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Dana Gavanski’s When It Comes has finally arrived
New album: Gorgeous second folk-pop LP by the London-based Canadian-Serbian singer-songwriter, decorated with perfectly weighted hooks and measured arrangements, pure of voice and with pace that’s both intricate but minimal, like a ticking clock
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Skinty Fia: the third album by Fontaines DC
New album: The Dublin indie band’s third album comes, alongside the powerful, gritty songwriting, with an expanded sonic identity – guitars atmospherically expressing the darker and unnerving, with some shades of the Cure
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Wet Leg’s debut album, fronted by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers
Debut album: Their catchy, cute, cheeky debut single Chaise Longue made them the indie darlings of 2021, but the debut LP by Isle of Wight pair Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers proves they have the chops for similar magic
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Post apocalyptic: Placebo’s Never Let Me Go
New album: Brian Molko and co return with their dramatic eighth LP, the first for nine years and while one that occasionally hits the highs of the veterans’ 90s heyday, also comes repacked with a heavy dose of synths
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In a branch of their own: Destroyer
New album: Full of surprises and changeability, a truly alternative, at times eccentric, meta-lyrical but also powerful new album by the Canadian rock band fronted by Dan Bejar, mixing everything from ambient, techno, spoken word and rock
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Barrie’s sophomore album, Barbara
New album: Strong second album by the Brooklyn-based songwriter and producer Barrie Lindsay, filled with musical invention but also fuelled contrasting emotions – the loss of her father, but also falling in love with and marrying fellow musician Gabby Smith
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Youmi Zouma’s Present Tense
New album: Warm, engaging, bright, wistful but uplifting, this fourth LP by the Christchurch-formed quartet band is retro indie pop coming out of lockdown with light at the end of the tunnel, the sun bashfully bursting out of of heavy clouds
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New album: The Atlanta duo of Mattiel Brown and Jonah Swilley return with their third album, a splendid set of songs filled with sharp, profound lyrics and strong melodies, expressing a dusty US highway, spanning indie, rock, and a dash of country, and Cake
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Man in the corner: Bakar – Nobody’s Home
New album: This eclectic LP of hybrid hip hop, soul, pop, indie, R&B, and even a dash of folk by the North London rapper singer-songwriter Abubakar Baker Shariff-Farr is full of influences from Blur to King Krule, Tame Impala to Amy Winehouse, and his Tanzanian immigrant mother
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Nicely worn in: Widowspeak’sThe Jacket
New album: Laid-back, lo-fi and easy on the ears, the Brooklyn duo of Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas return with they sixth LP of indie-Americana of slow, but self-assured numbers
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Nilüfer Yanya’s second album, Painless
New album: With a clever, pared back mix of guitars, beats, synths and distinctive vocals, the Londoner’s follow-up to 2019’s Miss Universe has a more focused musical identity and style, in this excellent set of variously twisted love songs
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Another van load of great numbers from HMHB
New album: Few things are more likely to bring joy, laughter and indeed titular pain relief, especially now, than a new HMHB release, this 15th album decorated again with singalong tunes and Nigel Blackwell’s incomparably brilliant lyrics, though here with death as a black-humoured running theme
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Things may get your goat, but let it go free … Superchunk’s Wild Loneliness
New album: The apocalypse may gradually be upon us, but this 12th album by the North Carolina indie-rockers is the perfect antidote, offering black humour and chin-up optimism with fabulous tunes, wry lyrics and a musical complexion of dappled light
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Johnny Marr: four in one
New album: The favourite of all former Smiths releases a double album made up of four gradually released 4-song EPs written in isolated lockdown, showing his dynamic range of musicianship and a common theme seeking empathy and unity
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Capturing challenging times: Sea Power’s eighth album Everything Was Forever
New album: Superbly defiant and telling eighth LP, the first in in five years, by the alt-rock band who last year dropped the British part from their name, not to disrespect their own nation, but to disassociate themselves from any form of upsurging Brexit-related nationalism
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Alynda Segarra
New album: Wonderfully engaging eighth LP by New Orleans’ Alynda Segarra of “nature punk” electronica and lo-fi indie, with songs variously intimate, grand, sensual, and emotionally powerful, taking a hands-on, eco-aware vivid walk through our planet
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Spoon’s 10th
New album: A solid 10/10 for the band from Austin, Texas, who, with this 10th studio album of 10 songs in 25 years and their familiar alt-blues rock sound remains consistently strong and unmistakably them, even when opening with a Smog cover
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Animal Collective’s 11th album Time Skiffs
New album: Two decades after their first, the 11th album by the American alt-pop experimentalists has a running theme of time passing, with a quieter, slower more lo-fi accessible approach, gentle intricate sounds, even those echoing wind, water and bamboo
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Mitski’s Laurel Hell
New album: The Japanese-American indie artist Mitski Miyawaki’s newest LP is her most mainstream pop release to date, with big 80s piano ripples and echoes of Abba and even Hall & Oates, but also brilliantly laced with dark images and emotions laid bare
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Pointed lyrics: Yard Act, featuring frontman James Smith
Debut album: Following various singles including Fixer Upper, a set of newer sharp, funny, talky, wordy and witty post-punk-funk debut LP by the Leeds quartet, filled with ironic observation about Britishness, echoing some delivery elements of the Fall and Sleaford Mods
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