St. Vincent - All Born Screaming (Album Review)
Photo: Alex Da Corte Annie Clark has become an indie-rock mainstay since the release of the first St. Vincent record in 2007, but her appeal has always bled beyond genre boundaries. In the years since then, her work has straddled arthouse pop, psychedelia and glam-rock, with each of her albums subsequently feeling like an event in their own right.
Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Monday, 29 April 2024
The Zutons - The Big Decider (Album Review)
Photo: Jonathan Turton The Zutons, it turns out, don’t do comebacks by halves. After breaking up back in 2009, they came out of the carbonite in 2019 to tour their 2004 debut ‘Who Killed...... The Zutons?’. But one question that hangs over any such endeavour is whether nostalgia might be answered by something new. In their case the answer is yes — ‘The Big Decider’ is their first album in 16 years. Which leads us to another question: does the world need another indie rock band back from the brink?
Written by: Jack Press | Date: Monday, 29 April 2024
SeeYouSpaceCowboy - Coup de Grâce (Album Review)
SeeYouSpaceCowboy’s music hails from a vivid recent past, when 2000s metalcore met at the corners of screamo and post-hardcore. While 2021’s ‘The Romance of Affliction’ pushed that concoction to its limits, the San Diego band have cannily embraced a neo-noir aesthetic and concept to help ‘Coup de Grâce’ to sound fresh and suitably fiery.
Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Friday, 26 April 2024
Lucy Rose - This Ain't The Way You Go Out (Album Review)
Photo: Josh Shinner After 2019’s stripped back ‘No Words Left,’ Lucy Rose had plans to rest and write her next album at her own pace, away from the road and its all-encompassing demands. Instead, life had something else in store for her. ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’ was inspired by maternal osteoporosis, an excruciating condition that left the songwriter with a broken back following the birth of her son, Otis.
Written by: Emma Way | Date: Thursday, 25 April 2024
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter (Album Review)
Photo: Danny Clinch Twelve albums down the line, it’s kind of an honour to have Seattle grunge icons Pearl Jam still cooking as part of the current musical landscape. There are arenas and stadiums still to be filled, with Eddie Vedder’s signature bellow finding a new generation of fans to back up the die-hards, who will be thrilled by the back-to-basics ballast of ‘Dark Matter’.
Written by: Rishi Shah | Date: Thursday, 25 April 2024
Melvins - Tarantula Heart (Album Review)
Melvins are grafters. Hailing from working class and rural Washington state, vocalist/guitarist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover are hyper-prolific, hard-touring musicians with a monstrous back catalogue.
Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Wednesday, 24 April 2024
James - Yummy (Album Review)
Photo: Paul W Dixon Photography More than 40 years into their career, Manchester darlings James are still going strong. Few would have thought that when they entered a seven year hiatus in 2001, a split described as necessary by vocalist Tim Booth in order to preserve one another’s wellbeing. Their sign off was ‘Pleased To Meet You’, a fitting peak in an indifferent album catalogue. Now, all these years later, ‘Yummy’ reaches those heights again.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department (Album Review)
Photo: Beth Garrabrant You have to hand it to Taylor Swift — she knows how to spring a surprise. Two hours after releasing the heavily-anticipated ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, she swapped it out for an updated version called ‘The Anthology’, turning it into a monster double album stacking up at 31 songs and more than two hours.
Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Nia Archives - Silence is Loud (Album Review)
Photo: Lola Banet On her first album, Nia Archives artist fully embraces her ‘Emotional Junglist’ mantra, pushing at the outer reaches of the style. On ‘Silence is Loud’ thunderous basslines and choppy breakbeats serve not as constraints but as a canvas for experimentation.
Written by: Emma Way | Date: Monday, 22 April 2024
Metz - Up On Gravity Hill (Album Review)
Photo: Vanessa Heins Metz are changing as they age. You might remember the Canadian trio being noisy for the sake of it in their early work, but now they have a relationship with the more aggressive elements of their sound that is caustic but tempered by greater textural ambition. Their fifth album ‘Up On Gravity Hill’, for example, is their most refined work to date, with core elements still firmly in place but subject to some judicious self-editing.
Written by: Jack McGill | Date: Monday, 22 April 2024
Bodega - Our Brand Could Be Yr Life (Album Review)
Photo: Pooneh Ghana Two years ago, ‘Broken Equipment’ found Bodega throwing post-punk and art-rock into a blender, rejecting the flavours of modern society in favour of their own favourite tastes. Its follow up, ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ is less consistent – its ingredients are duly coated in anti-consumerist sentiment, but the recipe is off. The result? A bloated, uneven tasting menu that leaves you feeling as empty as you do full.
Written by: Jack Press | Date: Friday, 19 April 2024
The KVB - Tremors (Album Review)
Photo: Mila F. The KVB have been releasing albums for more than a decade now, but the duo continue to fly under the radar. It’s a shame, as the self-styled “dystopian pop” of their seventh LP ‘Tremors’ is mighty rewarding, pulling in a blend of post-punk, industrial and darkwave, often with a danceable element.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Friday, 19 April 2024
Girl In Red - I'm Doing It Again Baby! (Album Review)
It has been a whirlwind time in the life of Norwegian bedroom pop artist Marie Ulven Ringheim, who went from internet sensation to superstardom after the release of Girl in Red’s 2021 debut album ‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’.
Written by: Matthew McLister | Date: Thursday, 18 April 2024
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard - Skinwalker (Album Review)
Photo: Charlie Harris Given its analog horror-channelling cover, you’d be forgiven for assuming ‘Skinwalker’ was some eerie dark ambient album. In reality, it’s the latest (and best) release from Cardiff indie-rockers Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard.
Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Wednesday, 17 April 2024
The Black Keys - Ohio Players (Album Review)
Photo: Jim Herrington The Black Keys’ 12th studio LP took more than a year to complete, although it’s a wonder it didn’t take longer given the duo’s extra-curricular commitments. Dan Auerbach’s side project the Arcs released their excellent ‘Electronic Chronic’ collection as recently as early 2023, for example, while he and Patrick Carney hammered out ‘Ohio Players’ with a helping hand from a plethora of contributors.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Maggie Rogers - Don't Forget Me (Album Review)
Photo: Maggie Rogers Maggie Rogers built a solid reputation across her first two records — ‘Heard It In A Past Life’, propelled by the viral Alaska, and the expansive ‘Surrender’ — offering an exquisite blend of folk, pop, indie and classic singer-songwriter fare. Her third LP ‘Don’t Forget Me’ is a luscious patchwork of textures that displays her singular talent as an artist.
Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Bob Vylan - Humble As The Sun (Album Review)
Photo: Ki Price Bob Vylan have developed into one of the UK’s most important bands, fusing their anti-establishment attitude and promotion of health and self-care together with the same flair that they meld grime and punk. On their third album ‘Humble As The Sun’ the duo add further elements to this heady mix, developing their sound to take in everything from electronica to grunge.
Written by: Adam England | Date: Monday, 15 April 2024
Sinkane - We Belong (Album Review)
Photo: Dani Barbieri The world has changed since Ahmed Gallab last released a full album. On 2019’s ‘Dépaysé’, the Sudanese-American musician and bandleader delivered an album of joyous communitarian indie-pop shot through with influences from African music and funk. Since then, Covid and Joe Biden have happened and, perhaps most importantly for this album, Gallab has completed a Master’s degree in Composition. The result is an enormously accomplished work of musical, tonal and generic flexibility.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 12 April 2024
The Libertines - All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade (Album Review)
Photo: Ed Cooke That The Libertines are still producing music 20 years after their initial break up is nothing short of a miracle. Pete Doherty and Carl Barat’s relationship deteriorated so much during the process of making their second album that the band’s future appeared permanently dashed.
Written by: Matthew McLister | Date: Thursday, 11 April 2024
Ride - Interplay (Album Review)
Photo: Cal McIntryre When Ride began working on their seventh studio album, lockdown was very much a recent memory. When they eventually got together, they found inspiration from different avenues: jamming sessions, demos, backing tracks. With each member contributing significantly, drummer Loz Colbert’s suggestion of ‘Interplay’ as a title proved to be right on the money.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 11 April 2024
Khruangbin - A La Sala (Album Review)
Photo: David Black ‘A La Sala’ finds Khruangbin returning to low-key grooves, mixing spaghetti Western guitars with old-school drums and sauntering basslines. It is an excellent addition to the Houston trio’s catalogue, who continue to explore a distinctive, meticulous sound.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 10 April 2024
Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us (Album Review)
Photo: Michael Schmelling Five years in the making, Vampire Weekend’s ‘Only God Was Above Us’ is a far cry from the group’s self-titled debut. Where that 2008 LP offered up insouciant indie-pop, here we have perhaps their most experimental work to date, combining a fixation on raga with slick production and dark, sombre lyrical themes.
Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Tuesday, 09 April 2024
Marcus King - Mood Swings (Album Review)
Photo: JM Collective Stratospheric rises are rarely without their drawbacks. When South Carolina blues prodigy Marcus King burst onto the scene with his band back in 2015 at the age of just 19, guitar fans the world over sat up and paid attention.
Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Monday, 08 April 2024
Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter (Album Review)
Photo: Mason Poole “This is not a country album,” Beyoncé writes in the liner notes to ‘Cowboy Carter’. “This is a Beyoncé album.” There aren’t many artists who can pull off that sort of statement but, then again, there aren’t many artists who can pull whole styles of music into their orbit as she can. This is the second instalment in a shapeshifting trilogy that began with 2022’s disco-infused ‘Renaissance’ and across its mammoth 27 track running order Beyoncé leans into country history in fascinating fashion.
Written by: Katie Macbeth | Date: Thursday, 04 April 2024
Sheryl Crow - Evolution (Album Review)
With a sound that encompasses Americana, rock and country, Sheryl Crow’s 1990s records became the soundtrack to a thousand interstate drives. Meanwhile, her literate and witty storytelling ensured her fanbase stretched across the Atlantic and beyond.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 04 April 2024
Elbow - Audio Vertigo (Album Review)
Elbow’s 10th studio album reveals a strength that has not always been apparent in their work: the ability to remain succinct. Around 35 songs were whittled down to 12 for ‘Audio Vertigo’, which was tracked at their own Migration Studios in Gloucestershire. Clocking in at 39 minutes, it fits neatly on two sides of vinyl and does away with anything resembling the lengthy, drawn out efforts that stud their back catalogue. As a result, it skips along nicely.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 04 April 2024
Sum 41 - Heaven :x: Hell (Album Review)
Photo: Travis Shinn Sum 41 didn’t intend to write their own eulogy. Still, it speaks volumes that the Canadian band finished work on their eighth album — a sprawling 21-track opus that covers both their pop-punk side and their metal side — and knew it was the perfect way to close the book on two-and-a-bit decades together.
Written by: Emma Wilkes | Date: Wednesday, 03 April 2024
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
Kaiser Chiefs - Kaiser Chiefs' Easy Eighth Album (Album Review)
Photo: Cal McIntyre Halfway through ‘Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album’ it becomes pertinent to ask if they might have instead gone for a different self-referential title: everything is average nowadays. Guided by ex-Rudimental producer Amir Amor and part-facilitated by a songwriting hook up with Nile Rodgers, the band’s latest missive is a middle-aged identity crisis.
Written by: Jack Press | Date: Tuesday, 05 March 2024
Everything Everything - Mountainhead (Album Review)
Photo: Steve Gullick Following the release of ‘Get to Heaven’ in 2015 there was a hell of a lot for Everything Everything to live up to. The album was a maximalist reset for their sound, setting a benchmark that their ensuing work, while nothing to sniff at, couldn’t quite reach. But they’ve gone up a gear with ‘Mountainhead’, a record that finally stands as a worthy successor.
Written by: Adam England | Date: Tuesday, 05 March 2024
Liam Gallagher and John Squire - Liam Gallagher John Squire (Album Review)
Photo: Tom Oxley This isn’t really what anyone had in mind when it came to Liam Gallagher uniting with another Manchester legend. After so much to-ing and fro-ing with his brother Noel, and the slightest hint of an Oasis reunion, he’s chosen instead to team up with Stone Roses guitarist John Squire.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 04 March 2024
