Smoking Popes, L.A. Guns, & Chevelle

Catch up on the week in new releases and Dig Me Out podcast

Latest Podcasts

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New Release Roundup

Smith/Kotzen – Black Light/White Noise

Most rock fans know Adrian Smith as Iron Maiden’s twin-guitar titan, and Richie Kotzen for melting fretboards across Poison, Mr. Big, and The Winery Dogs. What started as a pandemic side project now feels like a band with real legs. On Black Light/White Noise, their second album, the duo takes full control—writing, performing, and producing every track.

The lead single “White Noise” rips with swagger, while the deeper cuts melt genre boundaries, shifting between jazz, soul, and straight-up heavy rock. It sounds like two lifers chasing the sound they’ve always wanted to make—and finally getting there.

Miki Berenyi Trio – Tripla

That voice. If you were around in the ’90s, Miki Berenyi’s vocals were the soft core of countless shoegaze dreams. After Lush and a brief reunion, she disappeared—until now. With her partner K.J. "Moose" McKillop and Oliver Cherer, Berenyi returns in the Miki Berenyi Trio.

Tripla means "triple" in Hungarian, a nod to both heritage and collaboration. You hear the years between the notes. Lyrics touch on social media fatigue, climate dread, and aging not with bitterness, but with grace. Guitars shimmer. Synths pulse. It feels familiar, yet new. Her voice floats above it all, unaged, unshaken. She never left. She just waited until she had something real to say.

Craig Finn – Always Been

Craig Finn, best known from The Hold Steady, brings that same barstool intimacy to his sixth solo album, Always Been.

Produced by Adam Granduciel (The War on Drugs), the album sounds expansive but grounded. Kathleen Edwards and Sam Fender lend their voices, adding depth to Finn’s weathered prose. You get caught up in the details: a name, a glance, a street corner. This is less a collection of songs than a small town’s worth of memories—stitched together with empathy and heart.

L.A. Guns – Leopard Skin

The guitar kicks in like a muscle car engine. This is L.A. Guns—Sunset Strip royalty, glam-metal survivors, and now, 40 years deep, still swinging. Tracii Guns and Phil Lewis are back with Leopard Skin, their 15th album, and somehow, they sound hungrier than ever.

Produced by Adam Hamilton, the record doesn’t soften a thing. From the snarling "Lucky Motherfucker" to the sleaze-blues strut of "Taste It," this is rock made to piss off neighbors. But the real twist? It’s fun. There’s a looseness here, a band that knows its lane and floors it. You don’t need to overthink it. Just turn it up.

The Waterboys – Life, Death and Dennis Hopper

You read the title. Dennis Hopper? Yes. Mike Scott and The Waterboys have crafted a full concept album tracing the icon’s chaotic, art-soaked life. From Easy Rider to the edge of ruin, Life, Death and Dennis Hopperunfolds like a mixtape made for a biopic.

Bruce Springsteen, Fiona Apple, and Steve Earle appear as sonic cameos, each voicing moments from Hopper’s past. It’s a strange, cinematic journey—part folk, part rock opera, part fever dream. You’re not sure what’s coming next, but that’s the point. Neither was Hopper. Neither is Scott. It’s the most ambitious Waterboys release in years, and maybe the most curious.

Panchiko – Ginkgo

The CD surfaced on 4chan in 2016. Scratched. Forgotten. And then the internet did what it does—resurrected a ghost. Panchiko were teens in Nottingham when they made D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L in 2000. Now, after viral fame, tours, and a surprise second life, they return with Ginkgo.

The sound is bigger, more confident, but still strange and beautiful. Tracks like "Shandy in the Graveyard" feature glitchy beats, orchestral swells, even a billy woods verse. It shouldn’t work. It does. The nostalgia’s there, but so is the growth.

Smoking Popes – Lovely Stuff

That voice—it croons. It aches. It sings like a punk-rock Sinatra. Smoking Popes made their mark in the ’90s by marrying buzzsaw guitars with velvet vocals, and on Lovely Stuff, they pick up exactly where they left off.

The songs are lean, melodic, and impossibly sincere. “Golden Moment” bursts with heart. “Madison” aches like a breakup you saw coming. Josh Caterer still sounds like no one else, and the band—still the original lineup—plays like they’ve been waiting to say this. It’s punk with a beating heart, and it’s lovely indeed.

Elton John & Brandi Carlile – Who Believes in Angels?

You wouldn’t expect Elton John and Brandi Carlile to make a full album together. But here it is—and it’s beautiful. Who Believes in Angels? isn’t just a duet record. It’s a shared vision, equally split between two artists at very different, but equally powerful, points in their careers.

Produced by Andrew Watt, the album balances Elton’s grand piano ballads with Carlile’s earthy Americana. Tracks like “Little Richard’s Bible” and “The Rose of Laura Nyro” pay homage to icons, but the chemistry between Elton and Brandi is the true star. They harmonize like they’ve been singing together for decades. You feel it in your chest.

Coming Soon Dig Me Out Podcasts

🏆 And the Winner Is... Celtic Frost – Into the Pandemonium

The votes are in. The dust has settled. And rising from the chaos? Celtic Frost.

It wasn’t a blowout, but it was decisive. Across both Patreon and Substack, Into the Pandemonium captured hearts, ears, and a few childhood fears (shout out to Patrick Testa and his Catholic school trauma). Whether you voted for the icy riffs of “Mesmerized” or just wanted to hear us try to pronounce “KELL-tick” correctly on-air, this pick is as bold and unpredictable as the album itself.

It’s not glam, not thrash, not what most people expect when they think of MTV-era metal. But that’s exactly why it won. It’s the sound of a band breaking their own mold just as everyone else was settling into one. It’s risky. It’s theatrical. It’s Into the Pandemonium.

Whether you’re revisiting it or pressing play for the first time, get ready for an album that still startles and fascinates nearly 40 years on. The episode’s in the works. Fire up your speakers—or your walkman—and join us on the ride.

This one’s going to be something else.

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