Speaking of gloomy: October 13 marks the release of the CURE’s self-produced 13th long-player, 4:13 Dream (I Am/Geffen), which is rumored to comprise the more upbeat songs they recorded during a recent productive stint. (The darker tunes may be released on a future album.) Also look for a more stripped-down feel on the forthcoming third album from the KILLERS, whose Day and Age (Island; November) jettisons the overblown studio pomp of 2006’s Sam’s Town in favor of a Roy Orbison–influenced shimmering pop sheen under producer Stuart Price (Madonna’s Confession on a Dance Floor). OASIS return this fall as well, with Dig Out Your Soul (Big Brother/Sony; October 7), which, much like 2005’s Don’t Believe the Truth, is an expertly crafted rock album with crushing sonics, big hooks, stellar playing, and a winning glance back at rock’s history that’s being hyped as a return to form by a band who never fell off the horse in the first place.
AC/DC’s new Black Ice (Columbia; October 21, only at Wal-Mart — go figure) will shock fans by veering into trip-hop and sensitive balladry. Just kidding. Lead single “Rock N’ Roll Train” is pretty much what you’d expect: Highway to Hell riffage, Powerage production, and the glottal howl of Brian Johnson. Metal Blade spits up a few Viking-themed metal releases on September 30, with AMON AMARTH’s Twilight of the Thunder God and BISON B.C.’s Quiet Earth. And all hail the return of Brooklyn-via-Columbus stoner thrashers EARLY MAN, whose Jack Endino–produced Beware the Circling Fin EP (The End Records; October 14) finds them surviving their dumping at the hands of old label Matador and living to thrash another day.
Brooklyn’s VIVIAN GIRLS convert their garage-rocking out-of-print vinyl-only homonymous album to 1’s and 0’s on October 7 with the help of In the Red Records. Swedish ’70s psychedelic guitar-hero revivalists DUNGEN unveil their fourth long-player, 4 (Subliminal Sounds) on September 23, alongside TV ON THE RADIO’s dark, angry and yet glammy and funky Dear Science, (Geffen). Also on October 7: two head-scratching works of inscrutable genius, OF MONTREAL’s dense, genre-hopping Skeletal Lamping (Polyvinyl) and San Francisco punk-art weirdos DEERHOOF’s new two-act opus, Offend Maggie (Kill Rock Stars).
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