Doesn't everything seem a little more hopeful suddenly? I think so. Today at least. For this first Indie Basement of a new era: Toronto Pavement devotees Kiwi Jr's second album Cooler Returns; Brooklyn DIY punks Palberta go pop (kinda sorta) on their fifth album; UK duo Still Corners refine their desert noir sound on Last Exit; EXEK reissue their debut album via John Dwyer's Castle Face label; and a new box set chronicles the original post-punk disco movement.

For more new of this week's new music, Andrew reviews Lande Hekt, Here Lies Man and more in Notable Releases. Here's more Basement-approved stuff from this week: I talked to Goat Girl about the influences behind their upcoming new album (which I'll review next week); Soulwax did an inspired remix of Fontaines DC's "A Hero's Death"; Tindersticks announced their new album; and CHAI announced their new album and shared a great new single.

Also, I just ranked the 20 Best Britpop Albums of 1995, so have fun with that. Fight me!

And as a big TV fan, I'm very excited that all five seasons of The Muppet Show are coming Disney+ and that Freaks & Geeks is coming to Hulu with its soundtrack intact.

Head below for this week's reviews.

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Kiwi Jr - Cooler Returns (Sub Pop)
There no denying this Toronto band a) love Stephen Malkmus and b) write smart, catchy songs. Their first album for Sub Pop is a real treat.

It's difficult to listen to Toronto band Kiwi Jr and not think of '90s indie rock icons Pavement. (As long as you're familiar with '90s rock icons Pavement.) Frontman Jeremy Gaudet has a similar inflection and cadence to Stephen Malkmus -- not to mention a way with clever, nonchalant and pop-culture-laden lyrical digressions -- and the band make incredibly hooky, ramshackle guitar pop with an occasional twinge of country. But take away Gaudet's voice, which is uncannily Malkmussian at times, and the band (who share member Brian Murphy with Alvvays) reveal themselves to be part of a wordy guitar pop tradition that includes The Go-Betweens, Sloan, The Verlaines, and The Kinks, packing their songs with undeniable hooks and pithy one-liners.

Cooler Returns, their second album and first since signing to Sub Pop, comes hot on the heels of Football Money which was released in Canada in early 2019 but most people heard when it got a worldwide release this time last year. No sophomore slump -- Cooler Returns is all hits, a baker's dozen of ridiculously catchy three-minute pop nuggets that deliver massive sing-along-choruses in sheepish, understated fashion. "I was falling apart in the green room while you drank half the headliner’s rider," Gaudet sings in album opener "Tyler," a tale of apartment rentals and life as a musician set to a juke joint honky tonk piano melody.

Gaudet's lyrical style feels both stream-of-conscious and carefully thought out (and rhymed), like diary entries made up entirely of interlocked bullet points. Even if you don't understand them in a literal sense you get the vibe, and there are many memorable one-liners. A few that have stuck in my head: "bells ring out the pouring rain / and Amy Adams rides the train" ("Highlights at 100"); "2021 tattooed on my ass / man, what are you asking for and why do you have to ask?" ("Guilty Party"); "Live from Duane Reade!" (""Undecided Voters"); and "I am not American / but I feel the beat sometimes" ("Cooler Returns"). Even if the words blur past, the melodies and riffs will not leave your skull, including "Undecided Voters," "Domino," "Waiting in Line," and especially "Omaha" and "Dodger" which both owe a little to The Clash. These tracks slay and comparisons melt away the more you listen to this terrific album.

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Palberta - Palberta5000 (Wharf Cat)
Brooklyn DIY trio find inspiration in pop but continue to sound like themselves on their terrific fifth album

Palberta have have been regulars in Brooklyn's DIY scene for most of the last decade, cranking out jagged indie rock over four albums and a bunch of singles, a constant presence at tiny clubs like Alphaville and Silent Barn, but occasionally at bigger shows too, like getting to open for heroes Bikini Kill at Brooklyn Steel. The band have never been lacking in catchy melodies, as anyone who's seen them live can attest, but previous records often masked that under murky, low-fi production. Not so with Palberta5000 where the trio looked to commercial pop music for inspiration. “While punk music was our first love, pop music has become our fixation," the band said when announcing the new album. "Throughout the making of Palberta5000, we were focused on making music that people could not only sing along to but get stuck in their heads... that and attempting to make songs longer than 50 seconds."

The songs on Palberta5000 would not ever be confused for Avril Lavigne or Sheryl Crow (two of the inspirations here), but this is easily their most accessible, melody forward album to date. It's the right kind of progression, too, with mid-fi production that cleans them up just enough to make all the things that were already good shine without changing what they do. The interplay between Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser really pops now, both the instrumentation and, especially, their harmonies. Their voices rarely go for traditional harmony arrangements, instead coming to an off-kilter harmony style that's almost as angular as the guitars. As for song length, most fall between two and three minutes, sticking around just as long as they need to. This is Palberta refined, a welcome renovation via the original designers.

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