New album: Sweden’s Karin Dreijer returns with her first Fever Ray LP since 2017’s Plunge, this third packed with rich, eerie, complex, multifarious songs about the bewilderment of love
Read moreSleaford Mods - UK Grim
New album: Nottingham’s Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn return with another set of, angry, catchy, darkly humorous belters, pulling no punches when it comes to the shambolic state of Tory-led Brexit Britain
Read moreThe Lathums: From Nothing To A Little Bit More
New album: After 2021’s chart-topping How Beautiful Life Can Be, the fresh-faced Wigan indie quartet fronted by singer/songwriter and guitarist Alex Moore build on they unpretentious, uplifting, honest, catchy, and wistful numbers
Read moreKate NV: WOW
New album: A wonderfully oddball, playful and original LP by the Russian electronica artists Kate Shilonosova, whose palette of sounds include 90s video game bleeps, blips, pings, cat meows and snippets of other disembodied vocals
Read moreSteve Mason: Brothers & Sisters
New album: The former Beta Band main man returns with one of his finest solo albums yet, a groovy protest record (“a big fuck off to Brexit”) drawing in different cultures and throwing a party for Britain’s rich heritage from an immigrant population
Read moreslowthai: UGLY
New album: The abrasive but exciting Northampton rapper Tyrone Frampton’s third LP is a powerful, heady concoction, containing this time less grime and politics, more punk and post-punk, rock guitars, and focusing on personal issues, with a paradoxical facial tattooed title acronym meaning U Gotta Love Yourself
Read moreYazmin Lacey: Voice Notes
Debut album: A magically smooth, beautiful fusion of jazz, soul, funk and reggae in this debut by the superb London-born, Nottingham-based singer, whose fluid, dreamy voice captures the emotions in the intonations and nuances in her eloquent delivery
Read moreLowly: Keep Up The Good Work
New album: On a smaller, more intimate scale than previous album Hifalutin, as previewed on Song of the Day, Seasons, the Danish experimental quintet’s new album is filled sensitive, vulnerable, textured, beautifully building electro-folk-pop
Read moreDavid Brewis: The Soft Struggles
New album: A beautifully arranged release by one brother half of Field Music, with his falsetto voice, gentle piano, woodwind, acoustic guitar and some brass decorating a folk-pop-jazz fusion that also has the magic of early 70s Van Morrison and Nick Drake
Read moreShame: Food For Worms
New album: With a title phrase that will apply to all living beings eventually, this third LP by the south London post-punk band tempers the punk anger with more light and shade, genre experimentation, and philosophical lyrics
Read moreMiss Grit: Follow The Cyborg
Debut album: Sensual, strong, intelligent, highly original indie-electro-pop debut by the Brooklyn-based Korean-American artist Margaret Sohn with songs that explore the idea of identity and what it is to be alive
Read moreTombouctou: Tricky Floors
New album: Clever, sharp post-punk debut by the French trio from Lyon/Toulouse packed with dynamic, thunderous drumming and razor-sharp guitar work, energised stop-start sections, and the powerful, high voice of Cocrelle who has echoes of Siouxsie Sioux
Read moreGorillaz: Cracker Island
New album: The eighth studio album by the cartoon personas of Damon Albarn is one of the shortest and most musically coherent, catchy, clever and poignant, with guests including Thundercat, De La Soul, Stevie Nicks, Beck and Tame Impala
Read moreMaps: Counter Melodies
New album: A mesmeric fifth electronica LP by the English musician and producer James Chapman filled with clever, catchy melodies, interweaving, shifting textures and classic sounds from the clubby to echoes of Kraftwerk
Read moreUnthank Smith: Everywhere And Nowhere
New album: A beautiful, evocative north-east England folk collaboration between Rachel Unthank and Paul Smith, frontman of Maxïmo Park, and produced by Field Music’s David Brewis in a mix of the traditional and new
Read moredEUS: How To Replace It
New album: The Belgian rock band who formed in 1991 return with their first for 10 years, an LP feels refreshed and re-energised, frontman Tom Barman and co’s songs with a spring in their step
Read morePigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: Land of Sleeper
New album: Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s heavy rock heroes roll on with their fourth album, another blast furnace of rich, all-engulfing sound, existential philosophy, psychedelia and the thunderous presence of early Black Sabbath
Read moreOrbital: Optical Delusion
New album: Electronica dance veterans Phil and Paul Hartnoll’s 10th studio album is musically varied and dynamic, and powerfully examines the self-deceiving chaos of the last few years with a variety of guest vocalists
Read moreCaroline Polachek: Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
New album: Following 2019’s Pang, this cleverly constructed fusion of art-pop and other genres by the dynamic, intelligent, soaring-voiced American ticks all the boxes to be an enormous mainstream hit
Read moreAnna B Savage: in|FLUX
New album: Following 2021’s superb debut LP, A Common Turn, the London-based singer-songwriter returns with an exquisitely beautiful, bittersweet, intimate, candid personal set of songs about the difficulties of love
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