Common - Let Love (Album Review)

‘Let Love’ is Common’s 12th studio album and serves as the self-declared musical iteration of his New York Times bestselling memoir Let Love Have the Last Word. 

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 03 September 2019

The Futureheads - Powers (Album Review)

‘Powers’ is the Futureheads’ sixth studio album and the first since the band went on hiatus following the lukewarm reception to their excellent a capella offering ‘Rant!’ in 2013. It is a return to the thrashy post punk sound that characterised their early success, and while familiar problems arise with several songs, it is a record of intricate and innovative arrangements that should place them firmly back on the European festival circuit next year.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 02 September 2019

Taylor Swift - Lover (Album Review)

Taylor Swift’s songs can be quite cloying, which makes sense. This is an artist forged in the furnace of country music, where proletarian tales of naiveté and heartbreak rattle along next to low slung, sorrowful defiance—all in the name of naked, exploitable greenbacks. As such her seventh studio album, ‘Lover’, hits its familiar marks in a now familiarly unfamiliar way. She is America’s most conventional pop star.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 29 August 2019

Sheer Mag - A Distant Call (Album Review)

Among the many joys presented by Sheer Mag’s earliest 7”s was the feeling that you’d stumbled across a secret and were subsequently getting down and dirty, commingling sweat, with the greatest rock band on earth. Each huge riff and howled melody arrived caked in grime—another fundamental part of the fun came from deciphering the hairpin turns in the gloom.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Thursday, 29 August 2019

Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold (Album Review)

Some records are defined by the circumstances surrounding their release—it’s an unavoidable byproduct of investing in a band. ‘The Center Won’t Hold’ is destined to be one of those records.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Tuesday, 27 August 2019

Ride - This Is Not A Safe Place (Album Review)

Photo: Kalpesh Lathigra With an abundance of new songs amassed during Ride’s extensive ‘Weather Diaries’ tour, there was never really any question of the Oxford quartet’s reappearance after 21 years being limited to just one comeback album. 

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Friday, 23 August 2019

Shura - Forevher (Album Review)

Photo: Hollie Fernando Shura’s new album is very decent indeed: a washy reverie of auto-tuned dream-pop mixed down with neo-soul arrangements that alternately recall Nao and Yo La Tengo. It introduces us to a singer who has fallen head-over heels in love since her impressive 2016 debut, ‘Nothing’s Real’.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 22 August 2019

Friendly Fires - Inflorescent (Album Review)

Photo: Dan Wilton There is nothing not to like about Friendly Fires. The trio are masters of huge, soaring choruses that display vocalist Ed Macfarlane’s range and fun grooves that sound like a holiday full of sun-soaked beaches, Hawaiian shirts and cocktail parties. So why is their latest album, ‘Inflorescent’, so forgettable?

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Thursday, 22 August 2019

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind (Album Review)

Metal, like so many strains of alternative music, has the capability to eat itself when a band breaks through and becomes wildly popular. Surely, conventional wisdom holds, they cannot continue to push boundaries or smash skulls if they outsell the pop stars of the day? Well, Slipknot have been coming up with answers to that question for 20 years.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 21 August 2019

Oh Sees - Face Stabber (Album Review)

To the uninitiated, John Dwyer’s gang of rock miscreants probably need a little bit of explaining. Formed in San Francisco in 1997 as Orinoka Crash Suite, the band have gone through half a dozen name and line-up changes. Now on their 22nd album, they have for the previous couple of records (‘Orc’ and ‘Smote Reverser’), operated with the dual drumming skills of Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone, alongside keys, bass and the wild guitar stylings of Dwyer.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 21 August 2019

Rick Ross - Port of Miami 2 (Album Review)

Rick Ross’s 10th album serves as a sequel to his debut, revisiting the title and themes of ‘Port of Miami’. Moving to relaxing tempos, exuding the kind of confidence a multi million dollar empire affords, here Ross reflects on the lavish luxuries he commands every day. 

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Tuesday, 20 August 2019

The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru The Passion (Album Review)

Photo: Adam Parshall A lot has happened since the Hold Steady last blew into town with a new record tucked under their arms. Frontman Craig Finn has launched a successful solo career—releasing the excellent ‘I Need A New War’ earlier this year—while the band has recalibrated their creative and live habits to better suit their reality as rock veterans.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Monday, 19 August 2019

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest The Rats' Nest (Album Review)

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s output is prolific. The Aussie experimentalists have released 15 albums since 2012, and while one can describe their basic sound as psychedelic rock, the reality is more complex. This is a band of rich imagination and elaborate generic diversity. 

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 16 August 2019

Bon Iver - i,i (Album Review)

If Bon Iver’s 2007 debut ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ was the soundtrack to closing yourself off in a small wood cabin in rural Wisconsin, then ‘i,i’ takes us into the countryside that surrounds it, an expanse of space with edges that lie far beyond the visible horizon. Be that as it may, is this record is as deep as it is wide?

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Thursday, 15 August 2019

Feeder - Tallulah (Album Review)

On a stifling evening back in 2008, during a gig at Brighton’s Concorde 2, Feeder frontman Grant Nicholas didn’t take too kindly to requests from the crowd to play the hits as they raced through material from their sixth studio effort ‘Silent Cry’. It was, however, at this point that their songs began to tumble in comparison to their predecessors.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 14 August 2019

Mabel - High Expectations (Album Review)

A sassy, honest exercise in self-exploration, Mabel's debut album 'High Expectations' has been in the works for some time. After breaking through in 2015 with the upload of her first songs to Soundcloud, she has put out a steady stream of successful singles and made her first dent in the US market.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Tuesday, 13 August 2019

Marika Hackman - Any Human Friend (Album Review)

‘Any Human Friend’ is Marika Hackman’s third album and first since splitting from fellow musician Amber Bain, who performs as the Japanese House. Possibly because of this, it’s a record drenched in carnal intrigue and lo-fi ennui. That said, the music is tidy and poppy—don’t be misled by the cover. 

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 12 August 2019

Young Guv - GUV I (Album Review)

Photo: Will Cox Young Guv’s Run For Cover debut, ‘GUV I’, is so content to hang out around the best and brightest of ‘90s power-pop—think ‘Girlfriend’-era Matthew Sweet or Teenage Fanclub’s Sparky’s Dream—that it poses a searching question: why don’t more records sound like the Dumb & Dumber sountrack?

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Friday, 09 August 2019

The Teskey Brothers - Run Home Slow (Album Review)

This Australian outfit has come a long way since the release of ‘Half Mile Harvest’ in 2017. Prior to the arrival of that debut they were an unknown proposition, but its classic blend of American soul and blues cultivated a healthy audience around the globe and received significant critical praise to boot. As such, expectations are high for this follow up. In almost effortlessly exceeding them, ‘Run Home Slow’ confidently takes the band’s retro aesthetic in new directions without sacrificing any of its charm. 

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Thursday, 08 August 2019

Chance The Rapper - The Big Day (Album Review)

Naming this latest project his debut album after releasing several blockbuster mixtapes, Chicago lyricist Chance The Rapper has channelled each facet of his performing personality into 'The Big Day'. 

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Wednesday, 07 August 2019