Yung Lean - Stranger (Album Review)

Swedish rapper Yung Lean’s career is symptomatic of the direction hip hop has taken during the last decade.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Monday, 13 November 2017

Angel Olsen - Phases (Album Review)

Angel Olsen’s ‘Phases’ - a collection of off-cuts, b-sides and fresh material - follows swiftly after last year’s breakthrough ‘My Woman’ LP, which showcased her talent for indie-folk songwriting alongside distinctive, lo-fi production.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 10 November 2017

Jared James Nichols - Black Magic (Album Review)

Photo: Adam Kennedy You have to wonder why so many artists drop the ball on their second album. Just take what worked from the debut, ditch what didn’t and work hard at being better. Is that over-simplifying things? Only if you haven’t fallen under the spell of ‘Black Magic’, a sophomore battering ram of primal blues-rock from Jared James Nichols.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Thursday, 09 November 2017

Converge - The Dusk In Us (Album Review)

Grass is green. Jack Daniel’s is tasty. Converge are brilliant. Since their line-up solidified for 2001’s metalcore masterwork ‘Jane Doe’, the Massachusetts four piece have created critically-hailed album after critically-hailed album.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Thursday, 09 November 2017

Shamir - Revelations (Album Review)

Photo: Jason MacDonald When ‘Ratchet’ introduced us to Shamir Bailey’s neon-flecked electropop a little over two years ago, you’d have got long odds on what happened next. The Las Vegas native swiftly ditched the sound that made him a critical darling, turning instead to rough and ready DIY indie on its self-released follow up, ‘Hope’.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Wednesday, 08 November 2017

Stereophonics - Scream Above The Sounds (Album Review)

For too long Stereophonics have been content to walk a mediocre path on their albums, even if they remain capable of conjuring belting singles. With the release of ‘Keep The Village Alive’ in 2015, though, there came a glimmer of hope.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Tuesday, 07 November 2017

Jessie Ware - Glasshouse (Album Review)

Jessie Ware’s music has always tackled big feelings with a level of finesse that kept them from bleeding outside the lines. On ‘Glasshouse’, her third LP, that sensibility is teamed with newfound specificity to great effect.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Monday, 06 November 2017

Sam Smith - The Thrill Of It All (Album Review)

There is a lot riding on Sam Smith’s second album. His 2014 debut, ‘In the Lonely Hour’ shipped upwards of 10m copies and secured four Grammys. But, following that, the singer displayed a capacity for professional self destruction.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 06 November 2017

MØ - When I Was Young (Album Review)

MØ’s ear for catchy hooks and earnest lyrics has made her a favourite collaborator among mainstream and alternative producers, but that has in turn left her caught between two worlds. That split is showcased on her surprise EP, ‘When I Was Young’.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Thursday, 02 November 2017

Bootsy Collins - World Wide Funk (Album Review)

Bootsy Collins is an American musical institution. A career that spans the J.B.’s, Parliament and Funkadelic now includes his ninth solo album, and while ‘World Wide Funk’ demonstrates his world-class talent in varied bandleading, the real meat in this funk sandwich is in the high energy, old-school grooves.

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

Bully - Losing (Album Review)

It’s been impossible to read about Bully’s career without finding the name Steve Albini propping up the word count somewhere. That’s because singer and guitarist Alicia Bognanno interned at his hallowed Electrical Audio studio in Chicago, learning the analog recording skills used to capture the band’s live energy on ‘Losing’, their second album. With all due respect, though, Albini should soon be a footnote.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Wednesday, 01 November 2017

Julien Baker - Turn Out The Lights (Album Review)

Julien Baker’s ‘Turn Out The Lights’ is a masterpiece of intimacy. While retaining the confessional lyrics and sparse instrumentation of her debut, ‘Sprained Ankle’, her second release pulls us in closer. We’re no longer observers: we feel what she feels.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Tuesday, 31 October 2017

Weezer - Pacific Daydream (Album Review)

Weezer. Oh no. Last year’s ‘White Album’ restored faith in California’s most annoyingly inconsistent sons. After 15 years spent chipping away at their legacy, this guitar-toting, Beach Boys-worshiping band decided to take what made them brilliant in the first place and boot it into 2016. It was home to ‘50s melodies, alt-rock fuzz and painfully awkward words spewing from Rivers Cuomo’s lyric sheet. It was a Weezer record fans could finally be proud of.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Monday, 30 October 2017

Margo Price - All American Made (Album Review)

With the USA’s public intensely divided, album titles featuring the word ‘American’ may have increased appeal owing to their unifying effect. Thus, in 2017 we’ve had ‘American Teen’ (Khalid), ‘american dream’ (LCD Soundsystem) and now we have ‘All American Made’ -  the second album from Nashville singer Margo Price.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 27 October 2017

Destroyer - ken (Album Review)

Dan Bejar and Destroyer have been releasing music since the mid ‘90s and their latest record, ‘ken’ is their 12th studio album. It’s named after the working title of Suede’s 1994 hit The Wild Ones, a song Bejar has described as “one of the great English-language ballads of the last 100 years”.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 26 October 2017

Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice (Album Review)

Kurt Vile’s stock seems to rise with every release, something that has been the case since he departed the War on Drugs and set out on a solo career. On ‘Lotta Sea Lice’ he collaborates with another artist following a similar trajectory - the Australian indie-rocker Courtney Barnett, who's fresh from a breakthrough with her debut LP 'Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit'. On paper, the match would seem a perfect fit, and in practice it largely is.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 25 October 2017

And So I Watch You From Afar - The Endless Shimmering (Album Review)

It’s difficult to overstate how refreshing And So I Watch You From Afar (or ASIWYFA) were when they arrived on the scene nearly a decade ago. Looking back now, guitar-led instrumentalists took up scant space in a busy alt-rock market, but reading indie blogs at the time led you to believe every other band was peddling the same drawn out, dynamics-based sound. Then, out of nowhere, this noisy wee quartet from Northern Ireland came along to blow the bloody doors off.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Tuesday, 24 October 2017

Trivium - The Sin and the Sentence (Album Review)

Up. Down. Up. Down. Sideways a little bit. Get off to throw up. A few people laugh. Get back on again. This is the rollercoaster of Trivium's career.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Tuesday, 24 October 2017

Beck - Colors (Album Review)

Photo: Eliot Lee Hazel For Beck’s 13th album, the Californian singer-songwriter has eschewed the critically lauded musical introversion of his previous two records in favour of outright pop. The results are inconsistent, but when they deliver, they do so with an explosion of joyous swagger; all swinging grooves, smashy snares and production flare.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 23 October 2017

St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION (Album Review)

St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, has had a dramatic few years. Her eponymous fourth LP made her reputation internationally as a gifted musical auteur. Then, a romance with the world’s most famous supermodel, Cara Delevingne, catapulted her into the strange position of being a tabloid concern; one British paper branding her the ‘female Bowie’.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 20 October 2017