Your Custom Text Here
It’s definitely in the bag, but where next for Black Country, New Road after Ants From Up There?
New album: Second LP by the London young experimental, baroque-pop theatrical troupe, and many ways far stronger than their much applauded, arguably over-hyped 2021 debut, ironically now having greater intensity as frontman and singer Isaac Wood quits on release date
Read more
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
Read more
Los Bitchos are ready to party ….
Debut album: Break out the pisco and tequila! Produced by Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, a joyously fun debut album by the international all-female London band who play foot-tapping instrumentals fusing surf guitar, Turkish psych, Argentine cumbia and Peruvian chicha, sporting a chic 60s look
Read more
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
Read more
Cate Le Bon’s sixth album, Pompeii
New album: The brilliant Welsh musician’s follow-up to 2019’s Reward is a low-key, slower paced affair, simmering with lockdown’s solitudinous lyrics, sparse keyboards, spongy bass, sax and little brass blasts, with echoes of Bowie and Talk Talk
Read more
EELS: Extreme Witchcraft
New album: Mark Oliver Everett, who always wrestles with personal demons in his music, returns with an album characterised with a sparky upbeat energy, buzzing guitars and pace with often wry, but very catchy numbers
Read more
Cult Leader Tactics
New album: An entertaining novelty release mixing rock, electro-pop and classical by the Former Mansun frontman, in the form of a satirical self-help manual on how to become a complete cult in the music industry or employ Machiavellian tactics in the entertainment industry and beyond
Read more
Wasuremono’s Let's Talk, Pt. 2
New album: With a big, exuberant, joyously upbeat sound, this follow up to last year’s excellent Part 1 LP by the Bradford on Avon quartet is rich in vocal harmonies with an overlying theme of human connection
Read more
Awash and wet with disco fever: Ollie Alexander
New album: Now the solo project of Harrogate’s Olly Alexander, this third album is an unabashed set of catchy commercial disco pop numbers, ticking all the usual boxes, successfully doing what it sets out to do with gay abandon
Read more
The multiplicity of Aurora
New album: An impressive range of pop stylings and vocals that cascade like a fresh, breathy mountain stream mark this third LP by the dynamic Norwegian pop artist and TikTok star, who follows up previous more political material with songs more more focused on relationships
Read more
Silverbacks’ second album Archive Material
New album: Superb second LP by the Dublin-based post-punk art-rock quintet, who with shades of Deerhoof, Gang Of Four, but particularly New Yorkers Strokes and LCD Soundsystem, sharply capturing the crazy, creeping disquiet of the world, especially over the past 18 months
Read more
FKA twigs’ CAPRISONGS
New album: Cheltenham’s innovative Tahliah Debrett Barnett returns with a fourth LP that’s more a mixtape of sensual, sexual musical sketches, her distinctive voice and style also very much reaching out to a more R&B mainstream
Read more
Hop Up by Orlando Weeks
New album: Mellow, ethereal, and with Talk Talk as an musical influence, the former Maccabees frontman’s solo follow-up to A Quickening emanates carefree, floating joy with light funk-pop electronica and his high, soft vocal delivery
Read more
Elvis Costello’s classic sound on The Boy Named If
New album: Classic Costello, with a vigorous new LP that rolls back the years, recalling all the the sharp, fast, clever punk-pop of the late-70s, 80s and 90s albums with the Attractions, including old friends Steve Nieve on keyboards and Pete Thomas on drums
Read more
Dawn FM
New album: Canada’s hugely successful R&B and darkwave artist Abel Makkonen Tesfaye’s new LP is a form of concept - light-themed afterlife through the prism of a fictional radio station that generates inventive smooth and clever 80s-style synth pop and disco
Read more
Agnes
Album: Released in October, a fabulously stylish LP of retro pop by the Swedish Agnes Emilia Carlsson, her fifth, but first since Veritas (2012), rich in orchestration and with echoes of ABBA, but with a result far superior to her forbears’ own 2021 return
Read more
Favourite selection part 2.
Favourite albums of 2021 – Part 2: Welcome the second instalment, following Part 1, which can be found here. A huge number of excellent releases, of which again this is just a selection many of which were written during, and about lockdown, but also saw many outstanding voices emerge as well as innovative sounds developed
Read more
Take your pick. Are your favourites here? Also check out Part 2 coming soon.
Favourite albums of 2021, part 1: Another difficult year for everyone, but from soul and jazz, electro-pop the experimental and avant-garde, an outstanding one for music releases, perhaps in part because out of diversity comes great art. Also feel free to explore Part 2, which is now available to view here.
Read more
Neal Francis’s In Plain Sight
New album: Stirringly upfront new rock-pop album by the Chicago singer-songwriter and pianist about honesty, resilience and sobriety following a big relationship breakup following his 2019 album, Changes
Read more
Lunar Vacation’s debut album
Debut album: Joyously fresh, freewheeling indie pop with a dash of shoegaze and psychedelia in this debut LP by the four-piece from Atlanta, Georgia, with influences from Rilo Kiley to Tame Impala, Alvvays and Slow Pulp
Read more