four Top 25 hits -- the title track, "The Blood That Moves the Body," "Touchy!," and "You Are the One." (Also included was a-ha's 1987 theme from the James Bond movie The Living Daylights, a U.K. number five that missed the U.S. charts.) Even in a country with a demonstrated affection for Scandinavians, however (remember ABBA?), that was a fall-off, if the decline was more gradual, and three albums in, a-ha wasn't demonstrating any development from its first hit, just more of the same and a little less distinctive.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo