Architects - Holy Hell (Album Review)

Loss and grief are themes that have underpinned metal records since Tony Iommi resurrected the devil’s interval, but often they are examined with a sense of emotional detachment—as though a lung-bursting scream can add meaning when the lyric sheet fails to join the dots.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 21 November 2018

Muse - Simulation Theory (Album Review)

Photo: Jeff Forney ‘Simulation Theory’ is confusing. Why is such an objectively bad album so enjoyable? The tale of the tape for Muse’s eighth LP is that it’s a mash-up of genres delivered with a crushing sense of overkill on the production side of things. Die-hard fans of the band’s early work will go into it with truly dreadful expectations—after all, they haven’t released a good album in years.

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Tuesday, 20 November 2018

Mick Jenkins - Pieces Of A Man (Album Review)

Mick Jenkins was riding the crest of a wave when his breakout mixtape 'The Water[s]' dropped in the summer of 2014. Talented heads like Chance the Rapper, Vic Mensa, Noname and Saba would all go on to emerge from the same bubbling Chicago hip-hop scene, but Jenkins had positioned himself in critics' minds as the moody and technically gifted older brother. He already appeared fully formed in an artistic sense, framing highly conceptual songwriting with jazz-influenced verses and a raspy vocal delivery.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Tuesday, 20 November 2018

Mumford & Sons - Delta (Album Review)

For their fourth studio album, ‘Delta’, Mumford & Sons have partnered with producer Paul Epworth to create a collection of diverse, electronically-treated indie-folk songs that rank among the group’s best work to date.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 16 November 2018

Boygenius - Boygenius (Album Review)

Photo: Lera Pentelute Supergroup is a big, ugly label. It’s reductive, and it ramps up the pressure on what is always a new endeavour—even if the players are seasoned pros. Friction is naturally created by expectations rubbing up against the mechanics of making music in a fresh formation, often leading to overhyped records that feel like a tired exhalation of breath from their first note.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Tuesday, 13 November 2018

Bill Ryder-Jones - Yawn (Album Review)

Photo: Ki Price Bill Ryder-Jones’ fifth solo album is a dream-pop melange of shoegaze and alternative indie fed through a highly literate, if rather boring, cypher.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 13 November 2018

The Prodigy - No Tourists (Album Review)

To say the Prodigy have not really updated their sound is to miss the point. Like their distant cousins in electronic music Erasure and Depeche Mode they have spent their career honing a particular sonic oeuvre, and their seventh album, ‘No Tourists’, ranks among the best work within it.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 12 November 2018

Vince Staples - FM! (Album Review)

There's something jarring about hearing 'FM!', California rapper Vince Staples’ latest record, for the first time. That's not to say it's gratingly abstract or experimental – if anything, it's the opposite as we're treated to a series of trap and hyphy-inspired cuts over the course of 22 minutes. It's a bitesize project from an artist who made his name with a double album, 'Summertime 06', and last year's futuristic 'Big Fish Theory'.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Friday, 09 November 2018

Baxter Dury, Étienne De Crécy, Delilah Holiday - B.E.D (Album Review)

When Baxter Dury picks apart the ironies of the modern day on Only My Honesty Matters, in that deep, cigarette-gravelled voice, the minimalism of the instrumental beneath his rhythmic, spoken word monologue about “having a roll up” and “impotent white obvious people” listening to Florence and the Machine is almost forgivable. Almost.

Written by: Helen Payne | Date: Thursday, 08 November 2018

The Struts - Young & Dangerous (Album Review)

If it were illegal to cram an album with as many bombastic, uplifting anthems as humanly possible, the Struts wouldn’t just be serving hard time, they’d be shuffling along to the gallows in their most dazzling finery. Having already created a large splash in the US, and been named by Dave Grohl as the best band to support the Foo Fighters, these Derbyshire glam-rockers have crafted a relentlessly infectious second album that should finally see them receive the attention they deserve on these shores.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Thursday, 08 November 2018

Eric Church - Desperate Man (Album Review)

If you’re having trouble getting a handle on ‘Desperate Man’, the follow-up to Eric Church’s exceptional 2015 effort ‘Mr Misunderstood’, you’re not alone. In fact, your struggles may stem from the fact that the reformed badboy of country doesn’t seem to have a clear plan for the album either. As inspired and classy as it is messy and undercooked, this record is a bona fide head-scratcher.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Tuesday, 06 November 2018

Peter, Bjorn and John - Darker Days (Album Review)

Photo: Johan Bergmark Living a Dream, the fifth track on Peter, Bjorn and John’s eighth album, shimmers brilliantly. It is perhaps the finest piece of music the band has put together and a neat encapsulation of the charms hidden within ‘Darker Days’, which also stacks up as their most accomplished and expansive body of work to date.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Monday, 05 November 2018

Julia Holter - Aviary (Album Review)

Photo: Dicky Bahto  Julia Holter composes disparate noise projects, all designed to be deeply meditative. Constructing challenging, wide-ranging sonic spaces, interspersed with mesmerising sound patterns, her fifth LP ventures further into the irreverent than ever before.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Friday, 02 November 2018

Swearin' - Fall Into The Sun (Album Review)

Space can be good, whether it’s allowing us to take a break from people or helping intrigue to blossom in the moments left unfilled in a piece of music. Left to our own devices, we are able to take stock, gain perspective and ultimately grow. It feels like Swearin’, who split in 2015 when guitarists and vocalists Allison Crutchfield and Kyle Gilbride ended their romantic and musical relationship, would back that sentiment.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Thursday, 01 November 2018

Nao - Saturn (Album Review)

Having featured on breakout projects by the likes of Stormzy and Disclosure, London-based songwriter Nao isn't short of rep in high places. But whereas British R&B contemporaries like Charlie XCX, Aluna Francis and Jorja Smith have used their respective talents to transition into hitmakers, Nao seemed to become more entrenched in her intimate, avant-soul niche on her debut LP 'For All We Know'.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Wednesday, 31 October 2018

MØ - Forever Neverland (Album Review)

Most new albums are intended to be new benchmarks, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Unfortunately, the entirety of MØ's existing back catalogue is a better proposition than her second LP ‘Forever Neverland’, which has been in the works for several years.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Tuesday, 30 October 2018

Robyn - Honey (Album Review)

There is a method of mastering in dance music production - pioneered by Daft Punk - that involves increasing sidebar compression on the kick drum. The result is that the whole track throbs around the kick, and seems more aggressive, powerful and tight. It’s particularly effective for radio play, where things are engineered into a state of razor-like sharpness to be heard over rush hour traffic.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 29 October 2018

Neneh Cherry - Broken Politics (Album Review)

‘Broken Politics’ is Neneh Cherry’s fifth studio album her second in collaboration with producer Kieran Hebden, who performs as Four Tet. The result is a rich, trip-hop melange that expertly packages Cherry’s spoken word with elegant far eastern patches and motifs. It’s music that feels like it was born in the ‘90s, but it also has a degree of currency - if not urgency.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 25 October 2018

MewithoutYou - [Untitled] (Album Review)

Sixteen years on from the release of their debut album ‘(A→B) Life’ Philadelphia indie-rockers MewithoutYou have found a second wind as they return to the religious and existential themes of their early work, expressing them in a more intense and claustrophobic way on album seven, ‘[Untitled]’.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Thursday, 25 October 2018

Greta Van Fleet - Anthem Of The Peaceful Army (Album Review)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that Michigan’s Greta Van Fleet are one of the first young rock bands in a long time to generate a truly massive amount of hype ahead of the release of their debut full length. After two very successful EPs - 2017’s ‘Black Some Rising’ and ‘From The Fires’ - we have ‘Anthem Of The Peaceful Army’ in our hands, and it’s an interesting proposition.

Written by: Jon Stickler | Date: Wednesday, 24 October 2018