This week I've mostly been listening to..

There’s been some awesome new music out over the last week or two.  Here’s my picks of that new music…

Mastodon’s Black Tongue, the first single of their upcoming album The Hunter, is popping up all over the net as a teaser.  It’s not going to please fans of the older, heavier Mastodon sound, but if you were into their last album, and that softer, more melodic sound, then you’ll be well impressed.  They’re definitely continuing to progress and develop their sound.  Can’t wait to hear the rest of the album (out late September).

The new Wu-Tang album, Legendary Weapons, has finally hit and we can all sit back and pretend the last 10 years of hip hop never happened.  In a good way of course – this is their best album since Wu Tang Forever back in 1997 (assuming we don’t count last year’s Wu Massacre as a full blown Wu album – technically it was a collaboration between some of the members of the Clan, but it sure sounded like a Wu album).   If you got into any of the Wu albums you’ll be able to get into this pretty quickly – they don’t change much and there’s still more hoes in one album than at your local gardening store.

There was a lot of hype about the Wugazi project (I’ve almost finished on the Wu, promise) – a mashup of various Wu Tang and Fugazi tracks.  Doesn’t sound like it’d work does it?  It comes out sounding pretty sweet though, which you'd kind of expect from a years worth of work on it.  The finished album has finally been released and is going massive – download a copy for yourself for absolutely nix from the website.

Lastly, Outrun the Buffalo have just become one of my favourite bands.  This trio from Auckland, New Zealand, have just put out an amazing EP called “And Now They Live In A Zoo”.  If you’ve got a fever for menacing synths, funk laden riffs, and mysterious lyrics, then this may just be the prescription to cure your ills.  You can check it out at their bandcamp page, or even go the whole hog and download it – it’s one of those pay what you want deals, but it’s that good that I’d recommend shelling out some coin for it.  Or even better, pay $10 New Zealand and you can get it in a professionally put together CD package, old school styles.