Notable Releases of the Week (4/11)

Hi, greetings from California! I’m in the desert for Coachella as we speak, and we’ll be posting updates from the festival on Instagram all weekend so make sure you follow us. For that reason I’ll be keeping this intro short, and this also happens to be a short week for new albums, but I picked five heavy hitters that I review below. If you need more, the past few weeks were stacked so it’s a good time to catch up on anything you might’ve missed.

Bill tackles more albums in Indie Basement, and this week’s honorable mentions include the surprise Turnpike Troubadours album, Röyksopp, The Album Leaf, Eyedress, Cold Specks, Daughter of Swords, OK Go, Spin Doctors, Kali Malone, Ken Carson, Teen Mortgage, Tapeworms, Mamalarky, Magnolia Park, Nell Smith, Jon Pardi, Galactic & Irma Thomas, Gerald Clayton, Sons of Ra, Joni, Trousdale, Ribbon Skirt, Abbey Cone, Bedridden, Bjørn Riis, The Driver Era, Leatherman, Lullahush, Tommee Profitt & Sam Tinnesz, Bliss n Eso, Epica, the fantasy of a broken heart EP, the Berner EP, the Set Dressing EP, the Clutter EP, and DD. Records’ Disk Musik comp.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Bon Iver – SABLE, fABLE (Jagjaguwar)
Justin Vernon’s first Bon Iver album in six years begins with one last taste of sadboy indie folk before saying hello to a positive, soulful, and lyrically direct new era.

Last year, Bon Iver returned with SABLE,, an EP of three mostly-acoustic songs that were his most stripped-back since For Emma, Forever Ago, but with the kind of grizzled reflection that’s to be expected of the 17 years of life Justin Vernon lived since that pivotal debut album. It seemed like a return to form, but as Justin put it in a recent interview with The New York Times, it was more like “the last gasping breath of my former self that really did feel bad for himself.” Those three songs now double as the first three tracks of the new full-length Bon Iver album, SABLE, fABLE, and the rest of the album is a more modern representation of Bon Iver, which transformed over the years from Justin’s solo project into a many-membered collective. The difference is really clear by the fifth track, “Everything Is Peaceful Love,” a dose of soulful, funky, R&B-infused pop that counteracts Bon Iver’s sadboy era with positivity, joy, and rhythm. “I’m not saying nothing bad about the old stuff,” he said in that NYT interview, “but now I’m just much more like, hey, we don’t got much time left to live — let’s be sexy.”

Produced with Jim-E Stack and featuring guest vocals from Danielle Haim, Dijon, and Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes, Wye Oak), the latter three fourths of SABLE, fABLE generally toe the line between Phil Collins-era sophisti-pop and Frank Ocean-era alt-R&B, a crossroads that’s become as much a calling card for Justin Vernon as bare-bones indie folk. It feels a bit like a culmination of almost everything Bon Iver has done over the years, and it’s also his most direct songwriting to date, without the hazy experimentalism of 2016’s 22, A Million or the metaphor and wordplay that filled most of his previous albums. Hearing Bon Iver’s debut album felt like reading someone’s diary but it’s easy to see why Justin calls SABLE, fABLE his most personal record. Gone is the poetic diction like “only love is all maroon,” and in its place are first-person musings that are almost shockingly conversational. It’s full of familiar moments on the surface, but the deeper you dig, the more you hear that it never gets too comfortable.

SABLE, fABLE by Bon Iver

The Mars Volta – Lucro sucio; los ojos del vacío (Clouds Hill)
Break out the lava lamps and incense for The Mars Volta’s fiery, psychedelic new album.

When The Mars Volta returned in 2022 from a decade-long slumber, they put out an impressive new album, but when they hit the road after releasing it, they opted to make up for lost time by mostly playing the classics and only incorporating a few of the newer songs into their setlist. For its followup, Lucro sucio; los ojos del vacío (also following 2023’s Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazón, an acoustic re-imagining of the 2022 self-titled album), they’re doing things much differently. The Mars Volta never “properly” announced the album–their label Clouds Hill simply soft-launched a pre-order–and when they began their tour opening for the Deftones, they decided to perform the new album in full without telling the crowds that’s what they were doing. In a social media-driven world where artists tend to interact directly with fans more than ever, The Mars Volta have been adding a little more mystique back into what they do.

I’m very grateful to have caught The Mars Volta playing Lucro sucio; los ojos del vacío at the Madison Square Garden stop of the Deftones tour, and this review would probably be very different if I hadn’t. They forced the terminally-online music world into an album rollout that only existed in person (or at least in fan-shot YouTube videos), and it’s even more badass that they did it as an opening act on an arena tour that presumably saw them playing to thousands of people a night who wouldn’t otherwise have any idea what this band is up to in 2025. And seeing The Mars Volta perform the album in its entirety a week ago made me even more excited to hear the studio version than I already was.

Lucro sucio; los ojos del vacío is also a collection of songs that are built to be brought to life in new ways on stage. It’s a fiery, psychedelic rock album that conjures up images of lava lamps and incense. It has a clear overall structure but there’s a looseness within, and you can picture Cedric & Omar & co losing themselves in the music they way they’ve been doing on stage every night of this Deftones tour. It’s a fiercer record than the self-titled, but not as chaotic as the early material they revisited on their first round of reunion dates–if their early records felt like the second coming of In the Court of the Crimson King, then this one sits more on the fence between prog and psych like A Saucerful of Secrets. And it all has that signature Mars Volta flair that makes the space between Latin rhythms, trippy jams, and post-hardcore energy feel like nothing at all.

Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio by The Mars Volta

Speedway – A Life’s Refrain (Revelation)
One of the world’s best new melodic hardcore bands is Stockholm, Sweden’s Speedway, whose debut album features members of Title Fight, Viagra Boys, and Ekulu.

From Revolution Summer to youth crew to Turning Point to Lifetime to Title Fight to One Step Closer, the lineage of melodic hardcore has long been East Coast US-centric, but one of the genre’s brightest new voices hails all the way from Stockholm, Sweden. They’re called Speedway, and they’ve just followed up two promising EPs with their debut album A Life’s Refrain. Released by the legendary Revelation Records, it was produced by Ned & Ben Russin of Title Fight, mixed and mastered by Arthur Rizk, and Ned is one of its three guest vocalists, also including Sebastian Murphy of Viagra Boys and Chris Wilson of Ekulu. That’s a whole lot of co-signs for a debut album, and it’s not hard to see why. The members have had their feet in the Swedish hardcore scene for the past decade or so, having played in Time to Heal, Existence, Lifeblind, Blood Sermon, Wayside, and other bands, and on top of the years of experience and cred, Speedway alone is something special. They’ve got a clear idea of which time-tested formula they want to embrace, and they don’t mess with it; they just do it really, really well. The production is super crisp, the songs are tuneful, and Speedway’s liveliness is overwhelming. They’ve got that intangible thing that you can’t quite put your finger on, but whenever you hear it your blood just starts rushing.

Valerie June – Owls, Omens, and Oracles (Concord)
The folk/country/soul artist’s latest album counteracts post-digital dread with inner joy and love, with a little help from M. Ward, members of Rilo Kiley and Bright Eyes, and more.

Three songs into her new album Owls, Omens, and Oracles, Valerie June depicts a scenario that you’ve probably found yourself in one too many times: watching the news, sinking into the couch, and wishing you could actually do something about the rapidly-increasing unrest. But Owls, Omens, and Oracles isn’t all doom and gloom; in fact, it mostly isn’t. As that song goes on, Valerie imagines a world of peace and freedom and borrows the titular line of Curtis Mayfield’s classic civil rights anthem: “people get ready.” As led on by the spirituality-evoking album title, the two core themes of Owls, Omens, and Oracles are finding inner joy and embracing love. It’s an album that aims to counteract our post-digital dread with a more natural essence, and the music itself is equally earthy. It blurs the line between folk, country, and soul (with a foray into dub reggae on “Superpower”), and it’s never too polished, which was intentional. “I wanted to get grungy,” Valerie said, “but I also wanted to keep the softness of a singer-songwriter with a guitar at an open mic night.” To help her achieve her sonic goal, she recruited M. Ward to produce, Rilo Kiley’s Pierre de Reeder to mix, and Bright Eyes’ Nate Walcott to handle string and horn arrangements. (There’s also guest vocals by Norah Jones and the Blind Boys of Alabama, and a handful of other instrumentalists.) That’s a group of artists who know a thing or two about the intersection between folkiness and grunginess, and they make a great team on Owls, Omens, and Oracles. The arrangements are often multi-layered and rich, but as we’re especially reminded on the minimal songs like “Missin’ You (Yeah, Yeah)” and “Calling My Spirit,” the main reason every Valerie June album is so gripping is her soaring, out-of-this-world voice. Even before you dive into this album’s deep messages, the sound of her voice alone stops you in your tracks.

Owls, Omens, and Oracles by Valerie June

Idle Heirs – Life is Violence (Relapse)
Coalesce vocalist Sean Ingram pivots to sludgy post-metal on the debut album by his new band Idle Heirs.

Mathcore pioneers Coalesce recently came back for some reunion shows, but if you’re looking for new music from Coalesce vocalist Sean Ingram, you should turn your attention to his new band Idle Heirs. It’s a collaboration with producer Josh Barber, and it finds Sean pivoting away from mathcore towards slow, sludgy, towering post-metal in the spirit of bands like Neurosis, Isis, and Cult of Luna. There’s always been a lot of connective tissue between crazy hardcore and post-metal/sludge, even if the latter is a lot slower-paced, so it should come as no surprise that Sean is already a master in this space. Idle Heirs’ Life Is Violence doesn’t sound like a debut album; it sounds like the work of a band who’s been at it for years, and Sean has the perfect gravelly roar and gothy clean singing for music like this. The sheer weight of it all is pretty remarkable, and yet, some of the album’s most gripping moments are its quietest ones. The album’s final track is a dark-folk dirge called “Momma,” and it’s even more intense at times than the louder, heavier, full-band songs.

Life is Violence by Idle Heirs

—

Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episodes with Turnover and Bayside about the 10th anniversary of Peripheral Vision and the 20th anniversary of Bayside self-titled, respectively.

Pick up the BrooklynVegan x Alexisonfire special edition 80-page magazine, which tells the career-spanning story of Alexisonfire and comes on its own or paired with our new exclusive AOF box set and/or individual reissues, in the BV shop. Also pick up the new Glassjaw box set & book, created in part with BrooklynVegan, and browse the BrooklynVegan shop for more exclusive vinyl.