New album: After 2022’s acclaimed debut, Reeling, another searing, scorching LP by the Merseyside rock band fronted by Lia Metcalfe, once more dark and smoky, and produced this time in LA by John Congleton, yet with more confidence, range, and also vulnerability
Read moreOrlando Weeks: LOJA
Orlando Weeks: LOJA
New album: A beautifully tender, serene and touching new LP by the former Maccabees singer and visual artist, the LP named after his Lisbon art studio, with his high, pure voice complemented by various co-collaborators including William Doyle. Katy J Pearson and Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale
Read moreFavourite albums of 2023 Part 1: Anna B Savage to Young Fathers
Part 1 selection of 2023 favourite albums
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 1, and Part 2 is also out here. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order. This is all about quality and innovation …
Read moreArt School Girlfriend: Soft Landing
Art School Girlfriend: Soft Landing
New album: Absorbing, introspective, sensual, experimental indie-pop and electronica by London’s Polly Mackey, with a sound that evoke acres of wide landscape and sky, melancholy, wistful songs, and her breathy voice not unlike EBTG’s Tracey Thorn
Read moreBillie Marten: Drop Cherries
Billie Marten’s fourth LP, Drop Cherries
New album: A sublime fourth album by the singer-songwriter Isabella Sophie Tweddle from Ripon in Yorkshire, building on 2021’s excellent Flora Fauna with folk love songs blooming with exquisite beauty and intimacy
Read moreThe Big Moon: Here Is Everything
Here Is Everything, the third album by The Big Moon
New album: An emotive, hooky, candid third album by the London indie-rockers fronted by Juliette Jackson, with a running theme around her experience of pregnancy and its life-changing consequences
Read moreSelf Esteem: Prioritise Pleasure
Rebecca Taylor’s back
New album: Rotherham’s Rebecca Taylor returns with a second LP under her liberated moniker after Compliments Please with an even greater triumph of darkly humorous and caustic honesty topped with glorious gospel harmonies, big drums, orchestration and a celebration of emancipated womanhood
Read moreFryars: God Melodies
Fryars: God Melodies
New album: Mischievously wry and marvellously inventive twinkling electro-pop in the third full album by the multi-instrumentalist and producer Benjamin Garrett who has also released multiple EPs and mixtapes
Read moreBillie Marten: Flora Fauna
Still growing: Flora Fauna is Billie Marten’s third album
Album review: We’ve previously highlighted her single, Garden of Eden, and the singer-songwriter from Ripon in Yorkshire’s third LP of folk-pop lives up it with its hushed, intimate vocals and an understated maturity that echoes Fiona Apple and Billie Eilish
Read moreNew albums: Marlowe, Leila Moss, Gillian Welch, Victoria Monét, Another Sky, Video Age, Willie J Healey, Washed Out, Tkay Maidza
Nine more albums to enjoy …
The latest selection includes another solo album from The Duke Spirit singer, hip hop follow-up from the Marlowe duo, beautiful fragments from Gillian Welch, a work of ethereal beauty from Another Sky, and 80s pop from Video Age
Read moreNew albums: Tame Impala, Moses Boyd, Katie Gatley, Seth Lakeman, Nathaniel Rateliff, Mush, Eyelids, Boniface, Beach Bunny
From the cover artwork for Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush
This week’s selection includes some smooth funk pop from Slow Impala, pioneering jazz from Moses Boyd, extraordinary electronica from Katie Gatley, and refreshing indie from Mush and Beach Bunny
Read moreNew albums: Georgia, Field Music, The Big Moon, David Keenan, Aoife Nessa Frances, David Devant & His Spirit Wife, The Chap, Poppy
Conjuring up new magic: David Devant & His Spirit Wife
The opening roundup of new LPs for 2020 is a heady mixture of electronica, indie, pop and even a concept album about the aftermath of the First World War. From clean living to death and destruction, anything is possible
Read moreBillie Eilish to FKA twigs to Weyes Blood: favourite albums of 2019 – part 2
FKA twigs
The second part of this year’s LP favourites again includes several superb female artists. Also check out the first part published yesterday
Read moreAldous Harding to Richard Dawson to Michael Kiwanuka: favourite albums of 2019 – part 1
Aldous Harding wins the prize for most unusual moves for her song, The Barrel
The first part of our selection of the pick of albums from 2019 by Song Bar readers and the Landlord editor, in alphabetical order by title, not a ‘best of’ or countdown. The second part is here.
Read moreNew albums: Tindersticks, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, DJ Shadow, Arthur Russell, Dog In The Snow, Shanti Celeste, Pumarosa, Willie J Healey
From the cover of Tindersticks’ new album No Treasure But Hope
Kings of beautiful misery Tindersticks and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy return with some startlingly uplifting numbers, and some great debuts by Dog In the Snow and Shanti Celeste are among this week’s roundup picks
Read moreNew albums: Bill Callahan, Kate Tempest, Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, Calexico/Iron & Wine, Baroness, Jordan Rakei, Crumbs, Tusks, The Catenary Wires
Strong likeness: detail from the cover of Bill Callahan’s Shepherd In A Sheepskin
A mellowness touches the landscape of this week’s releases, with various artists taking a more reflective, gentler direction, with a beauty from Bill Callahan, a more personal Kate Tempest, a lusher Bruce Springsteen and more
Read moreNew albums: Snapped Ankles, Royal Trux, Self Esteem, The Comet Is Coming, Alice Phoebe Lou, Our Native Daughters, Hand Habits, Hejira, Robert Forster, Teen, Durand Jones, Japanese House
Snapped Ankles
This week’s selection roundup includes a raucous return for Royal Trux after 19 years and Robert Forster’s second in a decade, plus a chorus of of beautiful vocalists from Self Esteem to Alice Phoebe Lou and a whole lot more
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