The (first) Big (hopefully monthly) Issue: September 2025

Written By Stephen Bands

I enjoy this landscape because it’s not a picture of fucking pumpkins

So…it’s been a minute. To be honest, with everything going on in the world, plus my own schedule, mental health, and trying to reconnect with people I haven’t seen in years, I put the whole thing on pause for…about two months. Call it a summer break.

But then the lists were piling up, I couldn’t make myself write one that was over 50 albums long without overburdening myself or others, plus I kept missing (self-imposed) deadlines for reviews and rewinds that I just…didn’t have the wherewithal to write.

So now, I’ve taken a couple days, while I’m laid up with a cold I almost certainly got from Trent Reznor and/or Atticus Ross, to just…mix them all in a big jug. Fingers crossed, this will become the new monthly update.

The Listen List

An update about what’s out now and what people around the internet are talking about

Okay, this is gonna be a long one, even with this new, more edited version, but here we go. (deep breath)

July

(July had one Listen List article, so see that for others you may have missed)

August

The Rewind

A look back at a favorite from (at least five) years past

Grinderman 2

Grinderman

Punk Blues | 2010

It may be shocking to some—many, even—but this was my…second experience of Nick Cave. What’s more shocking is my first experience also was not him and The Bad Seeds, or Birthday Party, or whatever. No, it was his screenplay and score for The Proposition, a movie so bleak and harsh that it redefined westerns for me.

But to the musical topic at hand, I seriously only picked up (defined as: downloaded then later gifted a CD) this album because of the album art. I mean, look at it. It might be the best album cover of the 2010’s and one of the best of my lifetime. But little did I know what lay in store for me on that first listen…and then every single person I met who would agree to play it.

Playing this album the first time was a world-opener. The false security of that low blues guitar for the first few seconds of “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man” exploding part with a big snare hit and that driving bass line. Cave enters with his best blues crooner delivery, half singing, half telling a campfire story. When he begins howling after the first verse, you can just feeling things are about to go off. The massive wall of heavy electric blues that follows was like nothing I was aware could exist in music.

The grinding string slap samples that open “Worm Tamer,” quickly followed by a mirroring rhythm section make that particular tale of love betrayed (which, to be honest, is basically every song on the album) an especially eerie one. But then it cuts off into one of the hardest goddamn song’s I’ve ever heard.

The opening notes of “Heathen Child” are sampled-down guitar effects, but even the squelching guitar and Cave’s calm verse delivery don’t sound that different from any other blues song you’ve heard along Beale Street. But when that chorus kicks in JEEEZUS CHRIST! Squealing shoegaze and noise rock guitars sound like a category 5 hurricane swirling around Cave and company as they try their best to keep time and their wits.

But if your socks were still not quite knocked off, here comes “Evil,” a song that rocks louder and harder than the loudest hardest rockingest song before it. “Evil” kicks so much ass it might as well be Bruce Lee teamed up with The Bride. A downright blood-curdling effect of an insect swarm fills the background of the entire song, bringing forth that biblical imagery of a lord of flies. When Cave gets to that last “baby” at the opening, his delivery is so intense I could swear he’s punching a hole in the wall while singing it. The guitars are totally unhinged during the refrain as the band yells out “evil!” rhythmically, like a township condemning a witch. Hearing it again makes me want to fight someone.

But statistics would tell me that if you’ve heard a Grinderman song before, it’s either “Honey Bee” from their first album (courtesy of a brilliant needle drop in the best episode of True Detective), or it’s this album’s penultimate track, “Palaces of Montezuma.” When I was initially writing this article as a rewind-only entry, the title was taken from this song: “come on baby, let’s get out of the cold.”

The drum kit and tambourine combine to feel like traveling Renaissance minstrels as Cave sings a song of a nebulous faraway place he and the object of his affection will one day visit. Amid the experimentation and heavy sounds on the rest of Grinderman 2, it stands out as a particularly pleasant little ditty. But it’s still the most brilliantly written “little ditty” I’ve heard since, and given its streaming numbers compared to the rest of the group’s catalog, I’d say it strikes that chord in just about everyone that hears it. It is an addictively heartwarming and uplifting tune that shows what sharing music with each other is all about.

After that first listen, I would quickly become obsessed with Grinderman only to find out that it was basically just Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds-but-everyone-gets-to-write-songs-now. I patiently, then impatiently waited for a third album to drop. I still am. Sure, I picked up the Bad Seeds’ stuff since, and yes of course it’s amazing. I understand it was a flash experiment for Cave and co., but it’s still my favorite output of theirs.

Six years ago, Nick Cave said in an interview a final Grinderman album was in the works to “complete the trilogy.” Nothing yet. Maybe one day.

“Now” Playing

A quick look at my personal favorite recent releases

July

moisturizer

Wet Leg

Post-Punk Revival

Wet Leg absolutely stunned with their debut: a quirky almost-lo-fi mix of some of the most upbeat, silly, fun post-punk rockers I’d heard since Gang of Four. The slightly extended time since then did have me a bit worried we might not hear from them again, but fortunately those fears were unwarranted.

Not only did they come back, they put out moisturizer, a more than worthy successor. With its fuller, more adult production, the songs punch when they’re supposed to and pull when they need to. The songwriting is unblemished as well, with bangers like “catch these fists” and “pillow talk” gnashing and raving like punk-rock lunatics, while somber grovers like “davina mccall” and “11:21” prove Wet Leg aren’t just one-trick ponies.

I mean, sure, you absolutely will have “CPR” and “mangetout” stuck in your head even while listening to the rest, but the whole collection builds out the catalog of a still up-and-coming band that so far has only hit bullseyes.

August

The Passionate Ones

Nourished By Time

Bedroom Pop

How can I not do a write up about a fellow Baltimorean?

But don’t let geographical favoritism fool you. There’s much more to Nourished by Time than Old Bay seasoning and ostentatious state flags. No, this album, with each re-listen, is starting to get me thinking “masterpiece”.

Each song is radically different, and yet so cohesive with the rest, it’s like the album evolves from one thing to another as you listen to it. Sometimes groovy R&B, then changing to a cold, dispassionate synth pop, from ethereal to grounded, romantic to bitter.

Is it…experimental? Opener “Automatic Love” certainly hints that it could be. But then the opening chords of lead single “Max Potential” ring out and you’re sure we’re in street-soul land, while second single “9 2 5” is positively 90’s pump-up-the-jams house.

That none of this clashes is the genius of The Passionate Ones. Each song is a total surprise, but still feels like an inevitable continuation from the last. The constant push and pull of disparate genres is so powerful, all you can do is allow the sheer joy of letting go to wash over you.

Up Next

What’s coming out in the next few weeks?

September will see a couple new releases I’m pretty excited about. Maybe you are too:

  • Big Thief and Shame (technically already out by the time you’re reading this)

  • Cardi B

  • Cate Le Bon

  • Geese

  • John Maus

  • Nation of Language

  • Nine Inch Nails

  • Robert Plant

  • Sprints

I hope this new longer (yet, technically condensed) format is liking you. Think of it as a little mini-magazine that only, like 12 people read. If you are liking it, let me know and I’ll make it the standard going forward. What releases did I miss? What’s coming out soon that you can’t wait for?

Anyway, as always, release the Epstein files.

I mean…Happy listening!

Stephen Bands
Next

The Listen List