Tom Smith - There is Nothing In The Dark That Isn't There In The Light (Album Review)

Photo: Edith Smith Tom Smith is best known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Editors, releasing seven studio albums with the post-punk band since 2005. His first solo LP is a departure from the indie sounds of his day job, with ‘There is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light’ incorporating elements of folk alongside his signature vocal style.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Friday, 12 December 2025

Isobel Waller-Bridge - Objects (Album Review)

Isobel Waller-Bridge has enjoyed success as a film, television and theatre composer, having previously formulated scores for Fleabag, Black Mirror and The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. Written over a period of four years, her new solo album ‘Objects’ provides a sense of stillness, gaining musical inspiration from simple household objects such as a shoe or glass while forcing you to shift into the present moment.

Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Thursday, 11 December 2025

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Live God (Album Review)

Photo: Megan Cullen Nick Cave has spent the past decade evolving from vampiric soothsayer to gothic preacher, and ‘Live God’ feels like the document of that transformation. Captured across the Wild God Tour of 2024-25, it packages Cave’s late-career evangelism into 18 tracks that blur the lines between rock concert and secular gospel service.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 10 December 2025

Melody's Echo Chamber - Unclouded (Album Review)

Photo: Diane Sagnier ‘Unclouded’ is the latest chapter in Juliana Melody Prochet’s ongoing attempt to put her own distinctive spin on neo-psychedelia with Melody’s Echo Chamber. It is another dreamy, inviting soundscape that crams plenty of textures and rich detail into its 30-minute runtime, with many of its sub three minute tracks still painting vivid pictures.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Tuesday, 09 December 2025

Ella Eyre - Everything, In Time (Album Review)

‘Everything, in time’ is a fitting title for Ella Eyre’s first full length release in 10 years; a bold, spirited record infused with retro soul, funk and R&B vibes. Not that the years since 2015’s ‘Feline’ have been fallow. After hitting number one with her debut release, as featured artist on Rudimental’s 2013 megahit Waiting All Night, she enjoyed a run of singles chart success.

Written by: Jeremy Blackmore | Date: Monday, 08 December 2025

Jessie J - Don't Tease Me With A Good Time (Album Review)

Photo: Ashley Osborn  After becoming a household name in the early 2010s thanks to hits such as Price Tag, Jessie J has ridden waves of uncertainty in the wake of 2014’s ‘Sweet Talker’, which housed her last genuine smash in the form of the Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj collab Bang Bang. Some level of critical acclaim followed with ‘R.O.S.E.’, but her profile remained at a simmer. That might change with ‘Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time’, a record that’s deeply personal and accomplished.

Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Tuesday, 02 December 2025

Keaton Henson - Parader (Album Review)

Photo: Danielle Fricke For an artist who’s long served as one of indie-folk’s most reliable confessors, Keaton Henson sounds remarkably uncertain on ‘Parader’. But that gnawing feeling proves to be its greatest asset.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Monday, 01 December 2025

Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover - What of Our Nature (Album Review)

American folk music’s heyday was the 1960s — a moment of collective yearning when Woody Guthrie’s protest spirit collided with a mass cultural awakening. Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover are acutely aware of that lineage on ‘What of Our Nature’, a record that consciously throws back to that era’s campfire radicalism while interrogating what’s happened to the country since.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 27 November 2025

Glitterer - erer (Album Review)

Photo: Alex Szantos Over the past few years, what began as a solitary experiment in bedroom synth-pop for Title Fight’s Ned Russin has crystallised into a fully-fledged band with real heft. Leaning into evolution with intent on their first full-length for Purple Circle Records — the new label co-owned by Russin — ‘erer’ is Glitterer’s most focused, immediate, and thematically pointed release so far.

Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Wednesday, 26 November 2025

Kelly Lee Owens - Kelly EP (Album Review)

Photo: Adam Titchener Following up her masterful 2024 LP ‘Dreamstate’, a lush, lucid and airy collection of club music, was always going to be a tricky task for Kelly Lee Owens. But, instead of trying to strictly emulate its effervescent, emotionally-charged tone, the Welsh electronic musician and DJ has instead come up with a heavier, harder follow-up.

Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Tuesday, 25 November 2025

AVTT/PTTN - AVTT/PTTN (Album Review)

Photo: Crackerfarm Mike Patton has never been an artist afraid of the weird, the abrasive or the wilfully obtuse, so the former Faith No More frontman’s team-up with folk-rockers The Avett Brothers always felt primed for some kind of combustion, creative or otherwise. What we get instead is a record stitched together remotely over several years that sits in an uncanny midpoint: oddly intimate, strangely anonymous, occasionally brilliant, intermittently baffling.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 19 November 2025

FKA Twigs - Eusexua Afterglow (Album Review)

Photo: Jordan Hemingway Growing out of the prospect of a deluxe edition of this year’s ‘Eusexua’, FKA Twigs’ fourth LP is about digging deeper. Instead of throwing a few extra tracks on streaming services we have ‘Eusexua Afterglow’, an avant-pop electronic record packed with dance anthems, picking up from where its predecessor left off with its celebration of the underground rave scene in Prague.

Written by: Laura Mills | Date: Tuesday, 18 November 2025

Whitney - Small Talk (Album Review)

Photo: Alexa Vicious With a title like ‘Small Talk’, you’d expect Whitney’s fourth LP to take place amid the mundane parts of life, but this album shows the Chicago-formed duo in a different light as they lay love and loss on the table. The results are wonderful. This isn’t meaningless chatter and preamble — it’s two artists opening up every ounce of their thoughts for the world to see.

Written by: Laura Mills | Date: Monday, 17 November 2025

White Lies - Night Light (Album Review)

Photo: Jono White White Lies’ bleak-yet-infectious riff on ‘80s synth-pop stood out among their late ‘00s indie-rock peers. The trio's cinematic gloss and euphoric energy felt nostalgic and fresh at the same time, propelling their 2009 debut ‘To Lose My Life…’ to number one on the UK albums chart.

Written by: Matthew McLister | Date: Friday, 14 November 2025

Stella Donnelly - Love and Fortune (Album Review)

Photo: Nick MckInlay On her third album, Stella Donnelly offers up a meditation on heartbreak. But, while she wears her heart on her sleeve throughout her most vulnerable collection yet, ‘Love And Fortune’ struggles with inconsistent song development, where some tracks feel worryingly shallow and others as deep pools to navigate.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Friday, 14 November 2025

Westerman - A Jackal's Wedding (Album Review)

Photo: Eric Scaggiante When ‘A Jackal’s Wedding’ opens with a peal of wedding bells, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a concept record. What follows, though, is closer to the loose stream-of-consciousness writing we’ve come to know and love from Westerman.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 13 November 2025

Del Water Gap - Chasing The Chimera (Album Review)

Photo: Anthony Wilson On ‘Chasing The Chimera’, Brooklyn-based songwriter Samuel Holden Jaffe steps out from the indie-pop darkness of 2023’s ‘I Miss You Already + I Haven't Left Yet’ into warming, indie-folk sunlight. His third album as Del Water Gap trades moody, synth-driven atmospherics for strummed acoustics and jazz-inflected arrangements, navigating territory between Father John Misty’s baroque-pop wryness and Phoebe Bridgers’ emo-folk vulnerability.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Thursday, 13 November 2025

Portugal. The Man - Shish (Album Review)

Photo: Nathan Perke Portugal. The Man’s career has been fascinating. Having formed in 2004, they didn’t become a household name until the release of Feel It Still in 2017, a gargantuan smash that propelled its parent record ‘Woodstock’ to sell more than a million copies in the US alone. Now, the band return with ‘Shish’, a record that seeks to show you all the places they’ve been by amalgamating the sounds they have dabbled in over the years.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Tortoise - Touch (Album Review)

Photo: Heather Cantrell Three decades after they first stretched the term post-rock into something supple, strange and Chicagoan, Tortoise return with ‘Touch’,  their first album in nearly a decade and, perhaps, their least cohesive. Once the blueprint for instrumental experimentation, the group’s spidery interplay has here become something more distant and deliberate, a collaboration assembled across time zones rather than assembled face-to-face.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Rosalía - Lux (Album Review)

Rosalía’s versatility is a given at this point. Whether she’s revamping flamenco on ‘El Mal Querer’ or serving up reggaeton with an avant-pop twist on ‘Motomami’, the Catalan songwriter is always ahead of the curve. ‘Lux’, though, is an entirely different beast even when viewed in that shape-shifting context; an odyssey through all things feminine and divine, complete with classical flourishes.

Written by: Sarah Taylor | Date: Tuesday, 11 November 2025

Kings of Leon - EP #2 (Album Review)

It’s been a prolific period for Kings of Leon, fresh from strong reviews for their most recent album ‘Can We Please Have Fun’ and several collaborations with Zach Bryan. Their first EP in more than 20 years marks a return to the raw sound of their early work and, while it might only amount to four tracks, it shows the group haven’t wholly abandoned the formula behind Molly’s Chambers for stadium anthems.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Monday, 10 November 2025

Witch Fever - FEVEREATEN (Album Review)

Photo: Frank Fieber Three years on from their debut ‘Congregation’, Manchester quartet Witch Fever have returned with a record that’s both more refined and more in hock to doom-metal — ‘FEVEREATEN’ brims with creativity, catharsis, and a sense of atmosphere. Amid its tumultuous guitars, brooding instrumentals, and sense of rage, it showcases new depth that keeps the listener on their toes.

Written by: Sarah Taylor | Date: Friday, 07 November 2025

Creeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death (Album Review)

Photo: Harry Steel While Creeper’s 2017 debut LP ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’ propelled the horror-punk band towards the mainstream, they haven’t sought to replicate its crossover blueprint in the intervening years. Their latest effort, ‘Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death’, is a tantalising theatrical successor to the critically acclaimed ‘Sanguivore’, taking musical inspiration from heavy metal legends Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Friday, 07 November 2025

Skullcrusher - And Your Song Is Like A Circle (Album Review)

Photo: Adam Alonzo Skullcrusher’s ‘And Your Song Is Like A Circle’ is a gorgeous, shimmering slice of folk with layered, ghostly harmonies. With songs built around elegant piano and acoustic guitar, plus scattered electronics and beats, New York singer-songwriter Helen Ballentine creates a dreamscape as she probes the way grief turns itself out, the feeling itself becoming as real and substantial as what’s been lost.

Written by: Jeremy Blackmore | Date: Thursday, 06 November 2025

Cat Burns - How To Be Human (Album Review)

Following a Mercury Prize nomination for 2024’s ‘Early Twenties’, Cat Burns confronts grief and heartbreak with unflinching honesty on her second album. Across 16 tracks, ‘How To Be Human’ documents the loss of her grandfather and post-breakup devastation alongside the blossoming hope of new love, trading sonic ambition for emotional directness.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Wednesday, 05 November 2025

Claire Rousay - A Little Death (Album Review)

Photo: Katherine Squier Fittingly, given its Halloween release date, ‘A Little Death’ is one of those rare albums that you don’t really notice at first, before it creeps up on you and worms its way inside your body and, finally, your soul.

Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Tuesday, 04 November 2025

Florence + The Machine - Everybody Scream (Album Review)

Photo: Autumn De Wilde On ‘Everybody Scream’, it feels like Florence Welch has become more myth than person, more folk goddess than a singer in a timeless band. Boasting an enchanting theme tightly woven like medieval tapestry, here Florence walks candlelit corridors while reciting a soul-bearing odyssey. The record’s Halloween release date is surely no coincidence as the band gleefully leans into imagery of witches and sorcery, perhaps inspiring the formation of a coven or two.

Written by: James Palaczky | Date: Tuesday, 04 November 2025

The Charlatans - We Are Love (Album Review)

Photo: Cat Stevens The Charlatans have been mainstays on the UK indie scene since the early ‘90s, with hits like One to Another and The Only One I Know among 22 Top 40 singles. Off the back of that, the band continue to be festival favourites, but they have been surprisingly quiet of late when it comes to original material. 

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Monday, 03 November 2025

Circa Waves - Death & Love Pt.2 (Album Review)

Photo: Polocho Released at the start of the year, Circa Waves’ ‘Death & Love Pt. 1’ found Kieran Shudall mulling over starting from scratch after his lowest point and a brush with mortality. Its follow up, though, marks a new wave of expression for the Liverpool band — it’s a bubbling, Strokes-inspired payoff to a period of hard graft.

Written by: Laura Mills | Date: Monday, 03 November 2025

Demi Lovato - It's Not That Deep (Album Review)

Photo: Paris Mumpower Demi Lovato’s ninth studio album is a refreshing departure in sound and substance, embracing techno, dance-pop, and EDM with a barrage of infectious hooks and thumping instrumentals. Newly married and entering a new chapter of her life, Lovato is seemingly at her happiest and most comfortable creatively on ‘It’s Not That Deep’, skipping around any desire to be diaristic or relive too many of her traumas. After all, so much of her personal life has been, unfairly, made so very public.

Written by: Sarah Taylor | Date: Friday, 31 October 2025

Sigrid - There's Always More That I Could Say (Album Review)

Photo: Charlotte Alex Having established herself as modern Scandi-pop royalty, Sigrid could have played it safe. Instead, her third album ‘There’s Always More That I Could Say’ prioritises creative vision over commercial formula, pivoting towards noughties indie-pop while maintaining her pop instincts.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Thursday, 30 October 2025

Brandi Carlile - Returning To Myself (Album Review)

Photo: Collier Schorr  Brandi Carlile has been a star of Americana for more than two decades, but interest in her work in the UK has reached a new level after the release of ‘Who Believes in Angels?’, her hit collaboration album with Elton John. Not content with standing still, she returns here with a solo record that contains her trademark powerhouse vocals and distinctive take on country-rock.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Thursday, 30 October 2025

They Are Gutting A Body Of Water - Lotto (Album Review)

Photo: Brian Karlsson After flirting with electronics and ambient sounds, experimental Philadelphia shoegazers They Are Gutting a Body of Water go back to basics on ‘Lotto’, their fourth studio album. It’s an uncompromising, unflinching, confessional record with menacing, fuzzy, scratchy guitars. Clocking at just over 27 minutes, there’s not an ounce of fat here.

Written by: Jeremy Blackmore | Date: Wednesday, 29 October 2025

Sudan Archives - The BPM (Album Review)

Photo: Yanran Xiong Sudan Archives thrives in contradiction — bold yet self-conscious, experimental yet rooted in instinct. On her third album she trades the sun-kissed exuberance of ‘Natural Brown Prom Queen’ for something grittier and more nocturnal: a breakup record that sweatily dances its way through the rebuild. It’s a versatile and cathartic record that may well break the LA violinist-singer-producer into the mainstream.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 28 October 2025

Of Monsters and Men - All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade (Album Review)

Photo: Eva Schram Of Monsters and Men have been at the vanguard of indie-folk since the release of their debut album in 2011, accompanied by their enduring single Little Talks. The Icelandic group now returns with their first album since 2019: ‘All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade’. It’s immediately obvious from Television Love that this is a return with purpose, immediately appearing more introspective and darker in sound.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Monday, 27 October 2025

Soulwax - All Systems Are Lying (Album Review)

Photo: Nadine Fraczkowski More than 20 years after Soulwax helped wire rock music to the club mainframe they return with ‘All Systems Are Lying’, a record that, like Daft Punk's ‘Random Access Memories’, feels both ferociously modern and defiantly handmade.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 24 October 2025

Tame Impala - Deadbeat (Album Review)

Photo: Julian Klincewicz Kevin Parker’s fifth Tame Impala album is a swing and a miss. ‘Deadbeat’ is one of the more versatile works in the psych-pop star’s catalogue, with shifting genre tropes throughout its tracks, repeatedly offering something different with big riffs and heavy drums. There are a few excellent songs here, but they’re dragged down by many more that amount to lacklustre drum machines and lyrics that sound tired.

Written by: Laura Mills | Date: Friday, 24 October 2025

Bar Italia - Some Like It Hot (Album Review)

Photo: Rankin On their fifth album in the space of five years, avant-garde indie-rockers Bar Italia are unusually attuned to commercial sounds. On ‘Some Like It Hot’ they have taken notes from the early 2000s post-punk and garage-rock revivals, with hints of Britpop, folk, and shoegaze sprinkled throughout.

Written by: Sarah Taylor | Date: Thursday, 23 October 2025

The Last Dinner Party - From The Pyre (Album Review)

Photo: Laura Marie Cieplik The Last Dinner Party’s debut album ‘Prelude to Ecstacy’ helped to establish them as one of the UK’s most unique bands, setting them on a path towards sold out shows and headline festival sets. Hot on its heels they have returned with a confident twist on their baroque-pop sound in the form of ‘From The Pyre’, a second LP that takes their established blueprints and doubles down rather than offering anything more versatile.

Written by: Laura Mills | Date: Wednesday, 22 October 2025

Militarie Gun - God Save The Gun (Album Review)

Now that hardcore is as popular as it’s ever been, the first half of the 2020s has given rise to a host of broadly successful post-hardcore (to flagrantly misuse that term) genre fusions. Militarie Gun play an alt-rock-hardcore blend, throwing a whole spectrum of influences, such as emo, shoegaze and even Britpop in with their harder-edged tendencies. 

Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Wednesday, 22 October 2025

Madi Diaz - Fatal Optimist (Album Review)

Photo: Allister Ann Last year represented a career high for Madi Diaz. Her sixth studio album ‘Weird Faith’ received two Grammy nominations as she enjoyed a higher profile after opening for Harry Styles before joining his tour band. ‘Fatal Optimist’, however, finds Diaz’s faith in love shattered. A break-up album, it’s raw and stripped back in a manner that’s even more intimate than her previous work, which always skewed personal and confessional.

Written by: Jeremy Blackmore | Date: Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Ashnikko - Smoochies (Album Review)

Photo: Vasso Vu Provocative is one word to describe Ashnikko, but it doesn’t go far enough when it comes to ‘Smoochies’. The follow up to her 2023 debut ‘Weedkiller’ jettisons much of the conceptual narrative that defined its predecessor and instead finds the rapper embracing a more club-oriented sound alongside a gloves-off rejection of modern puritanism.

Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Monday, 20 October 2025

Flock of Dimes - The Life You Save (Album Review)

Photo: Elizabeth Weinberg  Jenn Wasner launched Flock of Dimes as a solo project in 2011, seeking to explore the more atmospheric and experimental side of songwriting and recording outside the success of beloved folk indie-rockers Wye Oak.

Written by: Jeremy Blackmore | Date: Friday, 17 October 2025

Mobb Deep - Infinite (Album Review)

Eight years after bandmate Prodigy’s death, ‘Infinite’ arrives as both a memorial and mission statement: the final chapter of Mobb Deep’s towering Queensbridge saga. It’s a project that could easily have been exploitative or patchy but Havoc — alongside longtime collaborator The Alchemist — treats it with a degree of reverence.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 16 October 2025

Jay Som - Belong (Album Review)

Photo: Daniel Topete ‘Belong’ may be the first album since 2019 from Jay Som, the alias of LA songwriter Melina Duterte, but it’s far from a musical comeback. Duterte has spent those six years as an in-demand musician, engineer and producer, winning a Grammy for her work on The Record by boygenius, the band she subsequently joined as a touring member.

Written by: Jeremy Blackmore | Date: Thursday, 16 October 2025

Richard Ashcroft - Lovin' You (Album Review)

Fresh from basking in Oasis’s reunion glow, Richard Ashcroft returns with ‘Lovin’ You’, his first album in seven years. Though, in truth, “return” might be too generous a word for what feels like an encore, or rather…a reheat.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 15 October 2025

Idlewild - Idlewild (Album Review)

Photo: Euan Robertson Anniversaries often give cause for reflection and a chance to bask in former glories. But in releasing their 10th album three decades on from forming in Edinburgh, Idlewild instead look to the future while celebrating their past. ‘Idlewild’ is a statement about where they are today by all the people they have been along the way.

Written by: Jeremy Blackmore | Date: Monday, 13 October 2025

Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl (Album Review)

Photo: TAS Rights Management What you see isn’t always what you get, and ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ is no exception. Despite its extravagant, cinematic artwork raising hopes for a continuation of the meta commentary delivered on tracks such as I Can Do It With A Broken Heart from 2024’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, on her 12th album Taylor Swift has opted to retrace well-worn paths from a new perspective.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Thursday, 09 October 2025

AFI - Silver Bleeds The Black Sun... (Album Review)

Photo: Lexie Alley With ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’, AFI have delivered their most focused statement in a decade. Their 12th album clocks in at just 33 minutes — their shortest LP since 1997’s hardcore charge ‘Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes' — and this discipline proves transformative. By cutting the fat that has occasionally weighed down their 2010s output, the Californian quartet have uncovered the urgency that made them essential.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Wednesday, 08 October 2025

Upchuck - I'm Nice Now (Album Review)

Photo: Michael Tyrone Delaney Whoever’s working on the soundtrack for a new Tony Hawk game should give Upchuck a call. On ‘I’m Nice Now’ the Atlanta five piece come out swinging with a ferocious punk sound, their fuzzy guitars and crashing drums underpinning a meat and two veg approach that’s perfectly suited for pixellated half pipes. It’s fun at times, but not much more than that.

Written by: James Palaczky | Date: Monday, 06 October 2025