DC October 4 New Release Recap

As Spencer Tracy once said about Katharine Hepburn, "there's not a lot of meat there but what there is is choice". This week we take a look at a few prime releases featuring the latest from Feist, something new from Brooklyn singer/songwriter Bess Rogers and the debut full length from new Brit troubadour Ben Howard. We've also got our more complete list of titles including new music from Paul McCartney (his new ballet score), Erasure, Hayley Westenra with famed film composer Ennio Morricone, Indigo Girls and the new Hank Williams tribute album. And who can forget the band with one of the best names ever: We Were Promised Jetpacks. All after the jump...

Feist - Metals - How do you follow up the critically-worshipped, 4x-Grammy nominated, 750,000-selling 2007 album The Reminder? Well, if you're, you take some down time, eventually dust off your guitar (a couple of times) and then, she says, look for "someplace you've never been": geographically in Big Sur, California, and creatively. There with longtime collaborators Chilly Gonzalez and Mocky (plus newcomer Valgeir Sigurossen, of Bjork work), the Broken Social Scene-stealer recorded her new songs with big, often dark themes of solitude and mortality, detachment and fleeting relationships. While her voice retains the distinctive, warmly lit resonance and there a times of buoyant, lilting spark, rarely has Feist turned the coal-black streak of melancholy into such moody, angular and brittle atmospherics. The sometimes brutal, always stunning new album, isn't called Metals for nothing. More DC

Bess Rogers - Out Of The Ocean - Leave it to reading about the origins of humans from a tome about pre-historic fish and microbes called Your Inner Fish to really get the creative juices flowing, something indie/pop songwriter found out first hand in between writing songs at her Brooklyn apartment last winter. Taking some time from touring as a solo artist and as guitarist in Ingrid Michaelson's band, Rogers found she became obsessed with the book and the idea of looking at "everything we do in life as a product of evolution." The fan-funded project is also about Roger's own evolution and growth as an artist and tunesmith, expanding her proclivity for intimately confessional Michaelson-styled folk/pop into artful and boldly energized songs that flirt with the occasional rocky edge. More DC

Ben Howard - Every Kingdom (Island U.K.) - Much buzzed full length successor to the promising Old Pine debut EP delivers mesmerizing finger-picked modern folk from a 23-year-old Brit West Country singer/songwriter (and surfer)...ten track album was produced by Howard's bassist/ drummer Chris Bond in a converted barn studio in Devon // Sounds like: Howard utilizes a knuckle-rapping percussive styled to his playing, a style that brings an interesting rhythmic tension to his songs... pioneering 70's folkie Martyn plays a big influence on Howard's stretched and bent vocals and his ability to weave a simple melody into an intricate tapestry of acoustic sound...

More releases:

Annie Crane - Jump With A Child's Heart
DJ Shadow - The Less You Know, The Better 
Dwight Twilley - Soundtrack
Erasure - Tomorrow's World 
Exitmusic - From Silence (EP)
Extra Arms - In Parallel
Gavin Friday - Catholic (US)
George Benson - Guitar Man
Hayley Westenra/Ennio Morricone - Paradiso
Indigo Girls - Beauty Queen Sister
Jack's Mannequin - People and Things
Jason Boland & The Stragglers - Rancho Alto
Lights - Siberia
Loney Dear - Hall Music
Mary Hampton - Folly (UK)
Merle Haggard - Working In Tennessee
Mutemath - Odd Soul
Paul McCartney - Ocean's Kingdom (Ballet Score)
Scott McCreery (American Idol) - Clear As Day
The Drift - Blue Hour
The Pine Hill Haints - Welcome to the Midnight Opry
Various - The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
We Were Promised Jetpacks - In the Pit of the Stomach