Trail of The Screaming Forehead (2007)

Germany's Accent label has released a series of twin-CD sets featuring the Baroque flute recordings made by Barthold Kuijken, sometimes (as here) accompanied by his cello-playing brother Wieland. The originals date back to the late '70s, when Kuijken was one of the Dutch specialists who brought historical performance out of the too-precious phase, and they still sound good. This release pairs a 1979 set of French flute sonatas from the middle eighteenth century with a 1991 group of Italian works of the same period. The two discs, both recorded in Belgian churches, don't have exactly the same ambiance, but the pairing is an intelligent one, making this a good pick from among the various discs available.

In 1989 The Screaming Jets came roaring out of their hometown of Newcastle, NSW. Thirty years on and the Jets are rocking as hard as ever! Dirty Thirty is a 2CD set celebrating the band’s greatest hits including the chart-topping Aussie anthem Better as well as Shivers, October Grey and Tunnel. Front man Dave Gleeson and his band mates are touring Australia throughout May/June this year to coincide with the release of Dirty Thirty. One of Australia’s most enduring bands.

Legendary garage rockers The Fleshtones have been pumping out hits for over four decades, earning them the honor of being "America's Garage Rock Band." They're one of the final remaining original CBGB bands, they've played on Andy Warhol's short-lived MTV show while Sir Ian McKellen read Shakespeare over their jamming, and were the last band to publicly perform at the World Trade Center's Windows on the World. However, what's most incredible about The Fleshtones is that they're putting out some of their best music yet forty years into their career, as evidenced by their new album Face of the Screaming Werewolf. Featuring soon-to-be-hits done in the inimitable Fleshtones style, such as "Alex Trebek," "Spilling Blood at the Rock & Roll Show," and their cover of the Stones' classic "Child of the Moon."

X: The Godless Void and Other Stories appeared at a timely point in …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's career. It arrived six years after the release of 2014's IX, during which time Conrad Keely returned from Cambodia to the band's home base of Austin, Texas, and also coincided with their 25th anniversary. It makes sense, then, that their tenth album finds them taking stock. As …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead explore how people become more themselves over time while everything else changes, they deliver their most emotionally direct music in quite a while. Their need to follow their hearts – even if they get a little broken along the way – has dominated their music since Source Tags & Codes, and the tension between cathartic freedom and poignancy is as powerful on X: The Godless Void and Other Stories as it was on that landmark album.