"Mariee Sioux is, perhaps, one of the more underrated of the great Nevada City artists, a singer-songwriter with a voice at once like sand, wind, and waves and a knack for conjuring up emotional enchantments in her often nature-inspired lyrics" - PopMatters goes convincingly about the folk artist in general, and then delivers sweet words […]
London alter-rock band Hey Colossus have a new album 'Four Bibles', mainstream media mostly didn't cover it, unlike alternative, who mostly like it: "To come from their Fudgetunnel-channelling inception to something this alive and expansive – and for it to somehow still make sense – is pretty unique" - Narc Magazine. "Hey Colossus cover a […]
"She has, at 60, produced her most natural-feeling, progressive and original record since Confessions. It’s also one of her most bizarre and sprawling, and features some of her worst ever music" - Guardian reviews Madonna's new album 'Madame X' (out 14 June). They gave it 4 out of 5 stars.
"There’s drug money, and speedboats, and ass shaking, and the U swagger. You can hear and come to appreciate his love for this place and its music. The album is so rich with the subtext of Florida, and local rap history, it feels lived in" - Pitchfork says about Denzel Curry's album 'ZUU', giving it […]
'What Nature Gives… Nature Takes Away' is about "rooks, starlings, death, classical myth, Victorian gothic, prog, flowers, cunning women, Japanese monkeys, the North Sea, and West Lancashire", sonically, it's somewhere between prog, psych and punk - the Quietus likes UK's post-punkers The Membranes new album a lot.
Last week country princess Miley Cyrus published 'She Is Coming', first out of three EPs - 'She Is Here' and 'She Is Everything' coming this year, that will make up her seventh studio album 'She Is Miley Cyrus'. Guardian writes quite fondly about it - "rather than seeking a new identity to disappear into, this […]
"The sound is resolutely American in style and in sound... This pair inhabits these songs so joyfully and effortlessly that anyone begrudging them is to be pitied... This is a direct record to bathe in, full of vivid light and air" - Guardian says about it's latest choice for their Folk Album of the Month […]
"All the tenets of grime are still there — the jittery drums, the minor-key synthetic melodies, the choppy tension... While Skepta still raps with speed and precision, he does it with a sense of discipline and authority that feels new" - Stereogum writes about their latest choice for Album of the Week, Skepta's fifth studio […]
Luke Sutherland has played with Long Fin Killie, Mogwai, Hauschka, and with his new project Rev Magnetic has a debut album out, his first new music in thirteen years. 'Versus Universe', the Quietus says, is "loud: a maximalist, stylistically-kaleidoscopic shoegaze album, leavened with trap hi-hats, 808s, vocoder, found sound, violins and trumpets... Spins the dial […]
"They are joyful in their sound and in their energy, and the sparingly but deftly used brass underscores this well. They have made a beautiful confectionary, but one made with rigour, skill, and care" - the Quietus review new album by Scottish guitar pop duo Sacred Paws.
The Quietus prefers avantguard electro and hip hop, and modern metal. Aseethe is the letter. 'Throes' is third album by doom/drone metalers from Iowa, and that geography you can hear on the album - "there are more than a few moments here that call to mind this indelible memory of the plains: extended drone passages […]
Singer-songwriter Nils Lofgren is a Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young collaborator, and his latest album is partly made off songs he co-wrote with Lou Reed. So, it's relaxing in an old-school rock'n'roll way, middle-of-the-road kind of music. PopMatters says "the album serves not only as a fitting tribute to his late friend and collaborator but […]
NME is thrilled by FKA Twigs' performance at Alexandra Palace Theatre in London (they gave it 5 of 5 stars): "Nothing short of a masterwork of genius, a moving, shifting, visually stunning wrecking ball of emotion – and a marriage of venue, artist, material and occasion that’s all too rarely experienced by us mere mortals". […]
NME likes Australian pub-punkers' Amyl and The Sniffers debut album - "Loud and aggressive, for sure, but it’s singer Amy Taylor’s insightful yet chant-worthy lyrics that make this more than just a ear-bleeding exercising... It’s not big, it’s not clever, but it’s a bloody hoot". Atwood Magazine likes it even more - "A ridiculously flawless […]
Flying Lotus is a "master at shifting tone, and knows how to take listeners on an exhilarating journey that unites both calm and chaos" - NME says in it's review of sixth album by experimental producer-rapper (they gave it five out of five stars). The album includes guest appearances by Solange, George Clinton, Thundercat, Toro y […]
"For a band who did so well to combine heavy metal thunder with academic minimalism, who would have thought they could produce something so lovely? Every note sounds thoroughly gorgeous" - the Quietus reviews 'Full Upon Her Moving Lips', new album by drone metal pioneers Earth. Listen to the album at BandCamp.
"Faye Webster’s understated, self-deprecating persona almost dares you not to take her seriously... Flanked by mellow electric piano and silky horns and drowsy steel guitar, she applies her gently pleading voice to tales of soul-wrenching pain" - Consequence of Sounds reviews 'Atlanta Millionaires Club' by Atlanta indie-folk singer-songwriter. Paste Magazine talked to her about how […]
Consequence of Sound gives Tyler, the Creator A- for his new album 'IGOR' - "Tyler has become more focused, honing his production skills and discovering that the art of crafting albums is more rewarding than shock value and banger clout... While the harmonic soulfulness expressed on 'IGOR' is among the best in hip-hop, Tyler’s choice to manipulate […]
"The sound of the band is a clearly defined one, characterized by a flair for using subtle, minimalist electronics and delicate organic instrumentation to frame soft... A wonderfully accomplished and understated album which sees the band furthering their own, distinctive sound" - PopMatters gives 8 points (od 10), to Drinker's debut album 'Fragments'. The band […]
"'Reward' goes down smooth, languidly hypnotic like a meditative zen state. It’s starkly beautiful, with a patience that was no doubt derived from the long, arduous hours she spent making furniture" - Stereogum writes about their latest choice for Album of the Week, folk-rock singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon and her fifth album 'Reward', which she made […]
PopMatters made a selection of best metal records published this month - 12 top metal albums. It's Bewitcher with their "finest work to date in 'Under the Witching Cross'", Spirit Adrift "further opened up their doom metal to its current, wondrous state with 'Divided By Darkness'", Vale "produced one of the finest debut records imaginable with 'Burden of […]
"It’s music for a nightclub in a moon colony. It’s music for a retro-futuristic recreation of an Eastern Europe metropolis that never quite existed. It’s music for an encroaching dystopia... It bursts forth with confidence, dancing between strange textural details and bold melodies effortlessly" - Stereogum writes about their latest choice for Album of the […]
Arizona experimental rap trio Injury Reserve have an album out that will "definitely appeal to the types of rap fans who listen to stuff like Death Grips and Run The Jewels", Brooklyn Vegan writes about the threesome's debut. Production "ranges from heady electronic music to abrasive industrial, and rappers Ritchie With a T and Stepa […]
"In just 35 minutes of music. 'Living Theatre' is a spectacular album, remarkable for how much it crams into such a short space of time, and for what worlds it manages to conjure within the confines of ten songs, two of which are instrumental... Perfect intersection of nature and artifice, the very definition of what organic music […]
"In the midst of a golden age of female indie rockers whose lyrics cut you to the quick as you’re cutting a rug, Lahey stands out for her versatility. With buoyant wit, she rolls with the changes and delivers a lucid, omnivorous perspective that’s all her own" - Consequence of Sound reviews second album by […]
"A seven-piece band from Soweto, they have shaken up the South African music scene by mixing the ancient and modern with a real sense of danger, matching bass and percussion against furious, chanting Zulu vocals" - the Guardian reviews new album by BCUC, 'The Healing'. There are only three tracks on the album, listen to […]
The National have their eight studio album out, 'I Am Easy to Find', and critics like it: "It’s rarely sounded as vulnerable as it does here--song after song" - the A.V. Club; "It might challenge some fans and may not ever grow on others, but more than anything, it proves that the National are not […]
"On 'Adore' Numenorean managed to step outside of the mold of their main influence and craft an intricate and emotional album" - Metal Storm reviews second album by Canadian post-black metal band (or blackgaze, which is essentially the same) Numenorean. Everything is Noise has words of praise as well - Numenorean delivered "a beautifully conceived progressive […]
"The band’s blend of technical death metal feels as ruthless as it is calculated, making for a fascinating record. As we are entering the halfway point of 2019, 'Sociopathic Constructs' can surely be considered one of the heaviest records of the year thus far. One way to think of the album is as a work of well-crafted […]
"All tracks on 'Thina', serve the same purpose: creating and sustaining a musical mood that is serene and reflective, while still being adventurous enough to allow for flights of both instrumental and vocal fancy" - PopMatters reviews second album by South African modern soul band. Listen to album at BandCamp.
