Image: Oona McCaughan 

Welcome to the new music review where we connect you with some of the best new music spinning on Breakfast, The Daily and Drive programs.

ALBUMS:
Imperial Broads – Counterpart (FEATURE ALBUM)
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Grand Pine – Hold Me Down
Mac McCaughan – The Sound of Yourself
Public Service Broadcasting – Bright Magic
The Smallgoods – Lost in the Woods
Sweet Nobody – We’re Trying Our Best
Tesse – Everything Trying
Time for Dreams – Life of the Inhabitant

SINGLES:
Eels – Good Night On Earth
Foxground Joints – Bezos in Space
MOD CON – Learner in an Alpha
PEEL – Silver Spring
Sweetie – Boundary Queen
Yumi Zouma – Give it Hell

North Carolina singer-songwriter and Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan sets out on his own with his solo album The Sound of Yourself, an album about finding community in a time of isolation. The music here will be more familiar for those who know McCaughan’s recent collaborative albums with harpist Mary Lattimore: power pop tunes with needlelike guitar riffs sit alongside new age ambient pieces similar to Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s keyboard compositions. A surprising and welcome left-turn from an American indie rock pioneer.

You could never say that London trio Public Service Broadcasting are unambitious. Bright Magic, their fourth album, is a post-rock opera about the myths and history of Berlin in the 20th century. Epic synth melodies rocket through this record, setting the score for character pieces about Marlene Dietrich and German Expressionism. History sits atop history as the music flips between genres, creating a work that sounds like little else released this year.

Imperial Broads make rock music seem so effortless. Their second album Counterpart overflows with earworm hooks and guitar riffs, folded into a blazing sound with mixes Shangri-Las’ dream pop with the Raincoats’ feminist punk rock. Lyrically, the record is filled with dagger-sharp satires of love, control, and Sydney’s sociopathic men. Make sure to check it out this week.