Illegal Foreign Object

Consistency isn’t easy. It takes a lot to wake up, day in and day out, affix your nose to the grindstone, and toil away in the advancement of a perpetually moving target. Think about how many bands you know that dropped a stellar first album and then collapsed under the weight of a second release.

These “old dogs” have shouldered the weight for decades, each a legend in their own right.

My favorite thing about Peter Gabriel has always been his unflinching desire to do whatever the hell he wants, damn the critical or financial repercussions. With i/o, the 73-year-old delivers two albums in one, offering the listener “Dark Side” and “Bright Side” mixes of twelve tracks that consumed parts of the last two decades of Gabriel’s solo studio efforts. His voice remains a powerful tool for communicating emotion (I’ve not heard a more beautiful lyric that better sums up life and death than “The young move to the center/The mom and dad, the frame” off “Playing For Time”) and more than once, I teared up at the sheer beauty of the moment.

Required listening: “Panopticom (Bright Side Mix)”, “Playing For Time (Bright Side Mix)”, “Love Can Heal (Dark Side Mix)”, “This Is Home (Dark Side Mix)”

Forty-six years after the release of the classic Damned Damned Damned album, goth punk legends the Damned returned to the mountaintop of the punk rock world with Darkadelic. Though fueled by original members, riff monster guitarist Captain Sensible, and the brooding baritone of Dave Vanian, Darkadelic is anything but jaunt through nostalgia. Instead, the members have added layers to its gothic garage rock assault, sounding as fresh and invigorated as it did almost five decades ago.

Required listening: “The Invisible Man”, “You’re Gonna Realise”, “Beware Of The Clown”, “Roderick”

I had a religious experience the second time I saw Buju Banton in concert. He took the stage barefoot, covered in a loose white linen long-sleeve shirt and pants. When he walked to the front of the stage and stretched his arms out to mimic a cross, the floodlights in front of the drum riser hit him from behind, bathing the audience in a white light that appeared to be coming from Buju’s being. This moment occurred before he ever sang a single note. BORN FOR GREATNESS continues Banton’s history of soulful storytelling. For all the bravado associated with Buju’s past, BORN FOR GREATNESS is wonderfully reflective — my favorite album he’s released since 2000’s Unchained Spirit.

Required listening: “AGELESS TIME”, “LIFE CHOICES”, “COCONUT WATA (SIP)”

Depeche Mode has had a run like few others, and Memento Mori, the 15th studio album in its storied history, is arguably the band’s most complete release since Ultra. Memento Mori is an album, not a collection of songs surrounding a couple of catchy singles. As such, it might not be as instantly accessible to casual fans seeking instant gratification, but after several times through the album, I’m floored by the stellar, murky production and Dave Gahan’s always-heart-on-sleeve vocals.

Required listening: “Wagging Tongue”, “Ghosts Again”, “Always You”

Though separated by 200 miles during the COVID-19 hellscape of 2020 and 2021, OMD core members Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys still managed to write and record the same catchy, bouncing pop melodies that for the last 40+ years earned them the moniker, “the Lennon-McCartney of synth-pop”. McCluskey has said this might be OMD’s final full-length record. If so, the band is going out the way it walked through the door: catchy as hell.

Required listening: “Bauhaus Staircase”, “Anthropocene”, “Veruschka”

I’m an admitted godless whore for “catchy”, and Duran Duran is most certainly catchy. With DANSE MACABRE, a collection of new tracks, covers, and some reimagined numbers from the past, Simon Le Bon and Co. wade around in menace, something that, until now, the band has only poked at with a very long stick. 

Required listening: “NIGHTBOAT”, “GHOST TOWN”, “SUPER LONELY FREAK”, “PSYCHO KILLER”

Willie Nelson is an international treasure. He’s been writing songs for 83 years, making music for 80 years, and has seen a million tour buses (and he’s smoked on ’em all). To say that Willie is prolific is an understatement, sliding from outlaw country to pop to classic standards to reggae without a hint of reluctance on the way to playing on somewhere in the neighborhood of 155 albums. With that knowledge, Bluegrass makes sense, even if it’s not really a bluegrass record. I mean, it is, but it isn’t — it’s kinda bluegrass light (but that’s totally okay). He’s Willie effin’ Nelson, and I love him, and I’ll listen to the man sing names out of a phonebook. Do phonebooks still exist?

Required listening: “No Love Around”, “You Left Me A Long, Long Time Ago”, “Still Is Still Moving To Me”

A full review is found here. Get into it.

Required listening: “Frenzy”, “Morning Show”, “The Regency”

The mighty Chuck D earned a college degree in graphic design back in the ’80s, so it came as no surprise when he released Summer of Hamn: Hollowpointlessness Aiding Mass Nihilism, a 240-page book containing daily drawings from his summer of 2022 art journal. The images are stark reminders of gun violence, climate change, political unrest, and a host of other issues we swept under the rug to allow ourselves the entertainment of “new” problems. The Summer Of Hamn album, a 28-minute showcase of Chuck (and a host of other rap artists and DJs), proves the head (and heart) of Public Enemy has plenty left in the tank.

Required listening: “Kill Them Guns”, “Bringing 88 Back”, “Free World”

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for stripped-back Duff McKagan. During his epic run with Guns N’ Roses in the early ’90s, I thought his song “So Fine” was one of the best things on Use Your Illusion II. Lighthouse feels like a continuation of Duff’s 2019 album Tenderness, a bare-bones, sometimes sparse effort that gives the listener a close-up look at the cleansed soul of the former Hollywood Strip bad boy.

Required listening: “I Just Don’t Know”, “I Saw God On 10th St.”, “Forgiveness”

El Amor Después Del Amor is one of those albums, folks. Released in 1992 (the same year I moved to Costa Rica), it’s the first thing I ever heard by Fito (thanks, Frank). Initially, I didn’t get it, but I stuck with Fito because I knew he was special — my ears just weren’t ready. By 1994, I was all-in on Fito, his Circo Beat album lighting up my heart (thanks again, Frank). EADDA9223 is El Amor Después Del Amor, beautifully dissected and reimagined 30 years later. It’s beautiful, and guest stars Elvis Costello and Mon Laferte only add to the brilliant reimagining of such a legendary album.

Required listening: “El Amor Después Del Amor”, “Sasha, Sissi Y El Círculo De Baba”, “Tráfico Por Katmandú”, “Brillante Sobre El Mic”

The third (and final) release from former Blue Öyster Cult founder Albert Bouchard’s fantastical series of concept albums, Imaginos III – Mutant Reformation, finds the drummer/singer/songwriter in fine form. A host of talented musicians aid Bouchard on this metaphysical, post-apocalyptical, catchy-as-balls record, including punk rock bass legend Mike Watt and former New York Dolls guitarist Steve Conte. The results are an expansive imaginary world straight from the mind of the pro rock legend. 

Required listening: “Flaming Telepaths”, “Curse Of The Hidden Mirrors”, “E.T.I.”

Ever the attention seeker, John Lydon has made a career out of being the loudest mouth in the room. It is those rare occasions when he lets the listener get within arm’s length, like on “Hawaii”, his lovely tribute to his wife Nora, who battled Alzheimer’s for years before passing in April 2023, that the real Lydon shines through. Like most of PiL’s musical offerings, End Of The World is hit and miss. When it hits, however, it’s square between your eyes.

Required listening: “Hawaii”, “Car Chase”, “Being Stupid Again”

That’s all for now, kids. Check back tomorrow for a list of seven ways to save your life!