Franz Ferdinand releases its fifth album, Always Ascending.  

per Rolling Stone-

Scotland's belovedly louche dance-rock heroes invoke Bowie's "Fashion" and Talking Heads' "Houses in Motion" on the title-track single here, which scans as both old-school MDMA clubbing ode and a meta-narrative about making music for tweakers. Ah, youth! It's a return to form the band never really lost, and if the quiet bits drag, the wit's sharper than ever. "Lois Lane" waxes tragicomic re: journalistic idealism – "it's bleak!" makes a fabulous party chant, who knew? – while "Huck and Jim" takes down Americana and "magazine bohemians" with fetchingly wack rapping (see, we're not all thin-skinned). Of course, the U.K. has its own troubles, and misery loves company – especially when it's this entertaining. 

 

Nils Frahm's All Melody sees it's vinyl release today.  

NPR says.. The composer's new album is a feast for the ears and ripe with melodies.

 

 

Stereogum's Album of the Week is Slow Sundown by Holy Motors.

Holy Motors’ music is based, at least in the abstract, on American folk and country music. But it’s based on a version of American folk and country music so removed, so altered by time and distance and different generations of influence, that it’s all but unrecognizable.

 

1939 Ensemble - Beats and Saints vinyl

Absolutely Disney - Various Artists CD

Acid - Bomb vinyl

Philip Anselmo and The Illegals - Choosing Mental Illness CD

Arcade Fire - Creature Comfort 12"vinyl

Baphomet - The Dead Shall Inherit (reissue) vinyl

Jaap Blonk & Terrie Ex - Thirsty Ears vinyl

Bobby "Digital" Dixon - Serious Times CD

Jimmy Buffett - Buried Treasure Volume 1 vinyl

Carlton Melton - Mind Minerals vinyl

Dashboard Confessional - Crooked Shadows vinyl, CD

Mark Deutrom - The Silent Treatment (reissue) vinyl, CD

Dr. John - Professor Bizarre's Funknology vinyl

Dwarves - Take Back The Night vinyl

Danny Elfman - Justice League OST vinyl

Erdve - Vaitojimas vinyl

Brian Fallon - Sleepwalkers vinyl, CD

Fifty Shades Freed - Various Artists OST CD

Nils Frahm - All Melody vinyl

Franz Ferdinand - Always Ascending vinyl, CD

Fu Manchu - Clone of the Universe vinyl, CD

Ezra Furman - Transangelic Exodus vinyl, CD

GoGo Penguin - Humdrum Star vinyl, CD

Good Tiger - We Will All Be Gone vinyl, CD

Jonny Greenwood - Phantom Thread OST CD

Matthew Herbert - A Fantastic Woman OST CD

Holy Motors - Slow Sundown vinyl, CD

Horn OK Please: Road To Bollywood vinyl

Hovvdy - Cranberry vinyl, CD

The Insane Warrior - Tendrils vinyl, CD

Insects vs. Robots - Theyllkillyaa vinyl

Johann Johansson - Mercy vinyl

Natalia Lafourcade - Un Homenaje al Folclore Latinoamericano en Manos de Los Macorinos Vol. 2 CD

Meat Beat Manifesto - Impossible Star CD

Joe Meek - Hits From 304 Holloway RD vinyl

MGMT - Little Dark Age vinyl, CD

Montero - Performer vinyl

Offspring - Offspring (reissue) vinyl

Old Tower - Stellary Wisdom CD

Palm - Rock Island black or blue vinyl

Niklas Paschburgh - Oceanic vinyl, CD

Robert Plant - Live At David Lynch's Festival of Disruption DVD

Brigid Mae Power - The Two Worlds vinyl, CD

The Ramones - Leave Home (remastered) vinyl

The Ramones - Live At The Roxy 8/12/76 (remastered) vinyl

The Ramones - Ramones (remastered) vinyl

The Ramones - Rocket To Russia (remastered) vinyl

Ras Micahael and Sons of Negus - None A Jah Jah Children vinyl

Refrigerator - High Desert Lows vinyl

Max Richter - Hostiles CD

Curtis Roush - Cosmic Campfire Music vinyl, CD

Ruby Boots - Don't Talk About It CD

Shovels and Ropes - Busted Jukebox Vol. 2 vinyl

Nina Simone - Mood Indigo: The Complete Bethlehem Singles vinyl, CD

Son Lux - Brighter Wounds vinyl, CD

The Specials - The Specials (remastered) CD

This Kind of Punishment - This Kind of Punishment vinyl

This Kind of Punishment - Beard of Bees vinyl

Tosca - Boom, Boom, Boom (The Going Going Going Remixes) vinyl

Toto - Greatest Hits: 40 Trips Around The Sun vinyl, CD

Très Oui - Poised To Flourish vinyl

Wild Child - Expectations vinyl, CD

X-Tra Wicked (Bobby Digital Reggae Anthology) vinyl