While it’s easier than ever these days to find and get music, it seems like every day it becomes more and more difficult to just get the things you actually want to hear.
With tons of albums getting released each month, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of the releases you definitely want to get your hands on and you find yourself just giving up.
In the interest of promoting great music, we’ve decided to give our readers a forecast of the best and most promising releases coming out this month.
Hilltop Hoods – Drinking From the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung
Label: Golden Era Records/ Universal
Release Date: 19th February
Pre order: www.re-strung.com
Drinking From The Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung is the latest number from two of Australia’s most prolific emcees. Set to drop via the band’s Golden Era Records label on Friday, 19th February, it ties together the band’s two previous double platinum-selling albums.
Featuring a selection of tracks from both Drinking From The Sun and Walking Under Stars, the selected songs have been re-recorded, remixed, and restructured with the 32-piece Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the 20-piece Adelaide Chamber Singers Choir.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – This Unruly Mess I’ve Made
Label: Warner
Release Date: 26th February
Pre order: www.thisunrulymessivemade.com
If the admittedly grandiose album trailer told us anything, it’s that Macklemore and his partner in crime, Ryan Lewis, reckon they’ve got something pretty special up their sleeves, and frankly, we haven’t been given a reason to doubt them yet.
‘Downtown’ was a bouncy if divisive celebration of hip-hop’s golden era that defied the expectations of those anticipating another visit to the ‘Thrift Shop’. What the rapper’s sophomore effort really is is a chance to view his music without the long shadow of a mammoth lead single.
DMA’s – Hill’s End
Label: I Oh You
Release Date: 26th February
Pre order: iTunes
With the amount of buzz the Sydney trio have managed to accrue, you’d think they were already two albums in. However, DMA’s have managed to build their considerable (and increasingly international) following off the back of a handful of singles and a couple of EPs.
We’ve already heard a taste of what to expect from the three-piece’s first long-player in the form of ‘Lay Down’ – more of the same, really, but no one’s complaining. The band do what they do and they do it well. Fans are excited to see how well they do it in an LP format.
Lanu – The Double Sunrise
Label: Pacific Theatre/ Inertia
Release Date: 5th February
Pre order: iTunes
“A band of apparitions would march through the night to the beat of primitive drums. Some say they are wandering restlessly to avenge their own deaths, or simply to find passage into the next world,” says Lanu creator Lance Ferguson, explaining the single ‘Nightmarchers’.
There’s relatively few songwriters working in Australia today that we would trust with the nuance, subtlety, and intelligence needed to tackle such subject matter, but the Bamboos leader is certainly in that pool and his exploration of the folklore of the South Pacific region is the perfect chance to hear him in his element.
The Jezabels – Synthia
Label: Independent/ MGM
Release Date: 12th February
Pre order: www.thejezabels.com
Having spent 18 months off the road, writing and recording with longtime producer Lachlan Mitchell, The Jezabels recently announced the release of Synthia, their curve ball third full-length effort, which has already given us a music video everybody’s talking about.
Expectations for the new album are certainly high amongst fans, who’ve developed quite the love affair after a string of acclaimed EPs, the Australian Music Prize-winning Prisoner, the powerful The Brink, and countless acclaimed performances around the world.
Santigold – 99 Cents
Label: Warner
Release Date: 26th February
Pre order: iTunes
“We have no illusion that we don’t live in this world where everything is packaged,” says Santigold of her new album, 99 Cents – an exploration of the commercial nature of the modern world and the way in which we package ourselves and our lives for consumption.
“People’s lives, persona, everything, is deliberate, and mediated. It can be dark and haunting and tricky, and freak us out, but it can also be silly and fun and we can learn to play with it.” No doubt this socio-political vivisection will come complete with genre-defying instrumental backdrops and slinky, earworm melodies.
