Whiskey Myers - Mud (Album Review)

No sane person would willingly excavate the contents of a deep south swamp, but while listening to this countrified rock ‘n’ roll masterclass from Texan dudes Whiskey Myers, the thought occurs that someone has done just that. Flipping the bird at anything vaguely resembling a current trend, ‘Mud’ is so unashamedly vintage it’s as though a criminally discarded collaboration between the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Band has been salvaged after decades marinating in the Tennessee wetlands.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Monday, 19 September 2016

Zomby - Ultra (Album Review)

On the fidget-heavy ‘Ultra’, the elusive Zomby makes his latest advancements within a distorted genre that’s increasingly becoming self-defined.

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Friday, 16 September 2016

Clipping. - Splendor & Misery (Album Review)

Go big or go home, right? That’s precisely what Clipping. aim to do on their second studio record, ‘Splendor & Misery’, a hugely ambitious concept album. It’s been a busy few months for the trio, with the release of their ‘Wriggle’ EP sandwiched by Daveed Diggs picking up a Grammy and Tony for his work on the Broadway smash Hamilton, but their desire to look beyond hip hop’s established horizons hasn’t been weathered by scheduling or an uptick in media scrutiny.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Friday, 16 September 2016

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree (Album Review)

Photo: Kerry Brown In July of last year, Nick Cave lost his 15-year-old son, Arthur, in a tragic accident. He was already working on a new record, the follow up to 2013’s ‘Push The Sky Away’, and the completion of it was understandably thrust into turmoil.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Thursday, 15 September 2016

Pain - Coming Home (Album Review)

You were expecting hulking, heavier-than-Hercules’-pecs riffs. You were expecting dunderheaded choruses. You were expecting a blend of electronica and industrial metal that makes Deathstars sound like Whitesnake, weren’t you? Well, with Pain’s eighth smattering of sing-along sin, ‘Coming Home’, you get all that and a little bit more.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Thursday, 15 September 2016

M.I.A. - AIM (Album Review)

During the ‘90s, there was a subgenre of dance music that lived halfway between Amazonian children’s choirs and Soul II Soul. It was called Worldbeat, was led by the likes of Enigma and Deep Forest and was almost universally derided outside the safe haven of WOMAD.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 15 September 2016

Devin Townsend Project - Transcendence (Album Review)

‘Transcendence’, the seventh full length by the Devin Townsend Project, opens with a glossy, reworked version of Truth, a song that initially made itself at home on 1998’s ‘Infinity’. It’s a pretty bang-on indicator of what this record stands for. This is an example of undiluted, completely liberating artistic expression at work and the culmination of 20-plus years of touring, recording, touring, recording and puppets.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Young Thug - Jeffery (Album Review)

Let’s get straight to it: if Young Thug's lyrics were less shallow, a little less off-the-shelf gangsta, we might be talking about him as one of hip hop’s bankable arena draws. It’s true that the professional rules that get you out of playing clubs and into arenas often need revision if you want to get to the next level.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Twin Atlantic - GLA (Album Review)

A distinct identity is something Twin Atlantic have always struggled to find. From the Biffy Clyro-esque idiosyncrasies of their early efforts to the arena rock of 2014’s ‘Great Divide’, their only quirk has often been the uncompromising Scottish twang of lead singer Sam McTrusty.

Written by: Liam Turner | Date: Tuesday, 13 September 2016

Frank Ocean - Blonde (Album Review)

Other than The Weeknd, during his ‘Trilogy’ era, it’s hard to think of an R&B artist as natural when it comes to playing with mood and aesthetic as Frank Ocean.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Tuesday, 13 September 2016

Angel Olsen - My Woman (Album Review)

For a while, during years that seemed at the time to be post-vinyl, hanging on to the idea of Side A and Side B, of an artist and listener sharing a moment as the record was flipped, was an indulgence. As playlist culture, streaming services and mixtapes have grown in prominence, the broader concept of rigidly pacing a record has also become an endangered pastime: is it strictly necessary if the end result is destined to be deconstructed in an app?

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 07 September 2016

Jamie T - Trick (Album Review)

Do you remember when Jamie T first broke through?

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 06 September 2016

Crystal Castles - Amnesty (I) (Album Review)

If Crystal Castles were always a box of sharp objects waiting to be upended, Alice Glass was the one most likely to do serious damage. Her exit from the band, and the mess left behind by Ethan Kath’s public statements on the split, immediately cast a pall over any new record he’d seek to put out under the name. The surprise, perhaps, is how it lifts a little on ‘Amnesty (I)’.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Monday, 05 September 2016

Cowtown - Paranormal Romance (Album Review)

“There’s not a minute to lose,” croons Jonathan Nash, Cowtown’s vocalist and guitar-slinger, on ‘Paranormal Romance’ opener Clock In. The band take their own advice on board, with their fourth LP clocking in and out within 23 minutes.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Friday, 02 September 2016

Banks & Steelz - Anything But Words (Album Review)

Rap-rock's charge sheet is a mile long and home to crimes that we can't forgive and forget.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Friday, 02 September 2016

AJJ - The Bible 2 (Album Review)

Andrew Jackson Jihad are dead. ‘Christmas Island’ landed in 2014, expanding the folk-punk quartet’s sonic palette as far as it could go. Two years later, they’ve returned under the initialism AJJ. Is it for artistic purposes, to symbolise a new beginning after the tumultuous journey to ‘Christmas Island’? Well, kinda. “We are not Muslims, and as such, it is disrespectful and irresponsible for us to use the word jihad in our band’s name,” Sean Bonnette recently observed. So they followed that up by, er, calling their sixth LP ‘The Bible 2’.  

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Thursday, 01 September 2016

Cass McCombs - Mangy Love (Album Review)

Being a professional singer-songwriter is hellfire difficult.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Benjamin Francis Leftwich - After The Rain (Album Review)

From the outside, it’s surprising that Benjamin Francis Leftwich left it five years to follow up his incredible debut, ‘Last Smoke Before the Snowstorm’. The York-born, north London-resident songwriter saw the album garner some high-profile fans on its way to cracking the UK top 40 at a time when albums released on indies rarely found a home among higher echelons of the charts.

Written by: Ben Gallivan | Date: Tuesday, 30 August 2016

John Paul White - Beulah (Album Review)

Some albums are slices of joy that get the party started and dancefloor heaving, raising downtrodden spirits with their uplifting elan. And then there are those best consumed alone in a darkened room amid feelings of simmering vengeance, crushing heartbreak and self doubt. Would you like to guess which style John Paul White, formerly of the Civil Wars, embraces on his first solo offering in eight years?

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 26 August 2016

Creative Adult - Fear Of Life (Album Review)

‘Fear of Life’, the second album by Bay Area post-punks Creative Adult, sees them explore a new sense of melody without losing any of the dark intensity that characterised their debut, ‘Psychic Mess’.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Thursday, 25 August 2016