"A rollercoaster of emotions throughout" and "a wonderful record" - The Line of Best Fit says in a review of second album by the London rap duo Krept & Konan, 'Revenge is Sweet'. The other critics like it too: "Almost feels like a compilation full of singles – quite a few tracks are Top 10 contenders" - Clash Music; […]
Justin Broadrick from Godflesh and Kevin Martin aka The Bug put their project Techno Animal to sleep and started a new one, Zonal with help vocalist Moor Mother, polymath artist and activist. The Quietus likes what they did on 'Wrecked' a lot - it's "grinding negativity and tidal heaviness provides a necessary form of catharsis, […]
"My hope is that they find you here, on the blurred edge between reality and dreams, in the half-awake place where the familiar merges with the unknown" - Paris-based indie-folk singer-songwriter Flora Hibberd told PopMatters about her EP 'The Absentee'. Indie30 says it's a "stirring and satisfying debut by any measure, one of conviction and […]
"At seven tracks that clock in at 15 and a half minutes, 'Feet of Clay' is by far Earl’s shortest project yet, but it doesn’t feel incomplete" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about Earl Sweatshirt's new album 'Feet of Clay'. It's experimental and simple - "just stream-of-consciousness delivery from Earl, who packs in threats, boasts, sentimentality, fun references".
"A beautiful mix between folk, pagan, progressive, death, black, and even melodic, gothic and most of all symphonic metal" - the Prog Space says about third album by the American prog-metal band Wilderun. Angry Metal Guy thinks the album is even better than that: "They have raised the bar for what progressive and melodic death […]
Critics can't agree on how to categorize FKA twigs, but it's simple - it's pop music, a good sort. The same applies to her new album - "It’s a metamorphosis that twigs embodies on 'MAGDALENE', using discipline as a template for her art after undergoing her most public tribulations. While concise in length, 'MAGDALENE' paces FKA twigs through […]
She's a free-jazz guitarist, he plays in Deerhoof, together they "score a frantic fight scene... summon the shapes of acid tracers... flirt with budget psychedelic rock... float through a haunted house... shaping a record that’s surprisingly accessible and emotional for this idiom", Pitchfork writes about the first album by Mary Halvorson and John Dieterich as […]
"'Spiritual Instinct' cracks Alcest’s form wide open and successfully goes in all kinds of new directions without being a drastic departure like 'Shelter' was. And that’s even better" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about the French blackgazers' new album. Other critics like it too: "A personal experience to rebuild, restructure and better" - Sonic Perspectives; "To return and release […]
This week the English singer-songwriter is releasing his third album, and critics really like it so far: "Gorgeous third album" - Telegraph (five of five stars); "Kiwanuka has uncovered as much of himself as he ever has, and he’s fully engaged and in tune with his own identity" - The Line of Best Fit; "Effortlessly […]
The Los Angeles-bases violinist/vocalist Sudan Archives releases her debut album 'Athena' this week, inspired by Sudanese fiddlers, R&B, West African rhythms, experimental electronic music, but, sonically, it leans mostly towards r'n'b. Her first strength, the Quietus writes, is her violin - "it’s apparent that she has absorbed the potential of the violin and fits it […]
“We need this to get weird. It’s good to be controversial” - Prince told his biographer Dan Piepenbring when they started what is going to be Prince's unfinished biography The Beautiful Ones, out this week, Star Tribune says. The actual autobiography segment of this book ends at the end of Prince’s teens, and those 28 […]
"'Seeker' is an exciting and treasurable return for Cronin... The LP reveals how wide-ranging and bravely impassioned Cronin remains, allowing him to still rank among the best singer-songwriters out there" - Consequence of Sound writes about Californian's latest album. He wrote the album in Californian mountains, surrounded by forest, which he had to leave early due […]
"Murder Capital show was the most exciting performance I had seen by a new band this century" - the Quietus reporter writes about after seeing Irish punk rock band playing live. So, what makes them that good? - "theatrical but natural, vulnerable and aggressive, and with a control of dynamics and tension that would put […]
Experimental New York producer Eartheater on her fourth record changes direction towards a poppier and R&B sound. Leit-motiv of the album is the ending of a relationship and loss, represented by the three states of water: liquid, solid, and gas, which act as different emotional states. Soul Feeder calls 'Trinity' one of the best releases […]
"West's greatest talent has always been his ability to lead as a genius creative director. From soaring choirs to redemptive synths to even a wailing Kenny G solo—the music itself is stunning" - Esquire says in a review of Kanye West's new album 'Jesus is King. NME writes how "‘Jesus Is King’ lacks the goofball […]
Scottish composer Anne Meredith has a career in experimental classical music (soundtracks, fashion campaigns, etc.), and 'FIBS' is her second album in pop music. It's luxurious and easy-listening, and critics like it: "Fibs is brimming with contrary combinations, irreverent genre-bending and serious innovation" - Guardian; "Wonderful big bang" - Brooklyn Vegan; "The chasms between hulking […]
"Great Grandpa are nothing if not ambitious. The perpetual push to do better, both artistically and personally, is what drives a lot of 'Four Of Arrows'" - Stereogum writes about second album by the Seattle band Grand Grandpa (they call themselves "snack rock"). What they do is "they blend country twang and emo catharsis into songs […]
It's the Quietus, so don't expect any of the biggest names, only the alternative once. The best metal from October, as tQ heard it, is Dawn Ray’d album 'Behold Sedition Plainsong' - "one of the most lyrically astute black metal records ever recorded". Another one is Blut Aus Nord's 'Hallucinogen' because it "flows astonishingly well as […]
PopMatters is delighted with a collaborative album by composer and clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and poet Dean Young. Goldberg first wrote songs based on a set of poems by Young and recorded them with an improvising band. Then Goldberg played the tunes for Young (without his knowing which tune matched which poem), inspiring him to write new poems […]
"'Crush' is something of a return to Floating Points’ more dancefloor-oriented material... but the LP is also a sonically diverse effort with extended forays into modular synthesis, baroque new age, hyperactive IDM, and more" - Pitchfork says about new Floating Points album (gave it their Best New Music banner; grade 8,3). It is "the most relaxed […]
Second album by the Canadian experimental indie-rock is like a "joyful, sad, funny, wise conversation with close, thoughtful friend", Exclaim says. Brooklyn Vegan likes the sonic changes - "more atmospheric and more experimental art-pop directions than ever before. It’s both more complex and more gorgeous sounding". Paste Magazine concludes that "Naggar’s deftness at seamlessly weaving […]
Innercity Ensemble is a Polish supergroup (featuring members of Stara Rzeka, Alameda collective and Kapital), playing free-from improvisational music combining elements from jazz, post-industrial, noise-rock, and electronic. The Quietus describes their fourth album (surprise, surprise!! - it's named 'IV') as "bewitching"; actually it's much simpler than that - ambiental fun. Listen below (it takes a […]
Minimalist composer Terry Riley and string ensemble Kronos Quartet made not a world music album, but rather a universe music album 'Sun Rings' - it incorporates various sounds from space, acquired by plasma wave receivers built by NASA and flown on a variety of spacecraft over 40 years. "The combination of the strings and bubbling interplanetary […]
Dublin four-piece Lankum remade traditional songs for their newest album, giving them progressive and ambient touch. The result? - "nothing less than a thorough exploration and devastation of folk’s most conventional tropes is Lankum’s impressive game" - Guardian says in a review.
Consequence of Sound gave a clean A to Swedish hard-core punks' Refused new album 'War Music', because - "No-holds-barred sociopolitical punch to the face... Masterful balance of melody and aggression... Dynamic vocals with monstrous riffs and rhythm". What CoS appreciates the most, it seems, is the context - "the lack of protest music coming from […]
"Frontman Joey Vannucchi wrote, recorded, and produced the whole thing himself in his apartment in Harlem, and they self-released the record" - Brooklyn Vegas says about new album by From Indian Lakes. It's kinda strange, sonically - "instrumentally, it’s still an indie rock record, but synths are the driving force... has an alluring synthy atmosphere […]
"It quickly becomes clear in Me that few people are more suited to the celebrity autobiography genre, given that he combines the most essential ingredients of the form" - Guardian writes about Elton John's new autobiography, written with the help of music critic Alexis Petridis - who "has a journalist’s eye for the comically absurd, such as […]
Lil Tjay spent multiple two and three-month sentences for robberries, and in 2016, at the age of 15, he was sentenced to one year in a youth detention center. Last week, the New York rap-balladeer, barely 18, released his debut album 'True 2 Myself'. Consequence of Sound compares Tjay to Usher and Justin Bieber - […]
"The experimental rap trio have been exploring stark sounds and extreme circumstances since they emerged on their 2013 album 'midcity'... 'There Existed An Addiction To Blood', Clipping’s new album, is a meditation on the idea of horror — horror movies, horror stories, ’90s horrorcore rap" - Stereogum is impressed with new album by Clipping. It's no […]
"Complicated music and fun music don’t often go in hand... Battles debunk this fabulously within the first minute of their new album" - NME says in a review of new album by the American experimental rock group. On 'Juice B Crypts' they go into "conceptual weirdness, overflowing with ideas of technology, subservience and infinite loops. […]
