For those of you not in the know, the NYC post-punk outfit Love Crushed Velvet have just released their new studio album Souls and the Barren Heart.

Inspired by post-pandemic Manhattan and the untapped chaos of urban life, the album features taut, visceral songs that blend alternative, glam, and classic rock into a contemporary sound.

New York City is a place that’s at its best when it’s at its worst. The urban decay of the 70s unleashed a musical explosion that still reverberates nearly half a century later. Post-pandemic Manhattan vibes volatile again. The raw power of punk and the sonic blur of post-punk are back in full force with Souls and the Barren Heart.

1. The Future
2. Free
3. Saddened Eyes
4. The Light Inside
5. Other Places
6. Hateful Forever
7. Workin’ (Don’t Blame The People)
8. Under A Rainbow

Opening on the laid low, alt-pop-rock of The Future, that is seamlessly followed by the bluesy psych hipsway of Free and the beautiful ebb and flow of Saddened Eyes and then comes the euphorically-charged The Light Inside.

Up next is one of my own personal favorites on this wonderful new album, the pacey rock turbulence within Other Places and that is itself followed by the languishing Hateful Forever, the album rounding out on the elated musings within the spacious Workin’ (Don’t Blame The People), coming to a close on the harmonically melodic Under A Rainbow.

Love Crushed Velvet is the creative vision of A.L.X., a regionalist who believes in the power of varied music scenes and assembling different bands for different records - improvising, revising, consolidating - an organic approach that retains the spark of late night jams, of a musical rapport forming in real time.

The new album sprang from spontaneity, and even in its polished form that energy comes through. Like with their 2010 debut and follow-up EP, a fierce group of players was assembled for the album under producer David Maurice. Australian drummer Alex Carapetis (Julian Casablancas, Nine Inch Nails) anchors the group. Rob Ritchie and Erik Deutsch shape the textures on guitar and Keyboards.

More than influences or even instrumentation, this is music fueled by the untamed chaos of urban life, by passion over precision. While the textures and colors of the music have shifted from record to record, A.L.X.’s hypnotic vocals are the through-line connecting the body of work as a whole: past, present and future, condensed into 8 fierce songs. The sound of the city, in all its gritty glory.

Love Crushed Velvet - The Future (Official 360/VR Music Video

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