"Red Death are three albums in and sounding strong as hell. The secret, I think, is that they aren’t really a punk band anymore" - Stereogum says about their latest choice for Album of the week. "They’ve become a better version of who they always were", Stereogum writes, picking out guitarist Ace Mendoza - "a full-on […]
"Raw, melodic and imaginative black metal... nothing short of a sublime sonic experience" - Metal Injection writes in a review of 'The Palms of Sorrowed Kings' by Obsequiae. Angry Metal Guy calls it "a great album, featuring a stellar collection of dynamic, richly textured and memorable songs", and Brooklyn Vegan appreciates how accessible it is […]
LA Times sent classical music critic and pop music critic to see Kanye West's opera 'Nebuchadnezzar'. Judging by their words it was something, but not much - "if this thing had a story, it was pretty hard to tell", "You can call just about anything an opera", "this didn’t allow much of his gift to come […]
"'Cotillions' is basically Billy making his version of a folk/country/Americana album, and at this point in his career, it’s more exciting to hear him do this than rehash '90s Smashing Pumpkins songs... It’s one of the few times in his career that he didn’t make a lofty, ambitious album. It turns out Billy Corgan can be pretty good […]
Reviews go from five-star review in the Telegraph where the critic praises the usual Coldplay ingredients - "Martin’s golden gift for melody, almost simplistically direct lyrics and emotive crooning"; NME gave it 4 stars (out of five) saying - "the strengths of ‘Everyday Life’ lie in the band’s musical left turns and lyrical experiments"; Guardian […]
"Blood Incantation take classic death metal sounds, and they push them way out into the cosmos, adding proggy time-signature tricks and expansive song-lengths and deep questions about the nature of humanity" - Stereogum writes about their newest Album of the week choice. It is "an album with real moments of beauty and of disarming pretension", […]
"Cohen is communicating with ghosts, aware he might soon become one himself, but he sounds strangely excited rather than scared" - NME says in a review of Cohen's posthumous album 'Happens to the Heart', helmed by Cohen’s son Adam and comprised of unfinished songs from the ‘You Want It Darker’ sessions. The album is coloured […]
"The trio's music still soothes" - PopMatters says in a review of The Good Ones' new album 'Rwanda, You Should Be Loved' where they keep the "spirit of hope and connection to Rwandan land and people". The album features a strong indie-rock team - TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, Wilco's Nels Cline, Sleater-Kinney's Corin […]
"Anyone will thrill to Russell, whose ability to anchor wandering thought with melodic resolution is as strong as Bob Dylan’s" - Guardian said about 'Iowa Dream', a compilation of Arthur Russell's demos, mostly from the 1970. What sets this electronic pioneer is his "guileless stance, staring up at the world in confusion, hurt and wonder". […]
American sympho black-metal band Abigail Williams have added cello on their latest album 'Walk Beyond the Dark' which made Brooklyn Vegan take this album out - "cello parts really dominate this one in a very effective way, and the beauty of the cello mixed with the intensity that the rest of the band brings makes […]
New album 'Immanent Fire' by singer-songwriter Emily Jane White "takes on the dark state of the world that we’re currently living in, but it does it in poetic and metaphoric ways, not in an overtly literal fashion, which makes it more instantly timeless", Brooklyn Vegan says in an enthusiastic short review. "The dark themes are […]
Song collector Martin Koenig made a compilation of music recorded in rural Bulgaria between 1966 and 1979. When he decided to publish it, he returned to Bulgaria in 2015 to get consent from the musician on those recordings, and to pay them - and found many of them. It's mostly instrumental music - played on […]
American poet, musician, and activist Moor Mother last week released her fourth solo record 'Analog Fluids Of Sonic Black Holes', where she "returns to the lie of a post-racial America", as Guardian hears it. "Some of her poetry, sometimes verging into rap, could be chanted through a bullhorn at a protest", with the beats "stunningly realised: […]
Dustin O'Halloran and Adam Wiltzie got together as a musical duo in Germany, work from Brussells now and their new release (they worked for TV, movies and theatre), studio album 'The Undivided Fifth' is "a rich tapestry of complex electronic and neoclassical textures with layers of rich orchestration and analogue synths", PopMatters says. It's an […]
'I Made A Place' is the first proper album of new Bonnie “Prince” Billy songs in eight years, and the latest Stereogum's choice for Album of the Week. Sonically - "the songs on 'I Made A Place' are quiet and ruminative, and they’re pretty deeply rooted in old-timey folk music", and lyrically "Oldham has always been great at […]
The full list of 100 is here, with the first ten albums on the list being Fontaines D.C. 'Dogrel', Weyes Blood 'Titanic Rising', Angel Olsen ' All Mirrors', Little Simz 'Grey Area', black midi 'Schlagenheim', Sleaford Mods 'Eton Alive', Cate Le Bon 'Reward', Vanishing Twin 'The Age of Immunology', Ex:Re 'Ex:Re', and The Comet is […]
"An expansive and rich listening experience, full of wandering basslines and disorientating rhythms" - the Quietus says about London dream-pop sextet's new album. "As the album persists the prominence of vocal melodies dissipates, leaving open the previously subtle magnificence of the production running throughout... Its stunning sounds ring out with astounding clarity".
German electronic producer Oval published his new EP 'Eksploio' for Thrill Jockey, a label known more for heavier, guitar-oriented music, but they probably saw a kindred spirit in Oval, as his music tends to teeter on the edge of chaos. PopMatters says 'Eksploio' is "playful chaos, a celebration of everything experimental synthesizer programming can be, and […]
Cult indie-pop band Rocketship is back with a new album in 13 years, with a new singer, and critics describe it as a great new beginning. Brooklyn Vegan's guy says "two weeks ago I didn’t realize this record existed but now I can’t imagine this year without it", All Music praises the "wonderfully crafted... music […]
"Ambitious, conceptual, loaded with tunes, deeply heartfelt and personal, and sounding unlike anything else around at the moment" - the Quietus says about William Doyle's new album 'Your Wilderness Revisited'. It's an ecstatic celebration of the neglected suburban estates of Britain, and about processing grief and coming to art in these complex landscapes.
Land of Kush is a Canadian collective of 20-ish musicians, headed by Sam Shalabi (Egyptian born in Lybia, raised in Canada), playing a combination of free jazz, Arabic classical, postpunk and pan-global folk music. Their last album from 2013 emanated "heady optimism inspired by the Arab Spring, and Shalabi has spent much of the last […]
"Adept with delay and other effects pedals, and know a good hook and driving beat when they hear it" - Brooklyn Vegan says about debut album 'Dream Noise' by Capitol. It's actually dream-pop, BV says, "just a bit like The National with more of a Cure obsession", and "they’ve also just got some excellent pop […]
New York rapper Wiki "still sounds fresh, and still sounds hungry" on his second proper album 'OOFIE', Brooklyn Vegan says. It features his frequent collaborators Your Old Droog, Princess Nokia, Lansky Jones of World’s Fair, and R&B singer Duendita, but it's the main man Wiki's thing - "a gripping storyteller and a deft rhymer, and […]
Maybe we live in an era so combustible, so filled with hate and division, that such libertarian frivolity is downright irresponsible. Maybe it’s time for Slayer to go away for a while. Sit out these strange times" - NME says in a review of 'The Repentless Killology', a combination narrative movie and concert film about […]
"Okereke’s writing on ‘2042’ feels like his boldest to date. This is a vital touchstone in documenting the lives of those who must negotiate multi-faceted racial and sexual identities against a backdrop of continuing division. It’s the social commentary that makes this experimental album feel vital and unifying" - NME says in a review of Kele […]
'Tak Zakalyalas’ Stal' ('Thus the Steel Was Tempered') is new album by St Petersburg's art-electro band Shortparis, one of the most brilliant and exciting live bands. The record, on the other hand, is "very, very highly polished and subject to a long period of refinement and recasting. Every beat, blurp, crash and cadence of the record […]
He is frontman of Winterpills, but this year Philip B. Price returns with his first solo album in over a decade, 'Bone Almanac', 8 November. PopMatters says it "frequently recalls American primitive guitar (John Fahey et al.) and British folk giants such as John Martyn" and what makes it different is Price's "pure, singular voice […]
American band Federale named themselves after the first film ever scored by Italian composer Ennio Morricone. All Music says Federale's "music pays homage to many of Morricone's hallmarks, like reverb-drenched guitars, whistling, shuffling rhythms, and otherworldly vocals that could be mistaken for the cries of distant animals". Their new album 'No Justice', out this week, […]
The Illinois screamo threesome Frail Body released their new album 'A Brief Memoriam' last week on Deathwish, a good genre-defined album.
Mumbai-based producer and composer Sandunes recorded her new EP between Berlin, London and Mumbai, trying to explore “repetitive occurrences that we’re happy to call coincidences”. The Quietus says the music of '11:11' - "lifts you, but lightly so – surrounding you and elevating you... Sanya has once again created flourishing sounds brushing with a gentle and […]
