Soccer Mommy - Color Theory (Album Review)

Photo: Brian Ziff Sophie Allison’s second LP as Soccer Mommy is a nuanced, exciting expansion on a sound that had already made the Nashville musician one of indie-rock’s most arresting new voices. Throughout ‘Color Theory’ she finds fresh pockets of space, filling them with disintegrating synths, washes of reverb and spidery lead guitar lines. Her voice snakes between these outposts, dispensing melodies that land on a sliding scale between exuberant and weary.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 11 March 2020

Christine and the Queens - La Vita Nuova (Album Review)

Photo: Camille Vivier Eighteen months on from ‘Chris’, Héloïse Letissier’s slightly underwhelming second album, we have ‘La Vita Nuova’, a six track EP of stunningly accomplished electro pop that revisits the quality, grooves and originality of her first record, ‘Chaleur Humaine’.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 09 March 2020

Caribou - Suddenly (Album Review)

‘Suddenly’ is a nod towards the unexpected changes that life throws at you. Where Caribou’s 2014 album ‘Our Love’ took a deep dive into thoughts of settling down with family, children and idyllic domesticity, sharpening Dan Snaith’s style and use of melody into comprehensible thoughts, here on his fifth LP we are faced with more abstract notions of how life can, and will, change around you to lead you where you need to be.

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Friday, 06 March 2020

King Krule - Man Alive! (Album Review)

On his third album as King Krule, south London musician Archy Marshall has delivered a treatise of intense darkness and of ghastly drudgery, with spiky, arachnid guitar accompanying boxy drums and vocals that sound laconic, spontaneous and shitfaced.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 05 March 2020

Best Coast - Always Tomorrow (Album Review)

Best Coast’s ‘Always Tomorrow’ is a quiet reckoning. Here Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno weigh their own longevity, personal changes and botched relationships against songs that offer minor revisions to their slacker-rock sound. When they hit their marks, they transmute a potential bummer into a complete blast.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 04 March 2020

Grimes - Miss Anthropocene (Album Review)

Photo: Eli Russell Linnetz With winter’s chill still in the air, Grimes has taken time out from being annoying on Instagram to release ‘Miss Anthropocene’, her first solo record since 2015’s ‘Art Angels’. Thank heavens, it’s great.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 03 March 2020

Real Estate - The Main Thing (Album Review)

Photo: Jake Michaels Real Estate’s ruminative fifth album ‘The Main Thing’ drifts along like a daydream. Unravelling with a curated sort of nonchalance, it’s a soft focus slow dance that moves with elegance throughout its 14 tracks and 52 minutes.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Monday, 02 March 2020

These New Puritans - The Cut [2016-2019] (Album Review)

Photo: Guy Lowndes On ‘The Cut’ These New Puritans, the newly trimmed Southend-on-Sea duo of brothers Jack and George Barnett, have pieced together recordings from the past few years in a four-part collection of uneasy, diverse and frequently striking music.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 28 February 2020

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man (Album Review)

Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Ordinary Man’, his first solo LP since 2010 and his first album of any sort since Black Sabbath’s swansong ‘13’ seven years ago, carries plenty of emotional weight on its shoulders. It’s an often ruminative affair that has, somewhat inevitably, been handed additional significance by the metal legend’s recent health problems, including being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 26 February 2020

Justin Bieber - Changes (Album Review)

It’s almost inconceivable that Justin Bieber is just 25 years old. Love him or hate him, across the past 10 years his stratospheric rise from YouTube kid to global megastar has fundamentally changed contemporary pop music.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Friday, 21 February 2020

Tame Impala - The Slow Rush (Album Review)

Whether or not you enjoy Tame Impala’s fourth album ‘The Slow Rush’ will probably hinge on where you sit in a certain debate. Do you think each album released by Kevin Parker has seen a steady decline, subsequently yearning for the fuzzy, warped guitars of his early work? Or do you welcome their absence, instead warming to the electronic world he now moves in?

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 20 February 2020

Kvelertak - Splid (Album Review)

Rock and metal fans are used to changes behind the microphone, whether they like them or not. Black Sabbath split with Ozzy, Van Halen said so long to David Lee Roth, and now Kvelertak have added their name to the list. ‘Splid’ is the Norewegian bruisers’ first LP since Ivar Nikolaisen took over from founding vocalist Erlend Hjelvik, and they’ve stuck a difficult landing in some style.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 19 February 2020

Green Day - Father of All... (Album Review)

Back in the days when you could (just about) get away with using the phrase ‘pussy punk’ Green Day were kings of it, serving up shouty puerile guitar pop for teenagers. Then they redefined themselves as outlaw poets, releasing ‘American Idiot’ and becoming some of the most surprisingly effective critics of President George W. Bush.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 18 February 2020

La Roux - Supervision (Album Review)

For La Roux’s third album—and Elly Jackson’s second as fully fledged solo artist—the Londoner has once again leaned into the summery breakbeat grooves she indulged on 2014’s ‘Trouble in Paradise’ with pleasing, if not groundbreaking effect. ‘Supervision’ is in many ways a more cogent album, but it doesn’t have the solid gold songs.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 14 February 2020

Poliça - When We Stay Alive (Album Review)

Photo: Zoe Prinds-Flash Poliça’s life-affirming fourth album, ‘When We Stay Alive’, was written on either side of a debilitating accident. In 2018, vocalist Channy Leaneagh fell from her roof while clearing ice, breaking her back. But this record isn’t about the physical or mental damage caused by the incident; it’s a personal documentation of the healing process, how to rewrite your own narrative, and what happens when you survive.

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Thursday, 13 February 2020

The Cadillac Three - Country Fuzz (Album Review)

Roughly halfway through this stylistically scopious banger from the Cadillac Three, a track arrives that musically and lyrically epitomises the essence of both the band and their new record. Over an unexpected chunk of fuzzed up space-funk, Jaren Johnston sings, “Nobody wants to be a label, you can’t judge a record by its cover ‘til you hear it spinning on the turntable, there’s always more behind a title.” Familiar yet fresh, experimental while striking vintage poses galore, ‘Country Fuzz’ once again proves there’s more to these Nashville natives than meets the eye.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Wednesday, 12 February 2020

Frances Quinlan - Likewise (Album Review)

Photo: Julia Khorosilov “Are pigeons ever cannibalistic?” That isn’t a question you expect to hear on one of the most anticipated albums of the year, or anywhere else for that matter. But the best records come into their own when the listener is caught off guard by a surprising melody or a weird lyric they would never have dreamed of putting together.

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Tuesday, 11 February 2020

Nada Surf - Never Not Together (Album Review)

Photo: Annie Dressner To record their new LP, New York rockers Nada Surf took themselves off to an isolated farm-based studio in Wales: Rockfield. Yes, the same Rockfield that achieved mythic status when Queen laid down Bohemian Rhapsody there 45 years ago. 

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 10 February 2020

Torres - Silver Tongue (Album Review)

Photo: Michael Lavine ‘Silver Tongue’ is Mackenzie Scott’s fourth studio album as Torres, and the first since she split from label 4AD and signed with the North Carolina indie staple Merge. It’s a largely accomplished record that straddles country, indie and alt-folk, but while Scott’s eclectic musicality and airy drawl make it distinctive, none of the tunes live terribly long in the memory.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 07 February 2020

Destroyer - Have We Met (Album Review)

Much like the UK, Canada punches way above its weight in the production of pop and rock musicians. One reason is obvious—Anglo-American language and business networks facilitate global reach.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 06 February 2020