Okay. Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. If you can believe it, I'm very tired. I'm very worn out from all of this Beefwatch 2024 insanity. I don't know when it's going to end, but in the midst of all of this, music has still been dropping. I've still been reviewing. I've still been hearing lots of albums, lots of smaller projects, too, that I think are great, that I think are worth sharing, that I think are worth your time, that are linked down below, so you could check them out for yourselves. I think these are excellent, entertaining creative records that should not slip through the cracks for you, which is why I am reminding you to check them out here in this video. So let's do it. Let's go.

Starting with the first recommendation of the video, the new Lust$ickPuppy project Carousel From Hell. This thing is thrilling, it's punchy, it's chaotic, it's absolutely insane. I think it's the next logical step for the revival that Deathgrips and adjacent artists were creating for digital, hard core and industrial hip hop in the early 2010s. And yes, this is a solo artist who is just doing it all. Vocals, lyrics, writing, production, everything. It's a one-stop power shop of absolutely just killer bangers, one for the next, super dizzying, super chaotic, as I already said, overwhelming, thrilling, hyper, and a lot of charisma throughout the project as well. It's a deadly little album that flies by, but still has a lot of standout, sticky, catchy moments, and it leaves you wanting more as well, which I am absolutely desperate for when a new Lust sick Puppy album drops. So big recommendation on this one.

Next, after that, the new Cindy Lee record, Diamond Jubilee. Not a short record, a long record. In fact, a very long record, like 32 tracks, 2 hours of material. God, what is Cindy Lee doing for all that time? Cindy Lee, also Patrick Flagel, producer, songwriter, guitarist, formerly of the band Women. Cindy Lee is Patrick Patrick's longtime music project that they have been basically diving full on into ever since the women's split. I've not been really crazy about a lot of the Cindy Lee stuff up until this point, but this record really blew me away and convinced me of Patrick's genius within this project because it's an amazing throwback, nostalgic embrace of old-school psychedelic pop, sunshine pop, vocal pop, Blue-Eyed Soul, Brill Building, Girlgroup stuff, some garage rock, too, a little rockabilly as well. But it's all woven together with this dreamy, surreal, lofi production esthetic that works really well. A lot of great songwriting, but fun, messy, sloppy, blemish playing throughout the entire record. It's really immersive. It's very entertaining, quite a melancholic as well in the best of ways. Check it out down below.

All All right, next. Nia Archive. Silence is loud. Nia is bringing back some jungle vibe, some UK old-school dance-pop vibes with just some great choruses, good solid singing, some consistent relationship on the Rocks' narratives throughout the record as well. Just a killer, killer, killer debut, especially considering that her recent ERP, the ERP just before this record, was one of my favorites of that year. Nia is just proving out of the gate to be one of the best and brightest the UK has to offer at the moment in this new crop, this new generation of singers and producers. It's just exciting to have her out and about and looking forward to seeing what she does into the future, considering how strong of a first step this album takes for her. And not a newbie, but an oldie, we have Vampire Weekend back with their latest LP, Only God Was Above Us, which I loved the hell out of.

What an incredible comeback. Back for Esra and the Boys. Those little baroque bits of instrumentation, the fun, crazy cross-cultural genre fusions, the slightly lofi esthetics, the boyish and cheery songs and singing are all back in full force. And yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting lyrical themes throughout the record, whether that be interpersonal relationships or cultures from the Eastern block. Go through the album, comb through it. There's a lot of awesome layers, a lot of great musical moments, a lot of fantastic instrumental breaks. The band, I think, is just back in their usual amazing, incredible vampire weekend form. But with this being more than several albums deep at this point, the group is sounding more mature than ever, I would say. All the upright bass, too. So good. Camera change, shirt change.

I'm a bit under the weather still.

Almost made me forget the new High on Fire album as well, cometh the Storm.

This thing also kicks a lot of ass. One of the band's most rocking and extreme records so far with frontman Matt Pike going absolutely insane on the vocals. Solid riffs, solid songwriting all around. High on Fire basically continues to prove why they are sludge behemoths, one of the best in the genre today and yesterday.

All right, I want to move on to a couple of shorter projects, a couple of shorter projects, not quite full, formal new studio albums, anything like that, but they're still excellent. They're still worth your time. Do not miss out on these, even if they are littler. Okay. First off is this new ERP from Agriculture, Living is Easy, is the title of this one. It is a killer black metal project, really awesome, organic, intense, speedy, playing throughout much of this thing. And very bright, hopeful, sweet melodies for a black metal project, which, of course, you had a lot of groups, a lot of American groups messing with a little bit in the early 2010s, and it didn't quite go anywhere. I like that this band is bringing it back and doing it incredibly, incredibly well with this ERP. It's thrilling, it's explosive, it is wonderful, and in a way, warm, warm for a black metal project. All right, moving on from there. Really loving this. If you listen to anything from this video, listen into this, Bad, Bad, Not Good, who many of you should be already familiar with, not only through their awesome hip hop funk rock, sometimes jazz fusion records from the start of their career, but also the various viral tunes and genre fusions and crossings that they've done on later records where they did a lot of collaborations with a lot of different artists and vocalists and so on and so forth.

This latest one here is a focused series of collab tracks with singer Baby Rose, and it's just amazing vintage throwback, just old-school soul cuts with some nostalgic production and just killer songs and amazing weary vocals from Baby Rose herself. It's stunning, it's breathtaking, it's beautiful, and you are not going to want to miss this one if you are a fan of soul at all on any level. Also really enjoying this latest ERP from Manchester Band that we have big upped on the channel before. That is Maruha Conla's Well is the title of this one over here. And once again, the group is giving us another helping of that fiery jazzy art punk with lots of spoken word vocals, intense performances, just driving percussion. It's killer from front to back. And I cannot wait for these guys to get in album mode because their EPs are sounding as killer and as just over the top and as ambitious as albums, and their freaking EPs. So when these guys eventually go into full record mode, it's going to be incredible. I can just see it coming now. And finally, one more thing. Our favorite experimental pop weirdo, Polls, Franec, Wajdiwa, as well as Mladi Buddha, have come through with the computer ERP.

And of course, it is Goopy, it is silly, it is mind-bending, it is strange, it is addictive, and it is fun, as their music usually tends to be. All right. I'm worn out. I'm done. I'm spent. Great albums, good projects that you should be checking out. So please, please, please, please do. Love you. You're the best. Anthony Fantana over here next to my head. Another video you can check out. Hit that up or the link to subscribe to the channel. Anthony Music. Enjoy.