Los Campesinos! - Sick Scenes (Album Review)

There was a heaving, sweaty pile of indie landfill clogging up the airwaves during the mid-to-late ‘00s. You couldn’t breathe for deliberately specific lyrics, lo-fi keyboard lines, chinos and unkempt hairdos that took an hour to perfect. In 2017, a lot of those bands have fizzled out, changed course or just broken up. Los Campesinos!, though, have weathered the storm and clambered from the wreckage mostly unscathed. 

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Thursday, 02 March 2017

Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer (Album Review)

Have you seen Crank? There’s this one scene in a hospital where Jason Statham’s heart-rate is juddering to a halt. He points a gun at Glenn Howerton, him off Always Sunny in Philadelphia, passes him a defibrillator paddle and says “juice me”. Well, Statham is grime and the defibrillator is Stormzy.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Wednesday, 01 March 2017

Foxygen - Hang (Album Review)

First things first, you will struggle to find a more musically diverse pop album this year. ‘Hang’, Foxygen’s fourth offering, is a record of genre-hopping dexterity. It demonstrates a profound understanding of textures and tones while sashaying through categories with genuine affection.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 01 March 2017

Dirty Projectors - Dirty Projectors (Album Review)

Photo: Jason Frank Rothenberg Dirty Projectors’ wheel has come full circle. Mainstay David Longstreth was flying solo upon the release of their debut ‘The Glad Fact’ back in 2003 and now, 14 years and a million (or so) band members later, he’s on his own again, in more ways than one.

Written by: Ben Gallivan | Date: Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Pissed Jeans - Why Love Now (Album Review)

Four men surrounded by pink. The title: ‘Why Love Now’. It looks like a power-pop album. Mere subterfuge. This is the biggest swindle since the front cover of Throbbing Gristle’s ‘20 Jazz Funk Greats’. And it’s brilliant.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Monday, 27 February 2017

Future - HNDRXX (Album Review)

One result of the switch from physical units to digital downloads has been variation in album release schedules. Records no longer rely on physical distribution and as such can arrive with little or no fanfare. The watershed in this cultural shift was probably Beyoncé’s 2013 eponymous album, which arrived by surprise after a recording process shrouded in secrecy.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 27 February 2017

Thundercat - Drunk (Album Review)

You’ll often discover a musician through other musicians. You don't just stumble upon Stanley Clarke, you find him via Jaco Pastorius, who you come to through Weather Report, and so on. Many will have discovered Thundercat through his work with Herbie Hancock, Kamasi Washington or Flying Lotus or, more likely, his recordings with Kendrick Lamar.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 24 February 2017

Meat Wave - The Incessant (Album Review)

When it comes to generating a confrontational, oppressive atmosphere on record, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Take the metallers whose doomy riffs are so heavy as to take physical form, the rapper who refuses to conform to percussive mores or the industrial band who drive home that one pneumatic drum sample until the cracks appear in the listener’s skull.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Thursday, 23 February 2017

Frontier Ruckus - Enter The Kingdom (Album Review)

Michigan does a fine line in pop musicians. Alongside Madonna, Stevie Wonder, the White Stripes and Eminem, diverse cult heroes like Iggy Pop, George Clinton and potential Republican rivals for the Senate, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock, all have ties to the state. Nestled in this elaborate melange we also have folk-country innovators Frontier Ruckus.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 23 February 2017

Dutch Uncles - Big Balloon (Album Review)

Few bands manage to last long enough to make five albums. Fewer still manage to make five albums in less than 10 years. Never ones to follow the crowd, that’s exactly what Dutch Uncles have achieved with the release of ‘Big Balloon.’ It’s ain’t half bad, either.

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Jens Lekman - Life Will See You Now (Album Review)

To describe ‘Life Will See You Now’ as an acquired taste is a bit like describing Brexit as a conscious uncoupling. It’s an understatement, which is a narrative tool that Jens Lekman apparently views with a degree of contempt.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 21 February 2017

The Orwells - Terrible Human Beings (Album Review)

Chicago-based garage-rock quintet the Orwells have released their third album, ‘Terrible Human Beings’. It’s their second full-length to be released on a major label and follows their 2014 breakthrough, ‘Disgraceland.’ If that sounds straightforward, that’s because ‘Terrible Human Beings’ is a straightforward record.

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Monday, 20 February 2017

Strand of Oaks - Hard Love (Album Review)

After three largely ignored folk-rock records, ‘HEAL’ blasted Timothy Showalter and Strand of Oaks to a position of significance. The album arrived in a blaze of glory; it was bigger, louder and at its heart was the majestic JM, a seven minute, slow-burning stoner rock tour de force.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 20 February 2017

Rag'N'Bone Man - Human (Album Review)

Rag'n'Bone Man has grand expectations of his audiences. Rory Graham’s music is designed to raise the roof and ignite hopes like wildfire. Disregarding the masculine preconception that emotion equals weakness, this brutish, bearded soul artist is a switched on, deep-thinking performer.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Friday, 17 February 2017

Jesca Hoop - Memories Are Now (Album Review)

It feels lazy to liken Jesca Hoop’s sound to that of PJ Harvey or Tori Amos, especially when female indie singer-songwriters are often marginalised in wider public discourse. That said, this Manchester-based Californian’s seventh album, ‘Memories Are Now’, does share characteristics with the work of those artists, demonstrating a surreptitiously poppy vision via a strikingly independent sound.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 16 February 2017

Thunder - Rip It Up (Album Review)

Predictability can be a double-edged sword; both something to aspire to and rebel against depending on the context. Take British veterans Thunder. For nearly 30 years, their output has followed an established bluesy rock ‘n’ roll template with fairly consistent results. As such, it’s been easy to take them for granted. But on ‘Rip It Up’, the 11th record of their career, they’ve effectively painted a target on the back of our expectations and set about blowing them away.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Wednesday, 15 February 2017

Sinkane - Life and Livin' It (Album Review)

Sinkane’s ‘Life and Livin’ It’ might be the album you’ve been waiting for.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Big Sean - I Decided (Album Review)

Dr. Dre’s ‘2001’ changed hip hop in the wider public consciousness. Previously, gangsta rap was a popular subset in a genre that also promoted unbridled joy (De La Soul or Beastie Boys), cultural tolerance (A Tribe Called Quest) and jazz-infused ingenuity (The Roots) in equal measure. But the overwhelming critical and commercial success of ‘2001’ meant that a certain brand of misogyny, money worship and profanity began to dominate popular understandings of what hip hop is.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 13 February 2017

Black Star Riders - Heavy Fire (Album Review)

Ever since they morphed from a semi-legitimised Thin Lizzy tribute band into an original outfit under their own name, the question of identity has been a tricky one for Black Star Riders to negotiate. But on ‘Heavy Fire’, their third and best album to date, the group have taken a telling step towards sonic autonomy after toning down the overt and contrived nods to their Lizzy lineage. Well, most of the group.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 10 February 2017

The Menzingers - After The Party (Album Review)

There comes a time for bands with clout to match their ambitions when their sound/look/lyrical preoccupations become open to parody. If you were to sketch the Menzingers, for example, you’d set the four of them against the Philadelphia skyline in jean jackets and flannel shirts, etch some words about better understanding your place in the world beneath their feet and then set about screaming them at the top of your lungs.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Friday, 10 February 2017