As you've been hibernating the past few weeks, staying cozy inside while windchill levels approached sub-zero, the music world has kept warm too, grilling up an entire month's worth of awesome new releases. Check out what February has in store for your ears!


10. Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse
When Scottish indie rock outfit Frightened Rabbit released their track and subsequent video for "State Hospital" last year I was pretty blown away. The song has the stamina and intensity of a stadium rock anthem, but wields weighty lyricism that cuts to images of suffering and hope. Overall, their EP release last year wasn't great, but just good enough to stir up a longing for their fourth studio full-length which is out today.


9. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away 
The legendary Nick Cave has stayed prolific as ever in the past few years with his Grinderman efforts and reissues with his band, and will be releasing his fifteenth studio record with The Bad Seeds on 2/18 via the band’s own label, Bad Seed Ltd. The debut single off the new record is called “Jubilee Street”. Check it out below:


8. Pissed Jeans - Honeys



Back with their follow-up to 2010’s underrated surf-rock self-titled effort, Beach Fossils will release Clash The Truth on 2/19 via Captured Tracks. While the band has expanded with various members coming and going, it all started with mastermind Dustin Payseur, who recorded everything on the first record by himself, playing every instrument. As the musician received continued acclaim in the indie community, Captured Tracks took notice and brought Payseur on to record a sophomore LP. Payseur brought on some core band members for recording in a proper studio, including a feature from Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino on their track “In Vertigo”. Listen to their latest track "Generational Synthetic" below:


3. My Bloody Valentine -mbv
Remember My Blood Valentine? I don’t. Because I was two years old when their last studio record was released back in 1991. it’s been a long time coming, but in the last 22 years, after many rumors of a new material, lead singer Kevin Shields going crazy, and countless throw-outs, My Blood Valentine has finally released their follow-up to Loveless with mbv, which was released on February 2, subsequently crashing the online server that was facilitating the release. So far the album has gotten favorable reviews with The Guardian giving it a perfect 5/5 rating. Listen to the opening track below and stream the rest via YouTube.

2. Iceage - You're Nothing
Strait-up, Iceage is putting out some awesome music right now. Still riding off the coattails of 2011’s 24-minute hell-raiser, New Brigade, they’ve just released the video for the new single “Ecstacy” about a week ago. Picking up where they left off, the Danish teens let out a surge of dark energy on the track with chunky guitar riffs coating hair-raising shouts of “Pressure!” While it seems the trend has been for many current indie-punk bands to shift toward more refined, poppier territory, Iceage have committed themselves to louder and gnarlier thread of punk, one that requires cheap beer and trashed speakers. You’re Nothing is out 2/19 via Matador.

1. Atoms for Peace - Amok - 2/25
Perhaps the most anticipated album of 2013, Atoms For Peace’s Amok, is something like four years in the making. The supergroup was first concieved when Thom Yorke called Flea (bassist for Red Hot Chili Peppers), Joey Waronker (drummer for R.E.M.), Mauro Refosco, and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead producer) together to play the entirety of Yorke’s solo record The Eraser in LA in 2009. Playing at Coachella in 2010 they were simply known as “??????” Since, they've slowly come into form, officially giving the band its name, releasing their first official single “Default” last year, and another “Judge, Jury, and Executioner” last month while detailing the release of their debut album. The tracks sound quite reminiscent of Yorke’s solo record Eraser, but there is definitely a stronger reliance on drum and vocal loops giving way to nuanced and textured sound that we’ve really yet to fully experience from Yorke. Amok is out 2/26 in the US. Listen to "Judge, Jury, and Executioner" below:

Since Scott Hutchinson formed Frightened Rabbit back in 2003, he has gradually progressed from mumbling 4-track solo recordings, adding various pieces to the puzzle as he saw fit--4 band members, 3 quality albums and an EP later, the Scottish indie-rock outfit has developed an esteemed, almost cult following. Now, in the midst of releasing a new EP, State Hospital, and rumors of an album in the works, the quintet are at the top of their game as they've just released an enthralling music video for the title-track. 

The video for “State Hospital” is a somber vignette depicting the struggles of a life-long victim of physical and emotional abuse, which closely mirrors the overall theme of the song. On their website, the group agrees the video needs little interpretation saying, “It's a stark affair at points, but we reckon it fits the song really beautifully.” With such brilliantly poetic and captivating lyricism along-side slow motion footage of a young woman weathering the violent surroundings she was seemingly born into, the video gives off downcast cinematic hues of, what looks to be, life in London's social housing. The setting is baleful and reminds me of the mood cast in the 2009 British drama Fish Tank. 

Hutchinson belts a harrowing chorus: “Her heart beats like a breeze block thrown down the stairs / Her blood is thicker than concrete forced to be brave she was born into a grave.” Toward the end of the video you're glued to the screen, waiting for some sort of justice to be served, and just as you become emotionally invested in the protagonist of the video, the redemptive qualities of the track are realized in the last 20 seconds as Hutchinson repeats, “All is not lost.”