The Croocked House

Critically acclaimed artist The Japanese House has announced details of her long-awaited sophomore album, In the End It Always Does. Featuring recent single “Boyhood,” much of the album lives in the contradictory: beginnings and endings, obsession and mundanity, falling in love and falling apart. Four years after her widely celebrated debut, Good at Falling, this album sees Amber Bain lean even further into the pop realm whilst elevating her signature sound.

Sharing her new EP ‘Chewing Cotton Wool’ today, The Japanese House - aka Amber Bain - is unveiling two previously unreleased singles ‘Sharing Beds’ and ‘Dionne’ featuring Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. The four-track EP also includes previous releases ‘Chewing Cotton Wool’ and ‘Something Has To Change’, and marks her first body of work since her 2019 debut record ‘Good At Falling’. Taking to Twitter, Amber added, “Excited to finally release Dionne and Sharing Beds, the remaining songs on the Chewing Cotton Wool EP. These songs for me punctuate the stages of coming out of a relationship and entering into a new phase.”

Omar Dykes tears it up big-time on this marvelous live outing. Pulling tunes largely from his then-current Hard Times in the Land of Plenty album, Dykes and his band deliver the goods with loads of panache and attitude for a hometown crowd hanging on every note. Dykes' voice is poised somewhere between Howlin' Wolf and Bob Seger, while his guitar style is a Texas version of John Fogerty's work with Creedence, but the sound he produces out of all this is totally unique. The disc is loaded with solid Dykes originals like "Mississippi Hoo Doo Man," "Same Old Grind," "Hard Times in the Land of Plenty," and a wild encore performance of Jerry McCain's "Rock'n'Roll Ball." One great little package.