We kick off this week’s smashers with Richard Ashcroft’s seventh solo set, Lovin’ You – his first all-new album since 2018’s Natural Rebel. The opening track, ‘Lover’, interpolates Joan Armatrading’s classic ‘Love and Affection’ and sets the standard for a record that finds Richard at the peak of his powers. This set spans the many facets of his sound, from classic string-soaked acoustic balladry and anthemic indie-rock through to flashes of Americana, soul and glitchy electro beats. Its themes are intimate and personal, dominated by love, romance and affecting messages of support for those struggling with life’s challenges.
Horizons/West completes the thematic arc Thrice began with their 2021 album Horizons/East, pairing personal reflection with sweeping sonic ambition. The new album balances cinematic tones with spacious atmosphere and blends post-rock textures with rhythmic complexity, sharpening the band’s edge without losing nuance. Horizons/West looks inward while never ignoring the larger world, urging listeners not to adopt beliefs but to interrogate them. After more than two decades, Thrice continue building catharsis from chaos, and clarity from noise.
Blue Sky Mentality, the debut album from London duo Good Neighbours, includes their breakout single, ‘Home’, alongside singles ‘Suburbs’, ‘Ripple’ and ‘Starry Eyed’. The album was written and recorded on the road through 2024 and 2025. “Blue Sky Mentality has been our motto since day one. Our band began as a kind of light relief – a creative outlet to break from jobs that we couldn’t stand and some tough personal times. Over the last year, we ran with that feeling, writing our debut album on the road – in the back of tour buses, hotel rooms and scattered corners of the world. That’s what ‘blue sky mentality’ means to us.”
New York’s punk-chic, discodelic funk band Say She She are back with Cut & Rewind, their politically charged, dancefloor-crushing third album. Led by the powerhouse vocal trio of Piya Malik, Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown, the group channels progenitors like Minnie Ripperton, Charles Stepney, Liquid Liquid and Raw Silk to create a groove-forward, psychedelic soundscape of pulsing disco beats, heavenly whistle tones and soaring three-part harmonies. There’s a feeling of righteous rebellion simmering beneath these songs’ body-moving exterior, though: Cut & Rewind is protest music dressed up as a sweat-dripping, hip-shaking, mind-expanding good time.
The experimental instrumental album Ritual I & II further builds the Crown Lands world that was cemented with the critically acclaimed Fearless. As vocalist/drummer Cody Bowles explains: “Ritual was made during a tumultuous time in our lives. It served as a reprieve from the upending haze of the pandemic, far from the high-pressure studio sessions that typically accompanied the pursuit of our mainstream sound. And so, I suppose this record became our act of defiance against stagnation, in a time when so many familiar lights around us flickered out in the deafening silence. It was a glimmer in our darkness.”
Our release of the week needs no introduction: Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, is the superstar’s first new album since announcing that she bought back her masters, giving her complete ownership of her musical catalogue. The 12 songs include a duet with Sabrina Carpenter, and the cover art was inspired by her behind-the-scenes experience of the Eras Tour: “My day ends with me in a bathtub, not usually in a bedazzled dress,” she said. “I wanted to glamourise all the different aspects of how the tour felt. The album isn’t really about what happened to me onstage, but what I was going through offstage.”
The Roctober campaign runs throughout October and includes releases from Distillers, The New York Dolls, Rush, Spain, Type O Negative and Lenny Kravitz. National Album Day is on 18th October, and this year’s theme is Rock. We’ve added albums to the site but some are already sold out on pre-release due to very limited numbers. If you’re interested in anything, contact us and we’ll let you know what is going to be available.
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