Gossip Wolf has been hankering for a new full-length from High Spirits ever since hearing some hot demos in 2013—Chicago multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris Black, who’s also part of Dawnbringer and Superchrist, takes inspiration from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal for High Spirits’ massively exuberant music. This weekend the gods of thunder answered our prayers: the band’s new You Are Here is up for presale on Bandcamp (where it comes out Thu 4/25), and on Tue 5/13 Hell’s Headbangers will release it on LP and CD. High Spirits’ five-piece live lineup (in the studio it’s mostly just Black) doesn’t have a local show booked, but this week the group starts touring the east coast and Canada.
On Sun 4/20 this wolf’s favorite emo-leaning pop-punks with manners, the Please & Thank Yous, will upload a six-song self-titled EP to Bandcamp at exactly 4:20 PM! Recorded with Matt Jordan (who plays in Lifted Bells and Cut Teeth), it’s their first release in two years, and drummer Marcus Nuccio says the group has a couple new members—guitarist Tim Crisp and bassist Vince Aguilar (also in the Valenteens and Earth Girls). The EP is free for a limited time at bit.ly/pleasethank.
Silkworm formed in Montana in 1987, but to Gossip Wolf the indie-rock powerhouse will always be a Chicago institution. After all, the band was recording here with Steve Albini even before they started moving to town (one at a time) in the late 90s, and they put out their last four albums on Touch and Go. (They broke up after drummer Michael Dahlquist died in a 2005 car crash, for which the other driver was convicted of reckless homicide.) On Mon 5/5 New Jersey label Comedy Minus One will reissue the band’s excellent out-of-print 1994 album Libertine with a passel of bonus tracks and goodies. Former ‘worms Tim Midyett (ne Midgett) and Andy Cohen now play in the succinctly scorching Bottomless Pit.
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