Skip to main content

New Music Monday: Our Most Anticipated Albums of 2016

This week’s New Music Monday is breaking format slightly by focusing not on a record that’s come out recently, but on what’s to come. Below you will find three artists whose records are some of our most anticipated albums for the coming year.

Mount Moriah – How to Dance – Merge Records – Release Date: February 26, 2016

Recommended Videos

In early October, Mount Moriah released a 7″ single (featured in this column, in fact) containing the studio version of “Calvander,” a garage demo of “Baby Blue,” and a live rendition of “Plane.” While the last track on the 7″ is from the band’s debut, “Calvander” and “Baby Blue” are as yet unreleased. About a month later, “Cardinal Cross” became the first official preview of the band’s third album, How to Dance. The track shows a more muscular side of Mount Moriah, specifically of Jenks Miller’s already impressive guitar playing. It bears more resemblance to their live show (cf. their cover of Neil Young’s “Revolution Blues“), which is hardly a negative. Given how strong Mount Moriah’s self-titled debut and sophomore albums are, How to Dance has big shoes to fill but the band seem well up to the challenge.

Cardinal Cross

Vampire Weekend – TBA

2013’s Modern Vampires of the City was a revelation from Vampire Weekend. After something of a sophomore slump with Contra in 2010, the band returned with their strongest album yet, proving how far they had come lyrically and musically. Ezra Koenig’s lyrics had moved on from tales of university life and holidays to deeper, philosophical questions. Koenig has compared Vampire Weekend’s first three albums to a bildungsroman, specifically Evelyn Waugh’s classic Brideshead Revisited. As in the final third of Waugh’s novel, religion and death are prominent themes on Modern Vampires, with track titles including “Unbelievers,” “Diane Young,” and “Worship You,” among others. Musically, the band are still producing relentlessly catchy pop, but their palette and sound have expanded. Modern Vampires is fuller than the previous two records, thanks in huge part to keyboardist and songwriter Rostam Batmanglij’s attention to detail in constructing the tracks. If Modern Vampires was the final entry in Vampire Weekend’s coming of age tale, then whatever album they release next should prove a fascinating step.

Vampire Weekend - Ya Hey (Official Lyrics Video)

The Wrens – TBA

Consistent readers may recall that last year The Wrens were on New Music Monday’s list of most anticipated albums for 2015. As longtime fans of the band and astute readers may suspect, no album was forthcoming. The band has, as the front page of their website notes, been keeping people waiting since 1989. After a full seven years between their second and their albums, their yet-untitled but allegedly mastered fourth album will come out some 13 years after their third, assuming it is released in 2016. Given the New Jersey indie rockers’ history, the results should prove worth the wait.

The Wrens - This Boy Is Exhausted - 3/20/2009 - Mohawk Outside Stage
Terence Praet
Terence Praet contributes to The Manual’s New Music Monday column. He studied Philosophy and History at Skidmore College…
Don’t ruin your cigars: here’s how to properly season a new humidor
Seasoning secrets every cigar lover could use
faceless man presenting a cigar humidor with cigars inside with gloved hands

If you're a newcomer to the world of cigars or just bought a brand-new humidor, you'll need to season it. And no, I'm not saying to add salt and pepper to it. If you've never heard of it, you might ask, "What is seasoning for a humidor?"

Don't think you need to flavor the box or anything — seasoning is really about getting the wood inside your humidor so as not to rob your cigars of precious moisture. Easy to understand, and getting it done is relatively straightforward as well. The trick is figuring out the "why," and we'll get into that in a bit. But let's first discuss seasoning a humidor.

Read more
The NBA’s ultimate celebration tool: The victory cigar
A look at the players and coaches who smoke to celebrate
Jordan smoking a cigar image on a bag

Sports are synonymous with celebration. After winning the biggest trophy of their lives, athletes want to indulge in the payoff that comes with seeing their dreams realized. Teams go into the locker room, where a waterfall of champagne hits them in the eyes, and swimming goggles seem to be a requirement, lest you walk around on the best night of your life half blind. While drinking is often the activity of choice after winning a championship, the NBA has an alternative symbol of greatness that other sports don't use nearly enough: the victory cigar.

Basketball is a team game, but it's also an individual canvas for solo superstardom. After winning an NBA championship, the coaches and players who sit atop the throne have long smoked a cigar in the locker room, during the parade, or even on the bench before the clock has hit zero. There's nothing quite like a good stogie to signify the ultimate win over the rest of the league, but how did the victory cigar get so ingrained in NBA championship celebrations? We want to take a walk down memory lane and look at some of the historical moments and people who made the cigar what it is within the NBA today.
Red Auerbach's victory cigar on the bench
Red Auerbach: The Story Behind the Victory Cigar + His Disdain of NBA Officials - Red on Roundball

Read more
The best medical shows of all time to binge now
From ER to The Pitt, these are the best medical shows ever made
Noah Wyle in the Pitt

Throughout TV's long history, the medical drama has occupied a somewhat unique place in the landscape. Medical shows are often some of the most reliable on TV precisely because there's so much drama built in to working in a hospital.

Personally, I've found the medical drama to be deeply comforting for years, even if I have no desire to be a doctor myself. Understanding the stress of people in the healthcare profession is fascinating in and of itself.

Read more