Bloglander

Every week the entertainment biz drops a slew of new albums and movies on the market, and we're here every Tuesday to sift through it all to give you the best of the week's new releases. Let's get to it. 

MUSIC
It's a pretty monster-sized week for new music, coming hot on the heels of Record Store Day, and new releases from Joywave, Passion Pit, Rocky Votolato, Wire, Yelawolf and They Might Be Giants all warrant a listen. Here are the three new releases I'm most excited about:  

Built to Spill — Boise's finest! — took six years between albums, and the band has undergone some lineup changes in the intervening years. You wouldn't notice, though, listening to the new Untethered Moon, another set of searing guitar solos and dreamy excursions courtesy of main man Doug Martsch. Here's a pretty damn funny video for "Never Be the Same:"

Alabama Shakes seemed like one of the most overrated band's in recent memory when I saw them just as their debut album was being released. There was no denying the magnetic appeal of lead singer Brittany Howard, but the rest of the band were boring on stage, coming off as a competent bar band and little more. On their recordings, though, Howard's voice and guitar is the focus, and that's a good thing. Sound & Color is their new album, here's a taste: 

Speedy Ortiz is a Massachusetts-based indie-rock crew led by the incisive singer/songwriter Sadie Dupuis, a poetry MFA candidate when she's not busy leading this band that veers from noise-rock to pop-punk with ease. The band's new album is Foil Deer. Here's a live clip from this year's SXSW: 

MOVIES & TV
Among the new releases this week on DVD and BluRay, some might want to see Jennifer Aniston's turn as a painkiller addict in Cake, a movie that earned her much acclaim while also facing middling reviews. Or you can see Liam Neeson doing that ass-kicking thing — again — in Taken 3. 

Instead, consider checking out festival fave A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a black-and-white tale of a female vampire in Iran who haunts Bad City while delving into a relationship with a young man. Here's a look at the trailer: