The 15 pop and rock albums to listen to today (September 2021)

The Madrid group Niña Polaca, photographed in July 2021 in a bar in the capital.INMA FLORES / EL PAIS

Facing a tour-packed 2022 (hopefully), groups and soloists release work this fall to present live in the coming months.

The result is great albums by veterans (Lindsey Buckinham, Iron Maiden or the

stone

Ronnie Wood), twentysomethings already pointing out great things (Lil Nas X or Polish Girl) or confirming their power (Little Simz or Halsey).

- Lil Nas X, 'Montero'

Who is it?

Born in Atlanta 22 years ago, Lil Nas X not only openly declares his homosexuality in an ecosystem (hip hop) where few have dared, but he puts that sexuality to the fore in both videos and songs. This seems to bother some sectors in the United States.

Montero

is his first LP after selling out with his 2019 song

Old Town Road.

Is

Montero

that good

?

Forget Kanye West's new album:

Montero

is more believable, deep and fun.

Pop and contemporary hip-hop, quality and texts to make DaBaby rage.

"I love it when you don't show absolute love. / You know I can be your part-time lover / Our scars will dance with each other," he sings in

Life After Salem,

a song that is close to hard rock, a sample of the record's eclecticism .

- Iron Maiden, 'Senjutsu'

Who are they?

The greatest band that gave

heavy metal?

Surely yes.

Judas Priest told how this genre should be, but Iron Maiden have taken it to an unsurpassed level of popularity.

Is

Senjutsu

that good

?

Bad news for those who have been waiting years for the return of the English band to the short songs at the gallop, which they practiced so much in their beginnings.

Album in the vein of the previous one,

The Book of Souls

(2015),

Senjutsu

forms a double work of long songs (8.20; 10.20 or, the longest, 12.38), dense, with a dramatic atmosphere ... and fantastic .

Let the numbers not stop us.

From the beginning with these tribal

Senjutsu

drums

we are facing a complex work made by musicians who do not want immobility and who play it with records distanced from what-is-expected-of-them.

- Polish Girl, 'I Will Assume Mufasa's Death'

Who are they?

A twenty-somethings band formed in the Malasaña neighborhood of Madrid.

This is their second album.

Is it that good I

'll take on Mufasa's death?

Well, it seems that generation Z is not only fond of the

trap.

Polish girl look at the guitar-making pop of the eighties (Los Nikis, of course) and the nineties (The Dalton Brothers?).

But they have personality: in Surma's gruff voice, in ironic and urban lyrics, and in an effort not to repeat themselves.

They would form a luxury cartel with Carolina Durante.

- Bob Dylan, 'Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series.

Vol. 16- 1980-1985 ′

Who is it?

Bob Dylan continues to rescue songs that in his time were unpublished and that some circulate in pirated versions. This time it corresponds to the first half of the eighties.

Is

Springtime in New York that good?

The eighties weren't Bob Dylan's best creative days. But the master's waste can turn out to be gold. There is a version of this volume 16 of the

Bootleg Series

of five discs (57 songs) for the very (very) Dylanians. The one we recommend here is the double album, 24 songs, with pieces never before officially released from the sessions of the 1981 albums

Shot Of Love

(weak), 1983

Infidels

(worthy) and 1985

Empire Burlesque

(good). Topics to highlight?

Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart,

with a

very

Sweet Jane

guitar

riff

by Lou Reed;

Angelina,

Dylan's great lazy ballad;

the powerful

Yes Sir, No Sir,

with gospel choruses reminiscent of the

Slow Train Coming

album

,

or the gorgeous 12-minute epic

New Danville Girl.

Because even the least inspired Dylan is worth it.

- Little Simz, 'Sometimes I Might Be Introvert'

Who is it?

A very interesting 27-year-old rapper from London who reaches her fourth album.

Is

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert that good?

An ambitious work, lasting 65 minutes, with varied sounds and texts that go from the feminist claim to the protest song, passing through the eternal visions of love.

Simz has an aversion to being artistically enclosed and the one who benefits is the listener.

- Halsey, 'If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power'

Who is it?

Singer, actress, video maker, feminist, bisexual and generational reference today.

He was born in New Jersey and is 26 years old.

Is it so good

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power?

Hasley's fourth album since 2015 and probably his best.

Produced by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor (with sidekick Atticus Ross), it is palpable in claustrophobic atmospheres.

Hasley completes a pop album with modern styles, sometimes dark, sometimes unleashed.

It is not commercial pop and take this positive.

David Bowie was already recording this music 20 years ago but, of course, we are talking about unattainable subjects.

- GA-20, 'Try it… You Might Like It: GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor'

Who are they?

A band from Boston crazy about electric blues.

Do not talk to these people about

autotune

, because surely they will not even know what it is: they use instruments and material

50 years ago and they only look at Muddy Waters, Howlin 'Wolf or their beloved Hound Dog Taylor, who they honor on this album.

Is

Try it… You Might Like It: GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor so good?

Like their idol Hound Dog, the GA-20s dispense with the bassist.

Their surround sound bothers them.

They are two guitars and a drums that when they are plugged into their

fifties

amps

and they start playing the walls crack.

Primitive blues, wild, songs that bite.

Devil music played like angels.

- Fito and Fitipaldis, 'Every time a corpse'

Who is it?

Fito Cabrales and his band after seven years without an album.

The fans dream of a meeting of Platero and Tú, now with more sense since Iñaki Uoho (guitar of the Platero) has run out of Extremoduro.

But for now Cabrales resists with his solid project with Fitipaldis.

Is it that good

every time corpse?

Fito and Fitipaldis in their usual lane, comfortable in those

rocker

middle times

,

all very well executed, without surprises, border rock without fanfare.

Immobility?

Yes, and it is surely what people like about this musician.

- The Wildhearts, '21st Century Love Songs'

Who are they?

A tough guy band from Newcastle, UK, who have been performing a personal mix of hard rock and punk since the late eighties.

They have gone through a thousand stages, they have fought, they have separated, they have returned to war again… The more fought they are, the better songs they make.

Is

21st Century Love Songs that good?

Everything we expect from The Wildhearts we hear on this album: guys at odds with the world expressing all their anger in wild songs.

Little more to add.

- Joel Culpepper, 'Sgt Culpepper'

Who is it?

A very gifted London singer of black music.

37 years.

Is

Sgt Culpepper

that good

?

Attention fans of the music of Prince: this album will probably fill you up.

Also those who enjoy

edgy

funky

and gasping Marvin Gaye ballad.

All of this (and tons of falsetto) is heard on this excellent

Sgt Culpepper.

- Bryan Estepa, 'Back To The Middle'

Who is it?

An Australian musician with a 20-year career who is dedicated to the noble task of composing beautiful melodies.

Is

Back To The Middle that good?

Six songs on this EP, all gorgeous, full of soft vocals reminiscent of the Beach Boys or Paul McCartney.

It closes with a nice version of a Bob Dylan song,

I Threw It All Away,

included on the 1969

Nashville Skyline album,

the one where Dylan engulfed the voice.

- Daniel Romano, 'Cobra Poems'

Who is it?

A 36-year-old Canadian musician who has played in a thousand bands and has already had a dozen solo albums.

Is

Cobra Poems

that good

?

Although Romano has leaned his production to

country

, he also makes forays into neighboring genres.

This

Cobra Poems

roams the rock of the plains, either approaching the Rolling Stones of the seventies or The Band.

Organs, trumpets, choirs ... all at the command of some sensational songs.

- Malcolm Holcombe, 'Tricks of the Trade'

Who is it?

One of those guys with a scarred heart, a very vivid 66-year-old from North Carolina, who has spent his entire career recording great American music records and very few seem to care.

Worse for the rest.

Is

Tricks of the Trade that good?

If Steve Earle's voice sounds harsh to you, listen to Holcombe.

The album is a rocky journey through the American genres (

country

, blues,

bluegrass, gospel…),

raw music that tells stories that are not at all complacent.

And sometimes even danceable.

- Lindsey Buckingham, 'Lindsey Buckingham'

Who is it?

The man who joined Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks in 1974 and a few years later was a core part of the essential

Rumors

(1977).

Buckingham, 71, hasn't been living a quiet life lately: He was kicked out of the reunification of Fleetwood Mac (his ex-partner, Nicks, they say), had heart surgery, and a storm of separation.

An arid disk as an answer?

No way…

Is

Lindsey Buckingham

that good

?

A fabulous lesson in light pop.

No nostalgia around here, watch out: some Arcade Fire would kill to have something like

Scream

on their new album

.

I Don't Mind

contains one of the choruses of the moment, and what to say about

On The Wrong Side

,

a kind of second part of

Get Your Own Way

.

One of the best albums of the year from now on.

- Ronnie Wood, 'Mr.

Luck.

A Tribute to Jimmy Reed: Live at The Royal Albert Hall '

Who is it?

Good old Ronnie, always disciplined at the Rolling Stones, although he gives the impression that he always painted little, probably much to his regret. Honestly, we like his contributions more to Faces and his solo career (watch out for his albums from the seventies, like

I've Got My Own Album to Do).

Is it that good

Mr. Luck. A Tribute to Jimmy Reed?

Jimmy Reed (1925-1976) is one of

Neil Young's favorite

bluesmen

, Bob Dylan (on his last album,

Rough and Rowdy Ways

, he recorded a piece called

Goodbye Jimmy Reed)

or the Rolling Stones, which in their first full-length, there by 1964, they included

Honest I Do

. Reed was a drunken brawler (not unusual in the

bluesmen

of the fifties), a foundational piece of electric blues. With a peculiar style, nothing virtuous: a trotter and strummed

rhythm & blues

highly contagious.

Wood locks himself into the Royal Albert Hall to play a handful of Reed tunes, with Mick Taylor on other guitar.

Relevant fact: Wood replaced Taylor in the Stones in 1975. With a powerful band surrounding them, they end up putting together a fast-paced blues feast that, although their thing is to enjoy it live, in audio it is also pure fun.