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Broken Bells: Into The Blue, their third album since eponymous debut in 2010
New album: Acclaimed producer Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the The Shins reconvene for their third duo BB album in 12 years, and first since 2014, with strong, slow, unhurried, smoky numbers of thrumming indie reverberation
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Courting: Guitar Music
New album: Short, snappy, sharp and caustically ironic, the Liverpool indie post-punk band’s 30-minute, eight-track LP follows their excellent 2021 EP Grand National with biting lyrics, catchy melodies and ferocious energy
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Sports Team’s second LP, Gulp!
New album: The Cambridge-formed London-based band return with their follow-up after lauded 2020 debut LP Deep Down Happy with catchy, strongly written, swaggering guitar indie, bubbling with energy and an upbeat, arch humour aimed at life’s insecurities
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The playfully inventive Tim Burgess returns with Typical Music
New album: One of music’s most positive, self-effacing and affable characters – as frontman of The Charlatans and host of Twitter Listening Parties – returns with a inventive, richly adventurous new solo LP of 22 tracks recorded over 30 days with a classy mix of catchy pop, rock and psychedelia
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Crack Cloud: Tough Baby
New album: Eclectic, original, energised and experimental, this is an enthralling third post-punk, pop, rock and thunderous concoction release by the Vancouver collective led by drummer and lead vocalist Zach Choy filled with the passionate and oddball
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Beth Orton’s Weather Alive
New album: The first album for six years by the British singer-songwriter brings an exquisite fragility and mature beauty, suffused with her delicate, sometimes ghostly vocals and sparse but perfectly weighted instrumentation
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Jesca Hoop: Order of Romance
New album: An exquisite new release by the American singer-songwriter with a collection of crisply perfect lo-fi folk-pop acoustic numbers, wrapped in intriguing, intricate yet pared-back instrumentation, and sharply intelligent, vividly imaginative lyrics
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Always a fresh perspective: Death Cab For Cutie: Asphalt Meadows
New album: The absurdity and irony of modern life, anthemic existentialism, panic attacks and more come in this 10th fine, witty, wry new indie, rock and post-punk pop album by the Washington band fronted by Ben Gibbard
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Rounded pop sound but still with an edge: Rina Sawayama’s Hold The Girl
New album: With her 2020 debut, Sawayama, the British-Japanese singer’s career was predicted on this site to go up and up, and so it has proved with this dazzlingly strong new album of high-octane pop opowerfully voiced melodies and intelligent, candid lyrics
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The Beths’
New album: Deliciously enjoyable new album by the New Zealand indie quartet, with strong melodies, lyrics that carefully balance the melancholy, thoughtful and feelgood, not least the title track which ponders the irony of knowing in great detail someone you are no longer in a relationship with
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The Paranoyds’ second album Talk Talk Talk
New album: Catchy, clever, kooky, sassy and at time space- and sci-fi-themed, a vivaciously engaging second indie pop-garage-rock LP by the Los Angeles quartet who channel The Bangles and Devo with a wry look at the state of the world
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Sudan Archives returns with her expansive, innovative second album
New album: The scintillating second album by Ohio’s LA-based multi-instrumentalist and singer Brittney Parks showcases her innovation across hip hop, R&B, electronica, jazz and beyond with looping ingenuity, improvisation, and sharp feminist, dark lyrics about life as a black woman
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Jockstrap’s debut LP out on Rough Trade
Debut album: Wondrously wild, inventive experimental pop debut LP by the duo of Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye, whose entrancing fusion of electronica, classical strings, dance music and witty, agile sonic combinations sometimes slip playfully into reverse
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Souvenirs by Pale Blue Eyes
New album: A marriage of south Devon and Sheffield in the form of couple Matt and Lucy Broad and bassist Aubrey Simpson forms this more elevating, richly sonic indie release that has echoes of New Order, krautrock and Cabaret Voltaire electro-synth pop
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Fluid songwriting: Bret McKenzie: Songs Without Jokes
New album: A solo release by half of Flight Of The Conchords presents a challenge to escape the comedy schtick, but the New Zealander manages tuneful seriousness, particularly on eco themes, by echoing Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Dory Previn with mix of 70s piano pop, showtunes and jazz styles
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Unloved’s third album, The Pink Album
New album: This third LP by trio behind the soundtrack to TV series Killing Eve, Belfast producer David Holmes alongside singer Jade Vincent and musician Keefus Ciancia, is a huge, sprawling cinematic 22-tracker filled with alluringly oddball, woozy, dark pop, electronica, 60s French noir and psychedelia
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Stella Donnelly: Flood
New album: Second album by the Australian brings a refreshingly simple, humorously ironic indie-pop with cutting, personal songs about relationships, provocative but honest lines metaphorical themes of the world
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New album: This third LP by the Australian artist typifies her intelligently written, nuanced, taut, intensely performed dream pop and alt-country, packed with confessional hidden narratives and subtleties, her expressive, fragile voice with stripped back accompaniment
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Laufey knows all about …
New album: An exquisite debut by the Los Angeles-based Icelandic-Chinese jazz-pop artist, whose pure voice, alongside mostly acoustic guitar or piano backing, brings a timeless collection of gentle, old-school, charming, candid, singer-songwriter love songs reminiscent of Karen Carpenter to Peggy Lee
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Ezra Furman’s superb All Of Us Flames
New album: The sixth LP by the brilliant, visceral, angelic American is perhaps the finest to date, an impassioned, tour de force, Springsteen-esque cri de coeur for the LGBTQ and Jewish communities, but also stirs hearts of all who feel oppressed or alienated
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