Philip Montoro, Reader music editor
Electric Wizard, “Satanic Rites of Drugula” I’ve loved UK drug-doom maniacs Electric Wizard for years, but I only just figured out the goofy horror-pulp lyrics to this slow-motion caldera collapse from 2007’s Witchcult Today. (A new album, Time to Die, drops September 30.) They’re about a vampire who gets blazed by feeding on druggies: “Your dope-laced blood shows me new highs / Bloodlust, druglust, Count Drugula arise.” Also, they include the funniest four syllables in doom: “So high / So dead.”
Aadam Jacobs, live music archivist
Hushdrops, Tomorrow! The wait has been excessively long—more than ten years—but in June the Hushdrops finally released the second LP in their 20-plus-year history. Tomorrow! isn’t a departure from their first full-length, Volume One: it has all the goodness that the band’s small legion of fans has come to know and love. Think the Beatles, the Who, and the Beach Boys filtered through My Bloody Valentine. This will likely end up my favorite record of 2014.
Paul Carrack, Rain or Shine More than three decades ago, Paul Carrack (Ace, Nick Lowe, Squeeze, Roxy Music, Mike + the Mechanics—wow!) made a record, Suburban Voodoo, that could’ve been named “Robbie’s Summer of 1982.” Over the years he faded from my mind, but having decided to catch up with him, I bought last year’s Rain or Shine—and I love it. Carrack plays most of the instruments, naturally and well, and he’s still one of the best soul singers alive. Oddly, his own lightweight songs easily stand out above the classics he covers. “If Loving You Is Wrong” will never be wrested away from Millie Jackson, but Carrack’s scratchy-pajamas voice and easygoing spins on old compositional cliches lift his work into a unique zone.
