The London four-piece are the latest chosen by the NME as the "next-big-UK-rock-thing", and they are - quite good. Not as fresh and exciting as Black Midi, but still worth a listen. Their debut album 'Mass', lyrically, pulls a lot from frontman Theo Polyzoides' childhood, as he says in NME interview: “Some of the fondest […]
"While their music may contain a multitude of music theory complexity, it can also be accessible, funky, tender, vulnerable, head-banging, and heavy on guilty-pleasure pop/rock tropes" - PopMatters says about Bent Knee's fifth album. PM describes the Boston band as "prog rock... avant-garde... art rock.. jazz... good old-fashioned metal", but they "use their massive musical […]
On his 20th birthday (October 7), American rapper Mavi released his debut album 'Let the Sun Talk', lyrically rich, with production from Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE, and Navy Blue, among others. AlbumoftheYear.com describes it as "incredibly sharp, consistent, very immersive and hazy hip hop record with a ton of great production, great lyrical raps and a creative […]
'2020' is the sixth album from the much lauded, eccentric songwriter, "hugely witty, but dark as fuck. His lyricism is, frankly, wonderful", the Quietus says about Richard Dawson. His latest album "is heartbreaking, violent, defeated, and yet majestic... He’s an astonishingly good writer. I am awed and envious". What has changed since his last album? "He’s […]
One of the most adventurous guitarists around today, Bill Orcutt releases his new album 'Odds Against Tomorrow, Friday 11, "a tremendous collection of solo performances". "While Orcutt weaves an unusual, jarring web of notes, it's not mindless plunking or blind slashes of guitar chords", PopMatters argues. "He's a highly gifted musician, with a playing style […]
Norwegian producer Lindstrøm has transformed dance music into something both emotional and architectural, and now, on his latest album, 'On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever' he loses all the disco, and leaves just the space, Stereogum says in its review. These songs are "indistinct haze that nevertheless lends a certain grandeur to […]
Pat Thomas, the 72 year-old “Golden Voice of Africa”, has published new album 'Obiaaa!' (meaning "everybody"), this week, a "living, breathing testament to a music that is very much still alive and being championed by those who have spent their lives perfecting its craft", Guardian says in review. Overall feel of the album - "joyous […]
"We fall in love again and again because a little self-sabotage never stopped anyone" - Pitchfork says about Angel Olsen's new album 'All Mirror' (gave it their "Best New Music" tag, grade 8,9 of 10). "Olsen suggests that nihilism and optimism are closer than you think, that what feels like knowing yourself is almost always […]
"A polished, wide-screen rock record full of hooks, heart, and melodies" - PopMatters says about The Menzingers' new album (gave it 8 of 10 stars). The album deals with issues of "loss, decaying relationships, the redemptive power of friendship... in a way that few modern rock bands can". "These are 12 more songs to sing […]
"With this batch of songs, they’ve figured out how to infuse a new-school Wilco record with old-school Wilco’s dynamism and grandeur. The result is their most stunning body of work since 'A Ghost Is Born'" - Stereogum writes about the new album by the American alt-country band. A pretty thing, Stereogum argues - "Tweedy breathes gorgeous […]
Prog-drone band Hashshashin from Australia, on their new album 'Badakhshan', "combine essential concepts from drone, into something simultaneously traditional, naturalistic, and forward-thinking". With it, the Invisible Oranges says, the band "has breathed the esoteric nature of their music into a figure of flesh and bone, a newly-formed hybrid between Earth and Aether". Listen to album […]
"Soaring and atmospheric... focused on lighter, more delicate music" - Brooklyn Vegan says about 'Lilac', fifth album by The Early November. "It’s perhaps the most purely gorgeous sounding record in the band’s discography", as well mature-sounding, similar to adult emo albums The Get Up Kids and American Football released this year.
"It won’t disappoint those hoping for effortless, lyrically X-rated flexes" - the Guardian says about American rapper's debut album, released on the 10-year anniversary of MA’s brother’s death - "her trauma and grief are woven through soul-inflected tracks".
"'The Afterlife' is just as much a psychedelic rock album as it is a jazz album" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about new album by UK space-jazz band, their second this year. "Dan Leavers’ synths make it just as rooted in modern UK electronic music as Shabaka’s sax makes it rooted in modern UK jazz. Save for […]
Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Sequoyah Murray (a beautiful name, right?!), has a debut album out - "nine exceptionally dynamic songs". It's some sort of electro r'n'b + some world music - "of all the sentiments to pull from this accomplished debut, it stands out for its willingness to embrace the unknown and unexpected because you […]
"A nihilistic, nocturnal brand of psychedelia: mechanistic krautrock rhythms, guitars overdriven into furiously combusting engines, a detached delivery that alternated between slithering and swaggering" - Stereogum says about San Francisco psych-band's seventh album. This time around, the band is "looking back to ’70s funk and disco", with songs feeling "almost like circles".
The newest album by Swedish prog-metal band Opeth, their first entirely in Swedish, "is an exquisite exercise in perpetual contrasts that, while familiar, demonstrates how much Opeth can still intrigue and impress after so many years" PopMatters says in review (9 of 10 stars). They conclude: "Their most wicked record of the decade, signifying that […]
"New album has them sounding like a fired-up, hungry band" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about Swedish post-metal band's new album. "It’s got plenty of familiar Cult of Luna elements, from towering sludge metal to soaring post-rock to hints of psychedelia, but they do all of that and more in ways that don’t just feel like […]
The 11th album by the folk-rock band Hiss Golden Messenger is "a fantastic sounding record, which doesn’t appear to be solely the result of the playing or the production" the Guardian says in review. "The mixes are uniformly fantastic, with electric guitar foregrounded, but not so much it swamps anything, and the folkier elements are […]
"The rhythmic energy... The joyful nature of Afro-pop... Whirlwind of head-bopping, dance-inducing melody" - the latest album by the Super Furry Animals' frontman is, seems so, exactly what the Quietus likes these days. "An album which represents optimism, cross-culturalism and the erasing of borders in favour of creativity and collaboration, is a breath of fresh […]
"A wide-eyed, curious creature, willingly alert to the world" - Guardian says about the new album by UK folk-rock band Red River Dialect. Other critics like it a lot as well: "Thoughtful compositions that mix straightforward observation with naturalistic imagery & philosophical inquiry" – Uncut Magazine: "Beatific [but] thrillingly combustible. Morris’s earnest tones crack with loss. A […]
Singer/rapper Sampa The Great released her first solo debut album "the breathtaking 'The Return'. On it, she manages to fuse the music and cultures of just about all the places she’s lived. There’s traditional South African folk, tribal music, and slang, along with Afrobeat, American hip hop, jazz, soul, funk, R&B, spoken word, and more"; she […]
"His rapping remains his greatest tool. JPEG is an impish writer and an athletic vocalist. He can slither in and out of rhythms and hopscotch through the densest arrangements without losing momentum. Here, he raps in compact spurts, volleys, and streams, his words slurred, stretched, and compressed as he channels his heroes and roasts his […]
'Memory' is first Vivian Girls album in eight years, the first since the band members all moved from New York to Los Angeles, "from a city with constant motion to a city defined by static sun", and the "band is as good as they ever were, and maybe even a little better". Stereogum chose it […]
Norwegian avant-garde artist Jenny Hval has a new album out, called 'The Practice of Love', and the critics like it a lot: "If she’s often felt to have been speaking from on high, Hval has never been more purely human" - The 405; "transcendental beauty" - The Independent; "some fierce poetry and song" - Clash Music; […]
"Mike Patton and Jean-Claude Vannier have made an album enjoying a long distance bromance... They seem to have come from across the decades, and from different musical cultures and milieu", the Quietus says about 'Corpse Flower', collaborative album by Faith No More's Mike Patton and French composer Jean-Claude Vannier. But, stil, it's "a production of […]
"Tucker is blessed with a singular croon, one that manages the remarkable feat of being both deadpan and laced with emotion" - the Quietus says in it's review of 'Guild of the Asbestos Weaver', new album by English (not too) experimental musician Alexander Tucker. What stands out the most here is Tucker’s voice - it […]
"'Resonant Body', the new album by DJ and producer Octo Octa, celebrates moments... when temporary intimacy coaxes the bashful into gasping emotion" - Pitchfork says in it's review of new album by American house producer Maya Bouldry-Morrison (gave it grade 7,8 of 10). A nice text about how music binds us together: "She captures that […]
"A collection of exquisite hauntings, songs threaded together by a clawing sense of unease" - Stereogum says about 'House of Sugar', newest album by (Sandy) Alex G, a indie-rock project by American singer-songwriter Alexander Giannascoli. "'House Of Sugar' seems to be about the corrosive quality of the past, the ways addiction or naïveté or inherited trauma […]
"Gentler, but no less powerful, it's a velvet glove on an iron fist. It's fertile ground for Wolfe to rediscover... a Gaia figure of gothic folk metal" - PopMatters reviews about Wolfe's sixth album. "She takes steps away from synthwave and doom, but only in the strictest sense. [Her] creative versatility is on full and […]
