Comparisons Are Odious

Different Noises 138

The somewhat unhinged eclecticism of this 32 portion collection is not the product of any specific programming but instead a basic listing of what has arrived in my in-box, and has passed muster. In the press releases for some of them there are several examples of comparators with what is presented (the ubiquitous RIYL) and I often find them lacking insight or understanding. Best to make your own mind up and stop putting things in convenient boxes.

Thurston Moore and Bonner Ktamer

AUDIO

PLAYLIST

• Shrube - Korean Chocolates ¹

• The Darts - Dream Ghost ²

• Bonner Kramer & Thurston Moore - Insight ³

• BIG|BRAVE - the ineptitude for mutual discernment ⁴

• The Conspiracy - God’s Zone ⁵

• Osmium Gate - Booming Dunes ⁶

• Kallohonka - Psychic Surgery ⁷

• Mauled - For Me... It’s Always Like This ⁸

• Lesotho - Marigold ⁹

• Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Frédéric D. Oberland - A Dream That Never Arrived ¹⁰

• Voodoo Drummer Duo - Tom Waits ¹¹

• Billy Fuller - Three Blind Mice ¹²

• Brian Eaton - Parable Of The Trees ¹³

• Nina Simone - Take Care Of Business (Solomun Remix) [Extended Version] ¹⁴

• Viva Voce - Life Time ¹⁵

• Mike! - Digital Dusk ¹⁶

• Johnny Bell - Monsoon Sunset ¹⁷

• The Noise Who Runs - Bang Bang ¹⁸

• Moongoose - Black Spaced [2nd Demo Version] ¹⁹

• The Greenberry Woods - Whenever You Want Me Too ²⁰

• Lethal Limits - Phenomenon ²¹

• Jah Wobble and Jon Klein - Who Wins ²²

• Emma Hunter - Snake ²³

• The Go-Betweens - When She Sang About Angels (Larry Crane Rough Mix) ²⁴

• Agent Starling - Ghosts Are Dancing ²⁵

• Half Man Half Biscuit - Jack’s Been To The National ²⁶

• Asteroid Ekosystem - Cirrus ²⁷

• Clare Moore - He Ain’t Up Himself ²⁸

• Hugo Race Fatalists - Born To Fly ²⁹

• Moff Skellington - Insect Lodger ³⁰

• The Parasite - Want….Need ³¹

• Legless Trials - Complex ³²

NOTES

1. Blue Shrube (2026) - Shrube are Owen Spence and William Gray (Blokeacola). As featured before. This is the third “single” from the album.

2. Halloween Love Songs (2026) - After years of sold-out shows and major EU press support, this all-women garage-punk crew has delivered their most dialled-in record yet, gritty late-night energy with the swagger of The Cramps, the punch of Mudhoney, and a modern snarl all their own

3. They Came Like Swallows (2026) - their reimagination of “Insight” by Joy Division . It’s the second single to be released in advance of their forthcoming album. “Kramer had the idea to cover a Joy Division tune,” says Moore. “It was a left turn from the improvisations we had been tracking, though wholly in keeping with both our sensibilities of light and dark unifying in transcendent song-writing, both of us devotees of ‘the song’ as well as ‘the freedom.’”

4. in grief or in hope (2026) - Due in June their new album is an innovative vision of electro-acoustic sound and emotive storytelling, an endless bounty of overwhelming distortions and devastating beauty. Along with the album’s announcement, the trio have shared first single a powerful encapsulation of the ensembles’ singular approach to textural distortion and emotional complexity which contrasts tides of bristling guitars against guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie’s resolute voice.

5. VI (2026) - their sixth album (clearly) which includes some tracks from recent releases. A Kevin Ayers for the 21st Century? Comparisons (RIYL etc) are odious aren’t they? Just listen, infinitely better than most of the garbage out there in spoti-sphere. Metal Postcard keep delivering the goods.

6. Cannibal Galaxy (2026) - A three piece instrumental metal band from Salt Lake City with their debut album.

7. Lazer Blood (2026) - Another debut, this time from a self proclaimed “Slug Metal” septet (two vocalists, one screamer) from Texas.

8. When Your Eyes Are Shut EP (2026) - Indianapolis, Indiana-based deathcore. They are is setting fire to the modern-day deathcore rulebook. “This is our take on the early days of deathcore,” notes vocalist Abe Kirkpatrick. “We don’t necessarily dislike the current state of it, but we’d like to re-route it back to what it once was while combining it with modern influence..” The five-piece – Kirkpatrick, guitarists Chance York and Eli Harrell, bassist DJ Baker and drummer Tyler Powers – started playing shows during 2022.

9. A Flashing On Plain Glass (2026) - Boston, Massachusetts-based instrumental post-metal band with their long-awaited third album. The follow-up to their 2023-release second LP, Through The Dying Light, the new album sees guitarist Kyle Loffredo, bassist Cliff Cazeau, and drummer Dan DeLucia once again collectively creating an emotive and stirring album. The album represents themes of impermanence and inevitable change in the world.

10. Eternal Life No End (2026) - the debut duo album from Moumneh and Oberland out early next month. “A Dream That Never Arrived” is one of the LP’s three instrumental tracks, where thrumming low end electroacoustics create a quaggy foundation for mesmeric clarineau melodies spun around a tranced 2-step beat: it’s the album’s most overtly trancelike piece, shadowy and chimerical, conjuring crepuscular nature and ritual consciousness.

11. Tom Waits on Jesus, Devil, God (2026) - Stavros Parginos - Cello, and Christos Koutsogiannis - Weirdofon and Drums are back with a tribute to Tom. Christos’ set-up is a one - octave diatonic metallophone, gourd - resonated, the West African Balafon with one hand while the other hand and the feet play the snare-less drums.

12. Fragments (2026) - About the track, Billy says, “This is me trying to be my most dramatic & epic. Something that keeps evolving on themes until it has nowhere else to go. A slight nod to Georgio Moroder’s ‘Tears’ but not really”. Fragments overall is moody, immersive, and utterly unbound offering.

13. Parable Of The Trees (2026) - His eighth album. The seven original compositions contained within are a study in controlled eclecticism. Eaton, a genuine multi-instrumentalist (handling all instruments himself), seamlessly fuses complex jazz fusion structures with the heartland grit of Americana, the soulful depth of blues, and the ambitious intricacies of progressive and art rock. Central to the album’s identity is the further exploration of Eaton’s self-coined “cowboy jazz” style, which comprises roughly half of the tracklist.

14. Take Care Of Business (Solomun Mix) (2026) - Verve Records ushers in a bold new chapter of the Remixed series with this release reimagining Nina Simone’s original recording. Arriving just one day before Nina’s birthday, the track sets the tone for a year-long celebration honouring her legacy while reintroducing her music to the global dance floor. Solomun is a defining figure in modern electronic music, the Bosnian-German DJ and producer is known for his tastemaking influence and legendary club performances around the world.

15. Enduring Harmonies (2026) - As this dazzling a cappella album demonstrates with every chord, Viva Voce, the acclaimed professional vocal ensemble, is no mere pick-up choir. Enduring Harmonies, their second release – born from a mission to preserve vital contemporary choral music and celebrate artistic legacies – features world-class performances of significant yet under-represented works. The album showcases music by six distinctive American composers, with a special focus on creators connected to Haverford College, Pennsylvania.

16. Play It Where It Lies (2026) - The debut album of Chicago fusion guitarist Mike! (Mike McCarthy). This album officially releases April 24, 2026. Placing heavy emphasis on improvisation and jamming, Mike! combines chilled-out, lo-fi influences with energized rock & jazz-fusion influences to bring us a fresh spin on what the umbrella of “fusion” covers.

17. Mountain Stages (2026) - New Mexico-based banjoist and composer Johnny Bell makes a decisive, long-considered turn inward, toward the instrument that has shaped more than two decades of his musical life, and toward a vision of what the banjo can become when freed from its most rigid expectations. Mountain States is Bell’s first fully composed solo banjo record, and it lands less like a genre exercise than a quiet manifesto. Bell has long worked in multi-instrumental contexts, where the banjo functioned as one voice among many. Here, it is the central force; it’s heavy, resonant, and often ominous. Mountain States consciously resists the dogma that surrounds traditional banjo culture, where mastery is often measured by fidelity to inherited tunes.

18. Bang Bang (2026) - UK alternative electro-pop artist Ian Pickering (known for his work with Sneaker Pimps and Front Line Assembly) returns with the energetically-charged single, a reflection on the psychic exhaustion of life in constant crisis mode, capturing the physical, emotional and political toll of a world where outrage replaces thought and reaction substitutes responsibility.

19. A Package For Jankovic: Unreleased Oddities And Rare Curios (2026) A compilation album that collates all of the bonus tracks from ‘A Package For Jankovic: The Moongoose Box Set (1996-2022)’. This signifies the end of the first phase of Moongoose: a collaborative collective overseen by ex- SPACE bassist YORKIE.

20. Whenever You Want Me To (2026) - The return of the power pop and alternative rock heroes after a 30 year absence with this new single. It’s an instant guitar pop rush of hook and harmonies and heart, cut from the same cloth as the classics from their original Sire Records run in the mid-’90s and a harbinger of a superb new album to come this May.

21. Elevate (2026) A new EP from Oakland’s Lethal Limits. It’s the Oakland-based solo project of Jeff Corso, a Bay Area punk lifer with deep East Bay roots, blending sharp power pop hooks with 90s punk grit and melody. Reminiscent of Wipers, Hüsker Dü, Pixies, and the skate-era underground that shaped them

22. Automated Paradise (2026) - The second release from their new album, following the motorik lead track ‘Fading Away’ (featured on Different Noises 132). A song about distrust and the growing sense that the grand halls of power have become echo chambers of empty promises, ‘Who Wins?’ captures a moment when the atmosphere shifts — when dissatisfaction becomes a chorus and the private complaint becomes public noise.

23. Yolanda (2026) - The last single to be released from Emma Hunter’s album Yolanda. The album tells the story of Yolanda and Danny-star-crossed lovers from a time, long ago: 1950s Mexico. The album explores the tensions between love and desire; addiction and death. The snake becomes a metaphor for alcohol, taking inspiration from Mayan mythology. Yolanda is asking Danny to choose her over his addiction and the lyrical content portraying themes of anguish and longing are represented in the dramatic nature of the music.

24. G Stands For Go-Betweens (2024) - featured box-set

25. Surrealista Enigma Musica (2026) - featured album

26. All Asimov And No Fresh Air (2026) - featured album

27. Sounds Have Dreams (2026) - featured album

28. The Third Woman (2001) - featured album

29. I Made It All Up For You (2026) - featured album

30. Portrait Of A Humble Tribe (2026) - featured album

31. Dreams (2026) - featured album

32. Listen To Static (2026) - It’s a busy bustout year for the Legless Trials - this is their second release in as many months. More transatlantic Texas meets Hit the North UK metal box meets darkwave misters of sercy (sic). Andy from Salem Trials and Matt from The Legless Crabs. The band is primarily known for their high-energy, confrontational style that blends post-punk, no-wave, and garage rock.