Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs (Album Review)

Photo: Warwick Baker Most debut albums emerge without the weight of expectation on their shoulders. That sort of pressure is usually reserved for the second outing, after the first wins over a new fanbase with a few bangers and a bit of novelty. But after releasing two stellar EPs in recent years, all eyes are on Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and their first full length, ‘Hope Downs’. Did the burden get to them? Happily, no.

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Thursday, 21 June 2018

Snail Mail - Lush (Album Review)

The artwork for Snail Mail’s debut album, ‘Lush’, depicts Lindsay Jordan, the driving force behind the band, staring blankly into space. In fact, all accompanying images of her in the press have the same countenance: hazy, bored, detached.

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Thursday, 21 June 2018

Lily Allen - No Shame (Album Review)

Lily Allen has been writing provocative, socially conscious music throughout a career that now stretches beyond a decade. Her fourth album, ‘No Shame’, arrives four years after the misguided ‘Sheezus’ LP, taking a swerve away from her comfort zone.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Wednesday, 20 June 2018

Arthur Buck - Arthur Buck (Album Review)

Photo: Dean Karr  Pop stardom is a young person’s game.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 18 June 2018

LUMP - LUMP (Album Review)

Photo: Mathew Parri & Esteban Diacono “LUMP is a product,” Laura Marling monotonously narrates on the closing credits of the new project. It’s a product that, in its brief 27 minutes, encompasses a fluffy dancing yeti, angelic vocals, airy synth melodies, thrashing, but always intricate, percussion, and a constant underlying drone to sew it all together. Marling and Mike Lindsay (of psych-folk bands Tunng and Throws), whom she met by chance at a Neil Young gig, utilise mutual respect for each other’s creativity to harness LUMP, which they look upon parentally.

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Friday, 15 June 2018

Flasher - Constant Image (Album Review)

Photo: Jen Dessinger  Flasher have a couple of things in common with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Firstly, the band don’t have a defined centre, with no traditional ‘leader’ and the trio sharing vocal duties. They’re also part of an inchoate wave of contrarians kicking hard against the entrenched political systems that define their home city, Washington, D.C..

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Thursday, 14 June 2018

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit (Album Review)

“Double the length, twice the pleasure,” is a phrase usually reserved for your spam folder, but it’s being used here to describe a Satanic solo project that pits the blues against extreme metal. Yeah, it’s one of those days.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Thursday, 14 June 2018

Boy Azooga - 1, 2 Kung Fu! (Album Review)

Boy Azooga’s Davey Newington knows his stuff. Since grasping his first pair of drumsticks at age six, the Cardiff native has played in a bunch of orchestras and jazz bands, along with turning out as a member of Charlotte Church’s Late Night Pop Dungeon. All this background work has culminated in his band’s first LP, ‘1, 2, Kung Fu!’, which can only be described as a kind of fantastical, timewarped musical menagerie.

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Wednesday, 13 June 2018

Pusha T - Daytona (Album Review)

Pusha T has declared this season a surgical summer, waging war on Drake with a diss track for the ages immediately after making his comeback with ‘Daytona’.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Wednesday, 13 June 2018

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Sparkle Hard (Album Review)

Photo: James Rexroad For people of a certain age, Stephen Malkmus will always be a rarefied genius. Along with Messrs Kannberg, Young, Ibold, West and Nastanovich he soundtracked the ‘90s with Pavement, and he has been trading in a pretty fine line of off-kilter slacker rock ever since.

Written by: Ben Gallivan | Date: Tuesday, 12 June 2018

Chvrches - Love is Dead (Album Review)

Dark clouds loom over Chvrches on their third release, ‘Love is Dead’. Here the Scottish trio offer a response to the modern political landscape through the medium of big ‘80s-influenced pop songs. Working with producer Greg Kurstin on much of the record, they fully embrace their mainstream sensibilities.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Tuesday, 12 June 2018

Spock's Beard - Noise Floor (Album Review)

Riff for riff, hook for hook, solo for solo and lyric for lyric, the 13th album of Spock’s Beard’s career is a laser guided melodic missile that creates a euphoric explosion of glee that’s impossible to contain. Featuring highly accessible songs affluent with instrumental pizzazz, ‘Noise Floor’ is a prog-rock album for people who hate prog-rock.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Monday, 11 June 2018

Lykke Li - So Sad So Sexy (Album Review)

Being permanently po-faced and famous is a devil’s pact. Whether you’re penning hits (Kanye West), winning trophies (José Mourinho) or writing economic policy (Gordon Brown), tolerance will turn to contempt once that success begins to falter.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 11 June 2018

Ben Howard - Noonday Dream (Album Review)

In the years following the release of his folky, acoustic debut ‘Every Kingdom’ in 2011 Ben Howard has sought to take up a far more experimental position. ‘Noonday Dream’, his third album, is proof of his revised aims and follows the magnificent ‘I Forget Where We Were’,  an LP that remains his benchmark by some distance.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 07 June 2018

A$AP Rocky - Testing (Album Review)

'Testing', A$AP Rocky's most off-kilter to album to date, demands close listening.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Thursday, 07 June 2018

Father John Misty - God's Favorite Customer (Album Review)

Photo: Emma Tillman No matter how dark and miserable a Father John Misty record may seem, there’s always an undercurrent of irreverent wit that allows for at least some semblance of light to cut through the gloom.

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Wednesday, 06 June 2018

Oneohtrix Point Never - Age of (Album Review)

We may be living in a golden age of avant-garde electronica. Hot on the heels of thrilling releases from Nils Frahm, Björk and Jon Hopkins, Oneohtrix Point Never has put out his ninth studio album. ‘Age of’ is a devastating soundscape of spectral stems, merging extraordinary tonal variety with immediate and engaging production.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 06 June 2018

Kanye West - ye (Album Review)

Kanye West’s eighth solo album, ‘ye’, is a hastily assembled seven-track brain fart covering themes of superstardom, current affairs and mental fragility. While there are some superb moments, the album is thinly spread over its 24 minutes and lacks a centre. Put simply, it feels unfinished.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 05 June 2018

Ghost - Prequelle (Album Review)

Photo: Mikael Eriksson Ghost have returned to engulf the world in hellish flames on their fourth album and most scintillating statement to date, ‘Prequelle’. But this time around the masked metallers wreak havoc through music far closer in spirit to ABBA and Duran Duran than Pentagram and Blue Öyster Cult.

Written by: Jon Stickler | Date: Tuesday, 05 June 2018

Wooden Shjips - V (Album Review)

Photo: Jason Powers According to Wooden Shjips frontman Ripley Johnson, ‘V’ is an album made with summer in mind. He sought out a happy, light-filled place in response to disasters both natural and man-made: last year’s California wildfires, the election of Donald Trump.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 04 June 2018