SG Lewis - AudioLust & HigherLove (Album Review)
Photo: Lauretta Suter Despite what you might think, SG Lewis is not a high concept cabaret act combining the characters of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles, and neither is he the offspring of 1990s reggae star CJ Lewis, reaching for his father’s legacy. He’s an electronic music producer from Reading.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 30 January 2023
Fucked Up - One Day (Album Review)
Photo: Jeaninne Kaufer “What could you do in just one day?” This question, posed in the title track of Fucked Up’s latest full length, was at the forefront of guitarist Mike Haliechuk’s mind when he conceived the band’s sixth album. The idea was a simple one: to see if he could write and record an album's worth of material in just 24 hours of studio time, and have his bandmates lay down their parts within the same time constraints.
Written by: Craig Howieson | Date: Friday, 27 January 2023
Dave Rowntree - Radio Songs (Album Review)
Photo: Paul Postle Usually when a 58-year-old man releases his first album, it becomes a bit of a punchline. Not so with ‘Radio Songs’, which is a decent collection of comfortable indie tracks, with elaborate rhythms and textures woven in. And taking a closer look at Dave Rowntree, one shouldn’t be too surprised.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 26 January 2023
Ladytron - Time's Arrow (Album Review)
Photo: Wendy Redfern ‘Time’s Arrow’, Ladytron’s seventh studio album, largely deals with the progression of time—the one-way ticket that needs to be drained of opportunities that arise along the journey. The synth-pop duo have attempted to dress this up in a “dreamlike” and “uplifting” veil according to chief lyricist and lead vocalist Helen Marnie, but that’s only true some of the time.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Måneskin - Rush! (Album Review)
Måneskin’s trajectory up until now has been something to marvel at. Guitar bands of their ilk rarely smash the glass ceiling of the mainstream as quickly as they have, and they’ve maintained their place in the public eye an awful lot longer than most other Eurovision alumni.
Written by: Emma Wilkes | Date: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
John Cale - Mercy (Album Review)
Photo: Madeline McManus John Cale’s ‘Mercy’ is excellent: a sprawling, story-laden collection of avant-garde songs that starts with relatively soundscapey work before edging more leftfield from there. It is also a timely record. Todd Haynes’ 2021 film on the Velvet Underground—the band Cale co-founded with Lou Reed in the mid 1960s—has refreshed and rejuvenated interest in the pioneers of art-rock.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 23 January 2023
The Murder Capital - Gigi's Recovery (Album Review)
The Murder Capital’s 2019 debut ‘When I Have Fears’ made you feel as if you were drowning. Written in the aftermath of a friend’s suicide, its dark aesthetic swelled and retreated throughout, offering a powerful statement on loss and its aftershocks. Their follow up ‘Gigi’s Recovery’ finds the Dublin post-punk band further examining their relationship with grief.
Written by: Matty Pywell | Date: Friday, 20 January 2023
CVC - Get Real (Album Review)
When approaching a debut album from a buzzy indie-rock band there are a few things that can be expected as par for the course, chiefly jangly guitar melodies and catchy choruses that, if you’re lucky, may live on as indie disco floor-fillers.
Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Gaz Coombes - Turn The Car Around (Album Review)
Photo: Tom Cockram September of last year saw the end (we think) of Supergrass. Taking to the stage at the tribute concert for Foo Fighters’ late drummer Taylor Hawkins, the Britpop legends apparently enjoyed their last stand, with frontman Gaz Coombes then returning to his quietly dazzling solo career.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Iggy Pop - Every Loser (Album Review)
Photo: Vincent Guignet Whether you have found yourself listening to Iggy Pop’s BBC Radio 6 show, or hacking through his back catalogue searching vainly for punk treasure akin to his biggest hits, it’s useful to think of the Michigander as a performance artist, rather than a rock musician.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 16 January 2023
Billy Nomates - Cacti (Album Review)
Photo: Eddie Whelan It makes perfect sense that Tor Maries’ second record as Billy Nomates is called ‘Cacti’. From the etymology of her stage name—a result of insults directed at her for attending a Sleaford Mods gig alone—to the spit-in-your-face bluntness of her eponymous 2020 debut album, there’s a furious, raucous energy attached to everything she does.
Written by: Jack Terry | Date: Friday, 13 January 2023
Anti-Flag - Lies They Tell Our Children (Album Review)
The world has been caught in a chaotic downward spiral—from war and political corruption to inequality on countless levels, there’s a lot to take in before we even consider a global pandemic or a swiftly escalating environmental crisis.
Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Monday, 09 January 2023
Fireworks - Higher Lonely Power (Album Review)
Photo: Leah Castile Most things change over time, and over the course of almost a decade they can change a lot. After announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2015, Detroit’s Fireworks are back with their first album in nine years, taking a lengthy stride away from the thoughtful pop-punk stylings of their previous three full-lengths.
Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Friday, 06 January 2023
Ab-Soul - Herbert (Album Review)
Photo: Chris Carey Top Dawg Entertainment is having quite the year. Having already put out Kendrick Lamar's peerless ‘Mr Morale & the Big Steppers’ back in May, and SZA's sizzling ‘SOS’ a short while ago, they're capping 2022 with ‘Herbert’, the fifth entry in Ab-Soul's discography, and his first in more than six years.
Written by: Jack Terry | Date: Monday, 19 December 2022
Little Simz - No Thank You (Album Review)
Following a breakout year, including a Mercury Prize win and the Best Album award at the MOBOs, both for the terrific ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’, Little Simz is back with a surprise drop of new material in the form of ‘No Thank You’, a compact, confident and confrontational collection of 10 tracks.
Written by: Jack Terry | Date: Thursday, 15 December 2022
††† - Permanent.Radiant (Album Review)
A collaborative project headed by Chino Moreno of Deftones and Shaun Lopez of Far, Crosses (stylised as †††) have been mostly dormant since 2014. On Christmas Eve of 2020 and 2021, however, the band reemerged with two covers of ‘80s synth-pop tracks, as if to further iterate the direction the project was heading in.
Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Wednesday, 14 December 2022
SZA - SOS (Album Review)
The second album by R&B sensation SZA has certainly been long-awaited. But, given her notoriously perfectionist nature and claims her debut was only released because her label got sick of waiting and stole her hard drive, it’s no surprise we’ve waited five years for the follow up to ‘CTRL’.
Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Monday, 12 December 2022
NOFX - Double Album (Album Review)
Seeking to bow out in style after announcing their retirement from touring in 2023, punk legends NOFX are attempting to conquer something that few musicians have successfully managed before them: the double album.
Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Friday, 02 December 2022
Stormzy - This Is What I Mean (Album Review)
It's been almost a decade since Stormzy emerged as grime's new golden boy, with his Shut Up freestyle paving the way for his debut album ‘Gang Signs And Prayer’ to hit number one in the UK, and a 2019 headline slot at Glastonbury. Today, these achievements have bought him ample freedom to do what he wants on his third album ‘This Is What I Mean’.
Written by: Jack Terry | Date: Tuesday, 29 November 2022
The White Buffalo - Year of the Dark Horse (Album Review)
‘Year of the Dark Horse’ more than lives up to The White Buffalo’s claim that he’s finally made his ‘headphones album’. Over the past two decades Jake Smith has strode across the nebulous Americana realm like a god among mortals. He’s a mysterious Emmy-nominated artist who conveys grim truths with either a mesmeric whisper or visceral, damaged roar.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Brockhampton - The Family (Album Review)
Photo: Conor Cunningham It’s challenging for any artist to call it a day, but bowing out on your own terms is always preferable to an ignominious end. Enter alternative hip hop collective Brockhampton. Since forming in 2010 they’ve been a breath of fresh air, discussing sexuality, self-discovery and their own brotherhood in a world that has sometimes been dominated by hyper-masculine and misogynistic lyrics.
Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Wednesday, 23 November 2022
Nickelback - Get Rollin' (Album Review)
After a five year hiatus, everyone’s favourite musical punchline are back with an album that’s pulled off the unenviable feat of sounding dated the moment it was released. While the rest of the world was in lockdown, it appears Nickelback may have been hibernating in some kind of vacuum-tight stasis chamber. But whether that’s a bad thing or not will, like everything to do with this hugely polarising outfit, be very much subjective.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Christine and the Queens - Redcar les adorables étoiles (prologue) (Album Review)
Photo: Pierre-Ange Carlotti For his third full album the French performance artist known at various times as Chris and Christine and the Queens has created a new persona: the titular ‘Redcar’. The album, sung from Redcar’s perspective, picks up much of the pop melancholy of the singer’s first two albums while honing art-pop tropes successfully deployed on his most recent release: the 2020 EP, ‘La Vita Nuova’. The result is a bit of a mess, lacking focus in songwriting and structure, but which nonetheless contains flashes of the brilliant artist lurking within.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 21 November 2022
Neil Young and Crazy Horse - World Record (Album Review)
Photo: Joey Martinez Time can take an immeasurable toll. The passing years have the ability to dull the senses, and dampen fires that once burned brightly. It can be all too easy to become complacent, to allow each day to roll into the next.
Written by: Craig Howieson | Date: Friday, 18 November 2022
Weyes Blood - And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow (Album Review)
Photo: Neil Krug It has come to light that Weyes Blood’s superb 2019 album ‘Titanic Rising’ was the first in a trilogy. It served as a warning shot from a world going wrong, with ominous tides and people becoming more detached from each other than ever before.
Written by: Matty Pywell | Date: Thursday, 17 November 2022
Bruce Springsteen - Only The Strong Survive (Album Review)
If you’re one of the greatest songwriters of all time, covering the work of others isn’t something you do out of necessity or on a whim. It has to mean something. So where 2006’s ‘We Shall Overcome’ found Bruce Springsteen passionately shining a light on folk numbers popularised by Pete Seeger, ‘Only The Strong Survive’ indulges his love for classic R&B and soul music to create a record that, although an entertaining curio, never feels as imperative as its predecessor.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Wednesday, 16 November 2022
L.S. Dunes - Past Lives (Album Review)
Photo: Luke Dicky In a year when emo nostalgia has hit a heady peak—from the comebacks of My Chemical Romance and Paramore, to the excitement around When We Were Young festival’s throwback line up—it only seems right that we should be greeted by a supergroup such as L.S. Dunes.
Written by: Jack Terry | Date: Monday, 14 November 2022
Big Joanie - Back Home (Album Review)
Photo: Ajamu X Big Joanie are well on their way to being big news. The London-based feminist-punk trio have already notched touring slots with IDLES and Bikini Kill, showing significant promise both in the UK and Stateside. Now striding forward with their second LP ‘Back Home’ they serve up a superb set of biting punk tracks with a few worthwhile surprises thrown in for good measure.
Written by: Rebecca Llewellyn | Date: Wednesday, 09 November 2022
Special Interest - Endure (Album Review)
War, the climate emergency, the cost of living crisis, combustible governments. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. There is no shortage of harrowing aspects of existence in 2022. Nor is there a lack of ways to be informed, or misinformed, about them. As we reach for our phone for the hundredth time, to speed read the latest notification, interrupting the half thought that we were on the cusp of completing, it is little wonder our minds lose focus. When everything is a disaster until a bigger disaster comes along, and priorities are swallowed by bigger priorities, how do you move forward?
Written by: Craig Howieson | Date: Tuesday, 08 November 2022
Joanne Shaw Taylor - Nobody's Fool (Album Review)
Photo: Chris Wilson In 2021, Joanne Shaw Taylor dazzled and delighted with an album of life affirming blues covers, delivered in tandem with producers Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith. Hope was kindled that this chemistry-rich trio might bring the exact same magic to her next batch of original material, which they have done in some style.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Monday, 07 November 2022
Phoenix - Alpha Zulu (Album Review)
Photo: Shervin Lainez Phoenix’s music has always displayed a sprightly elegance. A clean-cut, immaculately capable group, they have from the outset had their own unique take on indie-rock, embracing pop and electronics without falling into electroclash. Slowly, they became as synonymous with French alternative music as Daft Punk were with French house.
Written by: Craig Howieson | Date: Friday, 04 November 2022
Simple Minds - Direction of the Heart (Album Review)
With much of Simple Minds’ most recognisable line-up having departed at various points during the past 40 years, Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill are now the only mainstays who provide the face of the band as they head into their 60s. It’s not just the two of them these days, of course, but those who were there with them at the start will likely see it that way.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 03 November 2022
Pinkshift - Love Me Forever (Album Review)
Before the pandemic, the members of Pinkshift were three college students who played in a band for fun. They came out the other side as viral sensations after their feisty yet tormented grunge-pop hit I’m Gonna Tell My Therapist on You punctured the internet in the depths of the Covid shutdown.
Written by: Emma Wilkes | Date: Wednesday, 02 November 2022
Show Me The Body - Trouble The Water (Album Review)
It's hard to find the words to accurately categorise New York's Show Me The Body. These DIY masters have long delivered their anti-establishment protest songs in raucous, raw settings, and their previous albums, 2016's ‘Body War’ and 2019's ‘Dog Whistle’, displayed a band that was willing to push hardcore in experimental and challenging directions. And on ‘Trouble The Water’ they sound more potent and pissed off than ever before.
Written by: Jack Terry | Date: Tuesday, 01 November 2022
Arctic Monkeys - The Car (Album Review)
Photo: Zackery Michael Everyone’s heard of the great rock ‘n’ roll swindle, and the way Arctic Monkeys’ career has veered off in totally non-rock directions has left fans of the raw, edgy guitar onslaught of earlier albums scratching their heads. It began with ‘Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino’, a collection of, for want of a better term, space-lounge music. Little remained of the old fire, and its successor ‘The Car’ follows in the same vein.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 31 October 2022
Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork (Album Review)
Photo: Guy Bolongaro For Dry Cleaning’s second album, the South London quartet have refined the post-punk sound they delivered on their breakthrough record, ‘New Long Leg’, while expanding the topical range of vocalist Florence Shaw’s deadpan singing. Actually ‘singing’ doesn’t quite feel right. What Shaw is doing is closer to spoken word poetry, Sprechgesang, or even sports commentary without the sport. It’s pretty distinctive stuff.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 28 October 2022
Lightning Seeds - See You In The Stars (Album Review)
Photo: Tom Oxley There’s much to love about Ian Broudie’s Lightning Seeds. He is one of the best British songwriters of his generation, reaching his ‘Dizzy Heights’ in the mid-1990s, and the genius of his band was found in the fact that melodies were everything: Sugar Coated Iceberg, Lucky You, The Life of Riley, the list goes on. Now, 13 years since their last album, 'See You in the Stars’ attempts to keep the goods coming.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Friday, 28 October 2022
Architects - The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit (Album Review)
It’s barely been a year since Architects topped the UK charts with their ninth album ‘For Those That Wish to Exist’, but the Brighton metalcore troupe haven’t rested on their laurels. The ideas that became ‘The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit’ arrived as the band were completing a victory lap of UK arenas celebrating its predecessor.
Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Thursday, 27 October 2022
The Big Moon - Here is Everything (Album Review)
The Big Moon have returned with their third studio album, ‘Here Is Everything’, serving up their most emotive work to date. An introspective work that has ties to a period of deep personal change for the band, as well as the wider world around them.
Written by: Rebecca Llewellyn | Date: Thursday, 27 October 2022
Loyle Carner - Hugo (Album Review)
Loyle Carner’s third studio album sees the British rapper develop and improve his rootsy jazz sound while retaining a high degree of candour, integrity and lyrical wit. ‘Hugo’ is direct and conscious storytelling that feels tremendously current and personal, and should elevate the 28-year-old to the top table of British hip hop.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 26 October 2022
Taylor Swift - Midnights (Album Review)
Photo: Beth Garrabrant After 2020’s ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ re-established her as an artistic force to be reckoned with, following two patchy efforts that suggested all the external melodrama had taken its toll, Taylor Swift returns to the world of pop music a very different person and artist. It’s tempting to describe ‘Midnights’ as the natural successor to 2014’s mega-selling ‘1989,’ except this reflective and mature collection of electro-pop couldn’t have been made without the essential missteps that have forged a fully-rounded Swift 2.0.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Tuesday, 25 October 2022
Meat Wave - Malign Hex (Album Review)
Photo: Patrick Houdek It’s been a decade since Meat Wave’s Chris Sutter roared ‘How much is too much?’ on the Chicago trio’s self-titled debut. It was a clarion call of sorts for a disillusioned generation, for whom the odds are rarely in their favour. How much can be taken away before nothing of value remains?
Written by: Craig Howieson | Date: Monday, 24 October 2022
Bill Callahan - YTI⅃AƎЯ (Album Review)
Cult singer-songwriter Bill Callahan, formerly known as Smog, is a modern alt-country auteur. His literary and often slyly funny lyrics are backed by meticulous musical arrangements, which take root and gradually bloom like delicate desert flora.
Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Friday, 21 October 2022
Plains - I Walked With You A Ways (Album Review)
Photo: Molly Matalon Nothing lasts forever. Often, life's sweetest moments are defined by their fleeting nature. Plains, the new collaborative project between Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and solo artist Jess Williamson, is billed as a one time only event. This fact lends the duo's new record ‘I Walked With You A Ways’ a bittersweet quality, as over the course of its 10 tracks they prove themselves to be an impressive songwriting combination.
Written by: Craig Howieson | Date: Thursday, 20 October 2022
Boston Manor - Datura (Album Review)
Night time has a different energy about it, a sense of intrigue or adventure, perhaps, and something about the sky turning indigo heightens every emotion. On album four, Boston Manor seem to have bottled this feeling and doused their music in it, creating a beautifully immersive atmosphere.
Written by: Emma Wilkes | Date: Thursday, 20 October 2022
The 1975 - Being Funny In A Foreign Language (Album Review)
Arriving at the crest of their fifth album’s wave, The 1975 can reflect on a spellbinding, sometimes confrontational, time in the spotlight. On ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’ we can feel the band stride into a more mature sound, comfortable with those experimental edges from prior releases, but headstrong when it comes to making music that ticks the right boxes.
Written by: Rebecca Llewellyn | Date: Wednesday, 19 October 2022
The Cult - Under the Midnight Sun (Album Review)
Photo: Juan Azulay The Cult cemented their place in the annals of rock history in 1985 with their career-topping sophomore collection ‘Love’. Many of their following studio albums—totalling 11 with the arrival of new LP ‘Under the Moonlight Sun’—were hit and miss as the band strived to replicate its perfect storm of memorable guitar riffs and spot on melodies.
Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Tuesday, 18 October 2022
Brian Eno - FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE (Album Review)
Photo: Cecily Eno What a thing a career is. On Brian Eno’s 22nd solo studio album, the English composer-producer has delivered 10 ambient songs focused on the climate catastrophe. It is a slow and thoughtful treatise on the end of the world, that offers meditative sunrays through the doomy clouds, possibly intended for the species, be it flora or fauna, that remain once humans have done themselves in.
Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 17 October 2022
Paul Heaton And Jacqui Abbott - N.K-Pop (Album Review)
How do you capture the essence of lockdown without making an album that screams ‘lockdown record’ from every note? And how do you subsequently make it sound like a celebratory shindig while exploring the underlying emotional impact? On a typically excellent romp that smuggles wise life lessons, gallows humour and plenty of acerbic barbs into a series of literate pop-rock gems, former Beautiful South duo Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott have done just that.
Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 14 October 2022
The Orielles - Tableau (Album Review)
One of the most intriguing young acts on the UK indie scene, The Orielles do not lack ambition. Their shimmering 2020 breakthrough ‘Disco Volador’ was as confident as it was unique. The trio followed it up with the sort-of remix album ‘La Vita Olistica’, an off-kilter oddity that soundtracked the band’s short film of the same name.
Written by: Tom Morgan | Date: Friday, 14 October 2022
