New Music Friday: 13th Floor New Album Picks: August 2, 2024

Crikey! It’s Friday again and a new month. This week our New Music Friday brings you 5 new releases including one last hurrah from one of the greats of LA punk along with two New Zealand releases.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda picks these five new releases for your consideration:

1.  X – Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum) The final album from this iconic LA punk band! Exene, John, DJ and Billy call it a day after 47 years. From their groundbreaking debut in 1980 to their latest, Alphabetland, in 2020, X has consistently been a formidable presence. Now, the final chapter is upon us. Prepare to experience the culmination of an extraordinary journey as X releases their ninth and final studio album, Smoke & Fiction. Watch for a 13th  Floor interview coming soon!

1. Mystery Waitress – Bright Black Night (Flying Nun) The good folks at Flying Nun deliver this seconds album by Wellington band, Mystery Waitress. The trio is now a quartet with the addition of a bass player. Xanthe Rook fell out of the sky like a fiery angel and completed the band. Having never played in bands before, Tessa Dillon didn’t quite know the power of a bass guitar, how it affects listeners who aren’t looking for it almost with a secret instruction “this is how you move to this music”. How it couples with the drums to create a more complete sound. When the new songs started to be performed with Rook on the bass, the change was huge, the music suddenly sounded finished, and audiences were propelled into movement. Click here to read the 13th Floor album review.

3. Black Smoke Trigger – Horizons (Self) From Napier, Hawkes Bay – Black Smoke Trigger are 4-piece fast-rising rockers who recorded their debut album in renowned producer Nick Raskulinecz‘s Rock Falcon studio. Nick has also produced bands including Foo Fighters, Alice in Chains, Korn and Halestorm and many more.  They are fronted by incendiary vocalist Baldrick, whose impressive vocal abilities provide that indefinable, timeless rock n roll soul to the Black Smoke Trigger sound. Bassist Dan Fulton, and drummer Josh Te Maro round out the line-up, joining forces to create a powerhouse rhythmic backbone and one of the most bombastic and inventive rhythm sections of recent years.

4. 49 Winchester – Leavin’ This Holler (New West) Captured in a handful of studios around the country whenever there was a rare moment between relentless touring schedules — the album has 49 Winchester’s signature sound of rollicking country and searing rock music, but with a matured approach this go-around. Leavin’ This Holler offers up a more focused sense of self — a new bountiful level of intent and purpose. Lead singer and guitarist Isaac Gibson says, “We wanted to explore every possible sound we could on this record. No stone left unturned sonically — we got it exactly where we wanted it.”

5. Brigitte Calls Me Baby – The Future Is Our Way Out (ATO) Produced by Dave Cobb, the music of Brigitte Calls Me Baby is equal parts elegant time warp and up-close exploration of our modern-day neuroses. The Chicago-based band ingeniously spans genres and eras, merging the lavish romanticism of mid-century pop with the frenetic energy and spiky intensity of early-millennium indie-rock. With the band’s poetic meditations on desire, anxiety, and the complexities of impermanence, it arrives as a potent evolution of Brigitte Calls Me Baby’s debut EP This House Is Made Of Corners.