Taking a momentary pause in Springsteen-focused posts to look ahead a little. While I haven’t really waded into the ‘that was the year that was’ waters yet there’s plenty already on the horizon for the coming months to look forward to by way of new music and my pre-order pile is already shaping up to the point that I need to reconsider my record storage setup. Again.

Mogwai – Fanzine Made of Flesh

There are some things that are so reliable as to provide comfort. One is that Mogwai will be delivering new music on a regular basis – usually with a soundtrack album in between studio offerings. The others are that these albums are likely to be strong blasts of the good stuff and that they will always contain the strangest of track titles.

With The Bad Fire set to drop in a little over a week, the next track released as a prequel ticks both the quality and the name boxes.

Lucy Dacus – Ankles

Lucy Dacus’ two previous albums – Historian and Home Video – provided some absolutely glorious moments that I still enjoy as often as possible. So with the announcement of Forever Is A Feeling yesterday and the release of ‘Ankles’ and ‘Limerence’ hinting that it’s going to be just as wonderful I jumped on the pre-order button quicker than a MAGA supporter on a link containing flat-earth proof.

Drop Nineteens – Daymom

Drop Nineteens made two brilliant albums in the early ’90s that merged the shoegaze vibe with the then burgeoning alt-rock before packing away their instruments. That they have another new album – after reforming for 2023’s Hard Light – is only good news for me.

Blondshell – T&A

I thoroughly enjoyed the debut from Blondshell – Sabrina Teitelbaum’s recording project – and am keen to get more via her upcoming If You Asked For A Picture. ‘T&A’ takes its title from a line – “tits and ass” – in the Rolling Stone’s song ‘Little T&A.’

My Morning Jacket – Time Waited

It feels like it’s been a while since My Morning Jacket worked with an outside produce but, then again, there was only the one self-titled studio album released during that time. For the up-coming is they’ve worked with Brendan O’Brien whose name you may know from the back of albums by Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against The Machine or Bruce Springsteen’s early ’00s comeback records. While I’m always up for a new My Morning Jacket record I’m very curious as to how O’Brien’s style has worked with the bands. I’ll have to wait until March for the full thing but I’m sure we’ll get more than ‘Time Waited’ ahead of then.