While She Sleeps - Self Hell (Album Review)
While She Sleeps have been undergoing a metamorphosis on their past few releases. Pushing past the metalcore fury of ‘You Are We’ and ‘Brainwashed’, the Sheffield band embraced electronics to greater degrees with ‘So What?’ and ‘Sleeps Society’. Their latest missive ‘Self Hell’ doesn’t just continue in that vein, it does take a sledgehammer to expectations.
Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Wednesday, 03 April 2024
Empress Of - For Your Consideration (Album Review)
Photo: Kaio Cesar Empress Of entered the scene in 2015 with in-your-face, feminist electronica. In the intervening years she has stood up her own label and refined her sound. But with a move towards club bangers, 'For Your Consideration' places Lorely Rodriguez in a pretty crowded field.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 02 April 2024
Gossip - Real Power (Album Review)
To some, Gossip have been defined by one song. It’s been almost 20 years since Standing In The Way Of Control cut through the indie sleaze scene with groove and dancefloor ambition, making Beth Ditto into an LGBTQ+ icon and setting up a breakthrough album at the third time of asking.
Written by: Matthew McLister | Date: Friday, 29 March 2024
The Jesus And Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes (Album Review)
Photo: Steve Gullick Despite veering from uber cool to directionless, the Jesus & Mary Chain’s eighth album is a more cohesive band effort than its predecessor, 2017’s ‘Damage & Joy’, which was mainly built around pieces the Reid brothers had accumulated individually during the band’s almost decade-long hiatus.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 28 March 2024
Lauran Hibberd - Girlfriend Material (Album Review)
Photo: Emily Marcovecchio Sometimes you need something to transport you to a different place; to get away from whatever’s slowing you down. For the most part that’s what Lauran Hibberd’s ‘Girlfriend Material’ provides, its satisfactory indie-rock speckled with pop culture references to make you feel included in its part break up, part grief, part Mean Girls world.
Written by: Jack McGill | Date: Wednesday, 27 March 2024
Adrianne Lenker - Bright Future (Album Review)
Photo: Germaine Dunes Adrianne Lenker’s latest solo album feels like a work in progress — these are rough and raw songs recorded onto tape before they can be crafted into something solid and sellable. This, perhaps, is the point.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 26 March 2024
Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood (Album Review)
Waxahatchee’s 2020 record ‘Saint Cloud’ will likely come to be viewed as a tipping point in the career of singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield. Her fifth record in eight years, it transformed her from indie-folk’s best kept secret into an alt-Americana star.
Written by: Craig Howieson | Date: Friday, 22 March 2024
Judas Priest - Invincible Shield (Album Review)
Photo: James Hodges More than 50 years in the game have established Judas Priest as one of the UK’s most important bands, metal or otherwise. It would take something truly risible to tarnish that legacy at this point and their 19th album certainly isn’t that. On ‘Invincible Shield’ the quintet prove the value of experience with another rock solid record.
Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Thursday, 21 March 2024
Justin Timberlake - Everything I Thought It Was (Album Review)
Justin Timberlake is a pro when it comes to making high-quality pop. He’s probably the most successful former boyband member this side of Michael Jackson — sorry Robbie, sorry Harry — and barring the 2018 misstep ‘Man of the Woods’, he has seldom put a musical foot wrong.
Written by: Adam England | Date: Thursday, 21 March 2024
The Dandy Warhols - Rockmaker (Album Review)
For album 12, the Dandy Warhols’ frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor had in mind a heavier, more metallic collection. While guitarist Peter Holmström took some persuading, drummer Brent DeBoer was on board immediately and, with the push coming from the two of them, it was too much for the indie-rock lifers to resist.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Four Tet - Three (Album Review)
Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden is a remarkably unpretentious musician. It would be easy to look at his improvised collaborations with jazz drummer Steve Reid and get the wrong idea, given the way recent crowd-pleasing work with Skrillex and Fred Again revealed someone unconcerned with high brow expectations.
Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Tuesday, 19 March 2024
Jahari Massamba Unit - YHWH Is Love (Album Review)
Photo: Jimel Primm It used to be that a simple genre tag would give you a clear idea of what an album or artist sounds like, but with all the advancements and innovations that have been made over the years, they can be quite restrictive. Take Madlib and Karriem Riggins’ collaborative project Jahari Massamba Unit, for instance. When they released their debut record — 2020’s ‘Pardon My French’ — they opted for the term ‘Black classical music’ because the ‘jazz’ label that the industry favoured just didn't do the work justice.
Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Tuesday, 19 March 2024
Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well (Album Review)
Photo: Kelly Christine Sutton On album five, country-pop titan Kacey Musgraves has set aside the lush, maximalist affair that was ‘Star Crossed’, going back to basics for an intimate, folk-tinged stroll through love, loss and ruminations on life’s purpose.
Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Monday, 18 March 2024
Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine (Album Review)
Photo: Katia Temkin Four years on from the release of ‘Positions’ Ariana Grande has kicked things up a notch with ‘Eternal Sunshine’, serving up hit after hit while swapping out tales of lust, attraction and intimacy to focus on her life post-divorce.
Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Wednesday, 13 March 2024
Hurray for the Riff Raff - The Past Is Still Alive (Album Review)
Photo: Tommy Kha Alynda Segarra has lived a life. Every detail — the teenage runaway, the box cars, years spent busking — has come to inform their standing as one of America’s most talented and interesting singer-songwriters. And, while their fortunes may have changed, Hurray For the Riff Raff’s ninth album ‘The Past Is Still Alive’ is a sobering reminder that every experience leaves an indelible mark.
Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Tuesday, 12 March 2024
Nils Frahm - Day (Album Review)
Nils Frahm’s ‘Day’ is a piano record that displays the composer’s ability to wring something introspective and profound from a minimalist’s palette, flowing with the ease of a brook in a tranquil valley.
Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Tuesday, 12 March 2024
Kim Gordon - The Collective (Album Review)
Photo: Danielle Neu Kim Gordon’s second solo album is a grimy hot mess — a sonic journey into guitar dirges, glitchy trap beats and scrawled late night iPhone notes. It's another strikingly bold record from the former Sonic Youth bassist and maintains much of the urgent energy of her 2019 debut ‘No Home Record’.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 11 March 2024
Bleachers - Bleachers (Album Review)
Photo: Alex Lockett Jack Antonoff has had a successful and varied career as both a producer and performer, but he tends to exist in the shadows cast by his megastar associates, from Taylor Swift to the 1975 and Lana Del Rey. Here he returns with the fourth Bleachers album, serving up an expectedly eclectic collection that underlines his credentials as a songwriter who can adapt to different surroundings.
Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Friday, 08 March 2024
Yard Act - Where's My Utopia? (Album Review)
Photo: Phoebe Fox Move over post-punk, the funk-pop revolution has begun. Yard Act have followed up their breakthrough debut album ‘The Overload’ with ‘Where’s My Utopia?’, a self-reflexive masterpiece where bangers are crafted by putting a knife to the throat of the very notion of hitmaking.
Written by: Jack Press | Date: Thursday, 07 March 2024
Faye Webster - Underdressed at the Symphony (Album Review)
A lot has changed since Faye Webster put out ‘I Know I’m Funny Haha’ three years ago. She’s now one of those artists whose profiles blew up thanks to organic TikTok virality, giving her previously steady rise something of a turbo boost. But you wouldn’t know it from ‘Underdressed At The Symphony’, where she continues to develop her sound as though nothing has changed, leaving no emotional stone unturned in the process.
Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Wednesday, 06 March 2024
