Halestorm - Everest (Album Review)

Photo: Jimmy Fontaine It has now been a decade since ‘Into the Wild Life’ applied a layer of gloss to Halestorm’s hard-rock and sent them into the stratosphere, but their sixth album shows that they’re not interested in resting in place. ‘Everest’ sheds expectations, exposing raw vulnerability and depth as they flex their creative muscles in new ways.

Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Thursday, 14 August 2025

Humour - Learning Greek (Album Review)

After introducing their gnarly avant-punk chaos on their 2022 EP ‘Pure Misery’, Glasgow’s Humour have been in a state of refinement recently. Honing their manic energy into something sharper, stranger, and far more personal, their debut album ‘Learning Greek’, fuses feral energy with reflective storytelling as frontman Andreas Christodoulidis explores heritage, grief, and identity.

Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Amaarae - Black Star (Album Review)

Photo: Salomé Gomis-Trezise ‘Black Star’ is the third album from Ghanaian-American pop star Amaarae, and it trades the occasionally introspective risk-taking of ‘Fountain Baby’ for a run at out and out dancefloor bangers. If the previous record was a blend of cheeky, confessional and often quite densely arranged songs, “Black Star” wants to push and pull you to all the different areas of a nightclub, especially the toilets.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You (Album Review)

Photo: Dollie Kyarn With ‘Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You’, Hayden Anhedönia cements herself as both an alt-pop auteur and a masterful storyteller. Her 2021 EP ‘Inbred’ quickly garnered a cult following, and critical acclaim soon followed with her debut album ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, where she introduced a wider audience to Ethel Cain, the doomed daughter of an Alabama preacher who flees her home in search of love and purpose, but is instead sold into sex work and dies at the hands of a cannibal.

Written by: Sarah Taylor | Date: Tuesday, 12 August 2025

Debby Friday - The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life (Album Review)

Photo: Stella Gigliotti Debby Friday’s second record follows her Polaris Prize-winning debut ‘Good Luck’ with more confidence, more openness, and more glittering chaos. On the surface, it’s an album obsessed with hedonism. Track titles like All I Wanna Do Is Party and In The Club aren’t hiding anything. But below the strobes, the Nigerian-Canadian artist is reckoning with self-discovery, love, and the uneasy comedown.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 11 August 2025

The New Eves - The New Eve Is Rising (Album Review)

Photo: Katie Silvester The New Eves’ debut has several strings to its bow, from relentless rock songs to supernatural rituals, and the fact that they can’t be pinned down into one style has become the Brighton band’s USP. Reflecting that, ‘The New Eve is Rising’ offers a series of fresh takes on how their music should be perceived, but it’s not without its faults.

Written by: Laura Mills | Date: Friday, 08 August 2025

Reneé Rapp - Bite Me (Album Review)

Photo: Zora Sicher Less than a minute into her second album, Reneé Rapp quips: “Can I tell you a secret / I’m so sick of it all.” The “it all” in question isn’t hard to fathom out. Alongside star-making turns in Mean Girls: The Musical and The Sex Lives of College Girls, in recent years a string of unfiltered press junkets, chaotic interviews, and YouTube compilations with names like “Reneé Rapp making her PR team question their life choices for 6 minutes” have rocketed the singer-actor to mainstream celebrity, where she’s remained boldly, unashamedly herself.

Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Wednesday, 06 August 2025

The Armed - The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed (Album Review)

Photo: Luke Nelson Few bands claim chaos as convincingly as The Armed, and fewer still deliver on its promise with such gleeful abandon. On their starkly titled sixth studio album, ‘The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed’, the Detroit-based experimental hardcore collective tap into their most primal instincts, shaking off the sleek pop sheen of 2023’s ‘Perfect Saviors’ and diving headfirst into outrage, exhaustion, and mayhem.

Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Tuesday, 05 August 2025

Paul Weller - Find El Dorado (Album Review)

Photo: Dean Chalkley Paul Weller is not one for standing still. Fresh from the success of the well received ‘66’ in 2024, he returns with his seventh album in the past decade.  ‘Find El Dorado’ is his second covers album and, like 2004’s ‘Studio 150’, it offers a breadth of material tied to the make-up of the man.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Monday, 04 August 2025

Madonna - Veronica Electronica (Album Review)

Released in 1998, Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ fused digital atmospheres, UK alt-pop and introspective songwriting to reframe her artistry all over again, leaving a legacy as one of the most transformative records in a career studded with them. Almost 30 years later, ‘Veronica Electronica’ is a long-rumoured remix album that seeks to repeat the feat.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 01 August 2025

The Band Camino - NeverAlways (Album Review)

For the past decade, The Band Camino have lived at the intersection of emotional turmoil and euphoria. Doubling down on both counts with a sharp sense of clarity, the Nashville-based trio have hit the sweet spot on their third studio album, ‘NeverAlways’.

Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Thursday, 31 July 2025

Indigo De Souza - Precipice (Album Review)

Photo: Lea Garn Sometimes an album’s cover will lock you in before you even hear a note of its music. Indigo De Souza’s ‘Precipice’ arrives adorned with an incredible painting by the musician’s mother, whose colourful, unusual but warm hues adroitly capture the music contained within it.

Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Bleach Lab - Close To The Flame EP (Album Review)

Photo: Alex Eden Bleach Lab have quickly proven themselves adept at capturing a mood. The dream-pop specialists delivered one of 2023’s most captivating debuts as ‘Lost in a Rush of Emptiness’ soundtracked singer Jenna Kyle’s mental state post-toxic relationship, and its follow up ‘Close to the Flame’ is similarly breathtaking at its best.

Written by: Matthew McLister | Date: Wednesday, 30 July 2025

The Dirty Nil - The Lash (Album Review)

Photo: Drew Thomson In 2021, ‘Fuck Art’ catapulted Canadian outfit The Dirty Nil to fresh heights, encapsulating their colourful aesthetic and skull-rattling rock anthemics. ‘The Lash’ feels like a reaction to all that, with the now-duo hitting reset to offer a more cynical outlook on life and music.

Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Tuesday, 29 July 2025

Zac Farro - Operator (Album Review)

You could easily forgive Zac Farro for wanting a breather. His debut solo record follows a whirlwind period in the songwriter’s life, with new records by Paramore and HalfNoise emerging amid a year of stadium touring with Taylor Swift. Instead of sounding tired or jaded, though, ‘Operator’ finds him creatively unshackled, free from Paramore-level scrutiny and expressively building upon the psychedelic foundations of HalfNoise’s ‘City Talk’.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Tuesday, 29 July 2025

Tyler, The Creator - Don't Tap The Glass (Album Review)

Photo: YouTube It’s not even been nine months since ‘Chromakopia’ landed and we have yet another album from Tyler, the Creator. Even by his prolific standards — that’s nine albums now, and three in the past four years — this is unprecedented, especially when you take into account the aesthetics and themes he meticulously crafts for each album.

Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Monday, 28 July 2025

Joe Bonamassa - Breakthrough (Album Review)

Photo: Ian Potter On first listen, this splendid record from the king of genre-bending blues-rock might feel a tad too polished and accessible. The key to understanding its artistic choices is revealed during its epic centrepiece, Broken Record, when Bonamassa cries, “I’ve been on this road for too long, lost in the wilderness.” What initially sounds like standard bluesy exorcism is, in fact, indicative of an endearingly upbeat effort that, instead of wallowing under a black cloud, revels in the music’s capacity for emotional release.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 25 July 2025

Fletcher - Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me? (Album Review)

Photo: Carissa Gallo Cari Fletcher has become a queer icon during the course of the past decade, her debut ‘Girl Of My Dreams’ something of a TikTok-fuelled cultural phenomenon within the LGBTQ+ community. Now, the New Jersey songwriter has taken a different approach with her third effort ‘Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me?’, falling headfirst into heated discourse with songs that don’t quite stack up.

Written by: Issy Herring | Date: Thursday, 24 July 2025

Burna Boy - No Sign Of Weakness (Album Review)

Photo: Shot By Nee To simply call Burna Boy an Afrobeats artist does the Nigerian superstar a disservice. Across seven albums, he’s stirred dancehall, hip hop and R&B into his work to firmly establish himself as one of today’s most respected future-gazers. But despite the bullish nature of its title, ‘No Sign of Weakness’ shows the cracks starting to form.

Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Thursday, 24 July 2025

Billie Marten - Dog Eared (Album Review)

Photo: Frances Carter Billie Marten, five albums deep and still only 26 years old, continues her creative tear with ‘Dog Eared’, her most striking evolution in sound yet. Recorded in New York with producer Phil Weinrobe and a stellar cast of collaborators including Sam Evian and Dirty Projectors’ Maia Friedman, it offers a deliberate departure from the stark intimacy of her earlier work.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Thursday, 24 July 2025