Jay-Z - 4:44 (Album Review)

Jay-Z represents an era of rap that has all but run its course. More so than anybody else, the self-made superstar and business mogul has embodied hip-hop’s most wealth-obsessed era. He rang in the millennium by splashing millions on the music video for his single Big Pimpin’ and began the next decade by rhetorically asking “what’s 50 grand to a motherfucker like me?” on the single Niggas in Paris.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Tuesday, 11 July 2017

Great Grandpa - Plastic Cough (Album Review)

Photo: Buggo Vigor There’s a song on Great Grandpa’s ‘Plastic Cough’ called Fade. It’s about being confronted with the same stuff time and time again and yearning for a jolt of excitement. It’s also a neat summation of what this record does so well; namely remind us that gritty, power chord-happy indie-rock can still be vital and thrilling.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Monday, 10 July 2017

Haim - Something To Tell You (Album Review)

What a treat. Let’s start with the vocals on Haim’s long-awaited second LP, ‘Something to Tell You’, shall we? One reason that sibling pop groups appeal is that the timbre of their voices often match, so when singing together there is an unusually cohesive blend.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 10 July 2017

Washed Out - Mister Mellow (Album Review)

Photo: Alexandra Gavillet It turns out that chillwave is alive and well. At least it is in the mind of Ernest Greene, the man behind Washed Out. Now touting his third LP, ‘Mister Mellow’, it’s clear little has changed since he took up the mantle with the 2009 EP ‘Life of Leisure’.

Written by: Ben Gallivan | Date: Friday, 07 July 2017

Public Enemy - Nothing is Quick in the Desert (Album Review)

Like many of the best pop groups, Public Enemy have a complex musical identity.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 06 July 2017

Katy Perry - Witness (Album Review)

Katy Perry is a woman of conviction and wild creativity. Uncompromising in her vision, a spirit of reinvention and rebellion resonate proudly from ‘Witness’, her fifth studio album. It feels like a musical turning point, but while her well documented love life and cat fights foment intrigue from track one there are plenty of stumbling blocks in her path.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Wednesday, 05 July 2017

Calvin Harris - Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1 (Album Review)

Since Calvin Harris swaggered onto the scene with 2007’s ‘I Created Disco’, his eye-watering rise has managed to combine occasionally thrilling EDM hits with a seemingly endless supply of A-list pop stars willing to collaborate. Despite this success, he remains fairly uncelebrated in wider music criticism. ‘Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1’ demonstrates why.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 04 July 2017

Benjamin Booker - Witness (Album Review)

Photo: Thomas Baltes On ‘Witness’, Benjamin Booker uses the sounds of ‘60s soul to explore his place as a young black man in modern America.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Tuesday, 04 July 2017

Baio - Man of the World (Album Review)

With Vampire Weekend on a break since the departure of Rostam Batmanglij last year, the band’s bassist, Chris Baio, has been beavering away on a second solo album. ‘Man of the World’ comes inspired (if that is the right word) by the election of Donald Trump and is a marvellous art-rock melange, pairing pristine pop with more experimental sonic happenings.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 03 July 2017

Algiers - The Underside of Power (Album Review)

In a recent interview, Algiers bassist and Atlanta native Ryan Mahan described the American south as “one of the epicentres of the construction of the modern world; modern economies built on slavery, exploitation, everything like that, and also built on this very confused hypocrisy that actually we’re all nice, genteel southern people - we’re all part of civilised society and at the same time we’re horrifically structurally violent.”

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 29 June 2017

Lorde - Melodrama (Album Review)

One of the first things we do when we run into an old friend is take inventory of what’s changed. When Lorde stepped back into the room at the start of March with Green Light’s piano line in tow, it became clear that it would be the differences in her music, not what had stayed the same, that might sweep us from our feet the second time around.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Chuck Berry - Chuck (Album Review)

These days, the term legend is flung around as casually as insults are across the barbaric playgrounds of social media. Ed Sheeran a legend? Gary Barlow? Justin Bieber? Let’s get real. The term should be exclusively reserved for game-changing artists, pioneers and visionaries who reshape the cultural landscape and leave behind a legacy that echoes through the ages.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Wednesday, 28 June 2017

SZA - Ctrl (Album Review)

On ‘Ctrl’, SZA explores the personal struggles of a young black American woman and derives strength from total honesty.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - Live in Birmingham 2016 (Album Review)

Is this a joke? Back in 1997, guitar god Ritchie Blackmore abandoned the world of rock ‘n’ roll in order to ply his trade in the pastoral fields of renaissance folk music with Blackmore’s Night. Fans feared they’d never again hear the guitarist cranking his Fender Stratocaster through a wall of amplifiers, performing the signature riffs and solos that had inspired scores of young guitarists.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Tuesday, 27 June 2017

Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory (Album Review)

In a way, Vince Staples’ approach to artistry is reflected in how he raps: purposefully and emphatically. One of the only criticisms you could make of his debut, ‘Summertime ‘06’, was that some tracks seemed heavily edited, such was the robotic precision with which he delivered them.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Tuesday, 27 June 2017

Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie - Buckingham/McVie (Album Review)

If you’ve ever wondered what a golden era Fleetwood Mac album might sound like without Stevie Nicks, here’s your answer. From 1975’s self-titled effort to ‘87s ‘Tango in the Night’, the Mac’s transatlantic reinvention and huge global success was built on the potent creative relationship between the British trio of Mick Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie and American pair Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Boasting a unique combination of interpersonal friction and natural musical understanding, the quintet crafted some of the finest, most emotionally raw pop-rock songs ever made.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Monday, 26 June 2017

Joe Bonamassa - Live at Carnegie Hall: An Acoustic Evening (Album Review)

Photo: Christie Goodwin Joe Bonamassa without his electric guitar may seem like Samson shorn of his locks or Thor minus his mighty hammer, but this unplugged affair from New York’s Carnegie Hall offers ample proof that the blues-rock icon’s songwriting, not his fretboard wizardry, is the foundation on which he’s really built his success.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Monday, 26 June 2017

Young Thug - Beautiful Thugger Girls (Album Review)

There is a quote attributed to the novelist E.M. Forster concerning the distinction between coarseness and vulgarity: “...coarseness, reveal[s] something; vulgarity, conceal[s] something.” Perhaps this is the best way to appreciate the pure filth that comes out of Young Thug’s mouth.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 23 June 2017

Beth Ditto - Fake Sugar (Album Review)

A decade ago, Beth Ditto’s voice defined Gossip’s sound and helped put the band at the forefront of a vibrant scene when they smashed into the popular consciousness with ‘Standing in the Way of Control’. But how would she fare when set apart from her bandmates, with whom she’d been making music since her teens? That’s the question hanging heavy around the neck of her debut solo LP, ‘Fake Sugar’. The answer’s an easy one: she fares damn well.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Friday, 23 June 2017

Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark? (Album Review)

If you listened to Royal Blood’s new LP and their self-titled debut side by side, you’d struggle to discern which came first. For almost any other band, that would be a sure sign that their creative flame was at risk of succumbing to the blackness of inertia. That’s not the case here.

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Friday, 23 June 2017