Welcome to an abbreviated November/December edition of tunes, or the music playing in my head.

This album recap is abbreviated because there weren't many new releases of interest to me during the year's final two months. However, the second full-length album by The Struts was highly anticipated on my side of the musical street, and it has not disappointed.

At Drowned in Sound, reviewer Andy McDonald gets straight to the point.

The general consensus between film reviewers is that recent Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody fails to capture the essence of the seminal British pomp-rockers. Fortunately, in the same week came Young & Dangerous from The Struts, which goes some way to doing just that. As their stylistic forefathers’ legacy is committed to film, the Derby lads continue to write the early chapters of their story with this second full-length release.

There’s no real mystique as to what The Struts are doing - unashamedly paying homage to Britain’s genre-defining prestige through a resuscitation of glam rock, their sound bursting with cocksure Stones grooves, Queen’s theatrical panache and T. Rex’s irreverent-but-ensnaring lyrical riddles. They’ve even previously invoked the subversive spirit of the Sex Pistols by recording a video on a Thames boat for hit ‘Could Have Been Me’ from their debut Everybody Wants.

It is likely there cannot possibly be a greater contrast than that to be found between The Struts and The 1975, with the latter's new album A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships tagged as “the millennial answer to OK Computer” by one reviewer.

Spin's Ian Cohen offers online-relationships-review/">this take.

 ... The 1975 are just a lot. They make overwhelming albums about being emotionally and technologically overwhelmed. More than anything they’ve released to date, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships is prone to maniacal ambition as well as crippling self-doubt and anxiety, obsessed with the granular details of social media etiquette while contemplating the benefits of going off the grid for a while, if not forever. This is a brief inquiry—58 minutes is not a lot to ask when you consider the scope of it all—but “I don’t know” serves as a mission statement rather than a copout to analytic paralysis. Healy probes everything about making music and consuming music in 2018 without resorting to cynicism or nihilism.

As a wheezing geezer, I concede to having had too little time the past month to properly digest the album, which means the arbitrary constraints of chronological reference may fail me in this instance and there may be more to say.

But verily this track is masterful, an absolutely gorgeous commentary on suicide -- if there can be such a thing.

NME reviews the eponymous debut of The Parcels, "a Berlin-based band from Byron Bay, Australia who write songs with slick grooves inspired by the hi-fi funk of 1970s AM radio."

Remarkably, ‘Parcels’ manages to be an album that transcends elements from across pop history while still sounding remarkably fresh. The shimmering disco tendencies of the ‘70s turn ‘Lightenup’ and ‘IknowhowIfeel’ into dance floor smashes, as influences from ‘80s pop titans like Hall & Oates and The Cars rear their heads on gooey cuts like ‘Withorwithoutyou’ and ‘Yourfault’. Meanwhile, ‘Tape’ sounds like it would sit nicely on The Strokes’ underrated synth-heavy 2011 album ‘Angels’, and ‘Everyroad’ has a chunky bassline wobble in its exuberant final third.

Kindly note that when it comes to synthesized electronic robot music, if I can (a) at least imagine the songs being played live by humans with instruments, and (b) locate a tune or melody capable of being whistled somewhere amid the digital layers, then it's okay by me. The Parcels fit therein.

Speaking of "Something Human," and to conclude this glance at the music playing in my head, Muse has returned to action with Simulation Theory.

Yes, I love the grandiosity, the bombast, and even the pilferage.

 ... “Something Human” requires using Muse and trop house in the same sentence, at least until the acoustic guitars arrive. The song then becomes an uncanny homage to George Michael. The airy backing track of “Get Up and Fight” could pass for Balearic pop or a Sweetener outtake, while those whoa-ohs during state-of-the-art guitarless rocker “Thought Contagion” should be of great interest to both satellite radio providers and Imagine Dragons’ copyright lawyers. Leave it to Muse to discover Fleetwood Mac in 2018 and go straight for Tusk. They get the lesser-known of Los Angeles’ major college marching bands to play on the alternate version of “Pressure”—that it’s a highlight for UCLA says more about their current football team than the song itself.

In other November/December musical news, the following topics engaged my ear -- and the end-of-year favorite album wrap will be published in a few days, or whenever I get around to it.

Flight documentaries: An indispensable documentary about Mick Ronson, the under-appreciated guitarist and arranger for David Bowie.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: The Man in Black wasn't chasing rainbows with this classic song.

You know Freddie Mercury and Queen stole the show at Live Aid, but what the hell WAS Live Aid?

1812 Overture and more; Louisville Orchestra at the Ogle on January 19, performing Tchaikovsky.

And Gordon Lightfoot:

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Edmund Fitzgerald? It's much, much more than a Porter.

A Muse-accented three-pack: On civil war, Europeans resisting Trump and Americans resisting Trump.

At The Nation, a discussion about the prospects for Civil War.

Are We on the Verge of Another Civil War? by Richard Kreitner

A decade ago, when David Armitage began working on his new book, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas, published this week by Knopf, he had no idea how relevant the subject would become. These days, it’s hard to avoid concluding that American society is tearing itself apart. Several observations and arguments in the book can be harrowing to read—that the nations mostly likely to devolve into civil wars are those that have suffered such conflicts before; that civil wars are most likely when the government is divided against itself; that politics is civil war by other means. Civil Wars ranges over more than two millennia of history, law, and philosophy, but it feels as urgent as the latest shock, as fresh as tomorrow’s news.

Maybe we'll get lucky and be quarantined by an international coalition.

Europe Must Defend Itself Against a Dangerous President, A DER SPIEGEL Editorial By Klaus Brinkbäumer

There are times in life that really do count. Times when a person's character is revealed, when the important is separated from the unimportant. Soon decisions are taken that will determine the further path a person takes. With some, this can be tragic, and the moment comes too soon in their youth at a time when they aren't mature enough yet to foresee all the potential consequences. They make the decisions cheerfully and they lead to either luck or bad luck. But countries and governments are seldom as innocent when it comes to their decisions.

Finally, delving more specifically into the nuts and bolts of resistance.

Your Guide to the Sprawling New Anti-Trump Resistance Movement, by Joshus Holland (The Nation)

An explosion of new activism offers a ray of hope in these dark political times.

The election of Donald Trump was a catastrophe for progressive America, but the damage may be mitigated over the long term by a remarkable surge of energy on the left in response to his election. As many as 5.2 million people participated in hastily-organized Women’s Marches across the country, senators’ phones have reportedly been jammed with calls protesting Trump’s Cabinet nominees and other early moves, and according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post, more than one in three Democrats say they plan to become “more involved in the political process in the next year” as a result of the election. That’s true of 40 percent of Democratic women, and almost half of self-identified liberal Democrats.

The widely held view that Trump is an illegitimate president who’s poised to enact an agenda combining the worst of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “granny-starving” fiscal conservatism with White House consigliere Steve Bannon’s ethno-nationalism has fueled the formation of dozens of new grassroots resistance groups. Some were launched by seasoned political operatives, others by people who hadn’t engaged in activism in the past. Some were germinated during chats on long bus rides to the Women’s March. Not all of them will succeed—some false starts are a given—but like any collection of innovative start-ups, it only takes a few successes to change the landscape.

Here’s an overview of some of the new efforts launched since November 9. It’s by no means comprehensive, but we started with a list of 75 new groups and whittled them down to some of the most interesting or promising. They’re not presented in any kind of ranked order. Our hope is that knowing how others are standing up to Trump will inspire more readers to get involved.

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 3): My Top Twenty Albums, 15 - 11.

Continuing the year-end album list, and hoping I'm finished by Sunday. First, there are potatoes to cook.

15. The Decemberists … What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
Clever and tuneful as always, with a pervasive wittiness encapsulated by the album's opening cut, in which the singer tries to reason with his fans.

14. Blur … The Magic Whip
Back in the 1990s, when Oasis recharged my adoration for all things Brit pop/rock, I wasn't aware of a rivalry between the Gallaghers and Blur, which became a cultural marker of sorts in the UK. I merely liked both bands for different reasons, and still do.

13. Squeeze … Cradle to the Grave
When it comes to great post-Beatles pop songwriting teams, I genuinely believe Difford and Tilbrook deserve to be included in the discussion, alongside the likes of Elton John/Bernie Taupin.

With its best songs vividly referencing the 70s South London landscape of Difford and Tilbrook’s youth, FTCTTG is frequently nostalgic, yet it’s largely upbeat and mostly eminently radio-friendly.

12. Florence + The Machine … How Big How Blue How Beautiful
I have no profundity to offer, apart from enjoying the vibe ... and I'm a sucker for music about lost causes, and one's principled defiance in their wake.

11. Muse … Drones
As thematic musical concepts go, perhaps militarization borne of drones isn't a shtick designed to capture addled minds -- though why not? Drones kill enemies, but isn't this the stuff of dystopian science fiction come to fruition? Isn't this as deserving of scrutiny as the Vietnam War? There's a protest here somewhere, right? I have no answers, and neither do Muse. The fact is, I've come to love the band's bombast, even if its reach exceeds grasp.

Previously:

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 3): My Top Twenty Albums, 15 - 11.

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 4): My Top Twenty Albums, 20 - 16.

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 5): A few album odds and ends.

Roger's Year in Music 2015 (Part 6): Five musical news items not classifiable by album release.

Roger's Year in Music 2015 (Part 7): The band Lynched, and New Albany's perpetual drone.

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 8): How did I die? A WWI lamentation.

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 9): Kamasi Washington and his Epic.

Roger’s Year in Music 2015 (Part 10): But first, some 2014 leftovers.

An economy based on endless growth is unsustainable, according to Muse.

It's never, ever, simple, but if you trace a line from Queen and a half-dozen "prog" rockers through middle period U2 and Radiohead, you might have a vague notion about what Muse is. I was slow coming around to Muse ... but the music is hitting me hard right about now. The trailer (above) provides a better idea of where Muse has been, but "Madness" just might be a clue to where the group is going -- or not. They skip around a bit, and although the band is British, The 2nd Law is my personal election soundtrack for 2012.