New Music Friday: Stream projects from Freak Slug, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, The Body, and more

The music Manchester-based singer and musician Xenya Genovese makes as Freak Slug is akin to the brutally honest friend in the friend group who tells things like it is. “He’s a beautiful man with a nice haircut / But there’s nothing behind those daydream thoughts,” she sings in a monotone on “Piece Of Cake,” a song she wrote about a hot but exceptionally dumb guy. Genovese has been releasing quaint indie rock-adjacent bops for years, but only now on her debut album, I Blow Out Big Candles, has she finally struck a perfect chord of weird and charming that feels fitting for her band’s peculiar name. Songs like “Sexy Lemon” and “Spells” sway between grunge and bright melodies, but it’s her blunt and singular observations that take the cake: “She’s a sexy lemon with her blonde, blonde hair” and “You got such an ugly smile.” The result is silly, entertaining, and truthful enough you’ll wish you could live in Genovese’s head for longer than 30 minutes. —Steffanee Wang

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There is a pleasingly busy nature to the songs on Eazy Peazy, with the band pushing each other to play faster, harder, and louder. Every song by the British indie rock band is packed tightly with a frantic energy that results in the coiled and angry opener “The Boss” feel primed for lift-off. The five-piece, who follow in the footsteps of Black Country, New Road, Black Midi, and Jockstrap from the London DIY scene, push Clio Harwood’s violin to the front on the standout song “Ode To Clio” and reach their chaotic endpoint on “Maegan,” a short and tangled interlude that feels like plugging directly into the source of the band’s unbridled energy. At just six tracks long popular wisdom would suggest that Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s next move should be to streamline their creativity into a more cohesive sound, but the appeal of this band may well lay in its pile-up of musical ideas. Long may the messiness continue.

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When Micachu and the Shapes rebranded as Good Sad Happy Bad, it was a conscious effort to shed the four-piece’s branding as a project directed by one artist — in this case, the acclaimed underground songwriter and Oscar-nominated composer Mica Levi — and to embrace their collective strength. Their 2020 debut, Shades, was a spritely, exhilarating blast of European indie-pop tradition garnished with skronk and guile; All Kinds of Days, their new sophomore project, is an unexpected yet edifying evolution of the band. Assembled from improvised sessions with each band member handling vocal duties, All Kinds of Days debuts a looser era for the band that retains only outlines of their past. This feeling is strongest when Raisa Khan sings, her heavenly approach to melody making songs like “Shaded Tree” and “Frontline” feel like more angular and adrift takes on the sound of Shades. Elsewhere, anything goes: “Twist the Handle” creates a deflated picture of modern life’s modernity over shambling percussion and chiming synths, a taste of the irony that also defines tracks like “DIY” and “Find My Way.” Full of sincere ambition and renewed confidence, All Kinds of Days is a delightful stone soup of sonics and personalities. — Jordan Darville

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The Crying Out of Things is a nine-track album by The Body. But like most of synthesist/percussionist Lee Buford and guitarist/vocalist Chip King’s LP-length odysseys, the end of one track and the start of another often feels as arbitrary as it does organic. Even before opener “Last Things” rolls to a halt, the record has reached critical mass as a howling, wounded beast charging full speed toward oblivion. The seven brief breaks we’re granted before King’s distorted guitar grinds the closing track “All Worries” into an unholy ending are more mile markers than merciful reprieves. — Raphael Helfand. Read the full review here.

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piglet is the project of South London-based Irish songwriter and musician Charlie Loane. His debut EP, for frank forever, is a heartfelt collection of shimmering, synthy folk-pop that celebrates the wonder of human connection and togetherness. Its songs were written as a tribute to the memory of his late friend Frank who committed suicide last year. “I finished writing these songs just before he passed away, and most of the lyrics on the EP developed from experiences we shared through organizing together as part of a mutual aid group,” writes Loane. “Mutual aid organising taught me so much about myself and the people around me. it laid bare the many ways that capitalism fails all of us, and brought me closer to the love which sustains us through this failure and builds in us the strength and motivation to fight for something better.” It’s a sentiment that is worth remembering, this week, and forevermore. — Cady Siregar

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp