The Saga Continues is the best Wu Tang-related effort since 2010’s Wu-Massacre, while Long Island punks Iron Chic channel the loss of their founding guitarist into an explosive third album. These plus Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile, King Krule, and more in this week’s notable releases.

Every Friday, dozens of new records are released into the wild. Some make big splashes, and others sink almost immediately. For most music consumers, it’s almost too much information, and save for those precious few who spend their hours glued to review sites and release calendars, it’s hard to know what’s coming out…

Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett have already been pretty busy in 2017 with their respective touring schedules, but much like certain failed presidential campaigns, they’ve decided to be stronger together. The musicians (and A.V. Club favorites) teamed up to record a collaborative album, and are now taking the resulting…

Kurt Vile is continuing to tour behind his album B’lieve I’m Goin Down… with a series of new dates coming to us via Pitchfork. Vile will be hitting up a variety of states in the U.S. before heading to Mexico. Then he’ll wrap up (for now) in Australia. On New Year’s Eve he’ll play his hometown of Philadelphia, in a…

Last July, Wilco got in on the whole “surprise album release” trend by dropping its ninth studio album, Star Wars, online as a free download late on a Thursday afternoon. Putting together a world tour takes a while longer though, apparently, as the band is now announcing an extensive run of live shows in support of…

Just because an artist is popular or a record critically beloved doesn’t mean it’s actually sold a ton of copies. That’s the lesson Kurt Vile learns in the latest episode of Talent Show, in which we challenge him to a classic game of “what’s sold more?” While Vile has his favorites—Nirvana over Pearl Jam, The Beatles’ …

The East Coast is already home to several music festivals, including the Mountain Jam (featuring Wilco, Beck, and the Avett Brothers), the Newport Folk Festival (which Flight Of The Conchords will headline), and of course, the Governors Ball which, while lacking in heads of state, will feature Chvrches, Kanye West,…

It might sound cliché at this point, but in 2015, the music industry bounced back. Maybe not all the way back to its mid-’90s peaks of excess, but relatively speaking in today’s terms. Taylor Swift made buckets of money touring her 1989 record, Adele broke long-held sales records with 25, and everyone with a radio and…

Kurt Vile’s been carving out his own singular niche since his nascent days recording for Gulcher and Mexican Summer, releasing limited edition LPs such as Constant Hitmaker and God Is Saying To You, while still moonlighting with The War On Drugs when the former LP was released. His artistic breakthrough, along with…

Kurt Vile will release his sixth studio LP, B’lieve I’m Goin Down, September 25. With a new single, “Pretty Pimpin,” out today, The A.V. Club thought it would be a solid time to talk to the Philadelphia rocker about the forthcoming record, his recording process, and why he thinks “Wheelhouse,” one of the tracks off…

An anti-graffiti crusader has painted over parts of the Philadelphia mural that graced the cover of Kurt Vile’s 2013 record Wakin On A Pretty Daze. The mural was commissioned and painted by Steve “ESPO” Powers, on the outside of a business that totally supported the piece. But Lee Mayjahs, a local DJ and “Burning Man…

Philadelphia’s heavy shoegaze scene is composed of pretty much one band: Nothing. And Nothing’s not up to nothing. The group’s debut LP, Guilty Of Everything, came out earlier this month on Relapse, and the band will shortly be heading out on tour with Chicago’s own Pelican. In anticipation of all that grinding,…