New Tunes Tuesday #46

This is going to be one of our more exciting weeks! A bunch of new albums are out, mostly from bands I'm familiar with, but we still have one newcomer.

The Fray releases their new self-titled album. We have already heard their single off the album, "You Found Me," and it seems to be pretty in line with their previous work. The rest of the album sounds a lot like their old music, and as you may have learned through reading this column over the last few months, I enjoy a hearing a change, a growth if you will, in a band's music. But The Fray gives a good standard performance and I don't doubt that they will have a couple other chart toppers off their new album. 

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus drops their new album, Lonely Road today, as well. Although I have heard of them before, I am unfamiliar with their music, but I liked what I heard off this new album. I think that the music scene right now has a great abundance of all male bands with a pretty similar sound, and I would have to say that RJA fits into that mold. They have a pretty alternative sound; loud electric guitars in the background and head banging drums. Worth a listen.

Again, I'm not too familiar with Ben Kweller, but as I was listening to the snippets, I found myself thinking "This is what I was in the mood to listen to."

The mellow sounds off of Changing Horses fit perfectly into my desk-mode mood. Ben definitely has a bit of a southern-country twang, but his lyrics have a lot of thought behind them and a soulful melody to match. Take a moment and lend an ear.

Finally, the newcomers. Heartless Bastards releases their third album, The Mountain. Their sound is rock with (again) a little bit of country. Their instruments can be heard separately, which is different from a lot of other bands I hear lately; the rest seem to let all the different sounds meld together. Heartless Bastards also uses some synthesizers in the album titled song. I am always open to a bands sound that differs from the pack. I like their sound and the voice of the lead singer, who happens to be a woman, very much.