The first of our new year picks is from rock icons Alter Bridge, who follow 2022’s massive Pawns & Kings (#1 US Hard Music Albums, #2 US Billboard 200 With Hard Rock Genre, #3 US Current Rock Albums) with their hard-hitting new self-titled album. First single ‘Silent Divide’ kicks off with a charging heavy metal-tinged riff before the iconic voice of Myles Kennedy climbs towards a melodic chorus, metallic bridge and epic harmonic solo!
On Secret Love, south London four-piece Dry Cleaning take their place in rock’s avant-garde, catalysing the Reaganite paranoia of early ’80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no-wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence Shaw’s delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates’ soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkin.
Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold brings light to the bleakest of winters with A Very Lonely Solstice, a career-spanning 13-track collection recorded live on the winter solstice in December 2020 at St Ann & The Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, New York. The performance was originally broadcast as a live-stream event just days after New York declared another state of emergency restrictions in response to increasing Covid-19 cases. Pecknold describes the set as “me by myself on the longest night of the year … honouring the loneliness of 2020 with a nylon string and some songs new and old.” Fans worldwide tuned in while quarantined at home, finding solace and a sense of community in a period of extreme isolation.
Charismatic Marillion frontman Steve Hogarth is renowned for his expressive voice, poetic lyrics and emotional performances. Steve has also carved out a rich solo career that allows him to explore music in a more personal, cinematic way, and is celebrated for his ability to connect deeply with audiences, whether on grand stages or in stripped-down, acoustic settings. S.P.Q.R. was recorded on 3 February 2024 at Rome’s Sala Sinopoli, with Italian progressive band RanestRane providing acoustic instrumentation on harp, mandolin, harmonium and tablas. For this show, they were also joined by the Flowing Chords choir. In a uniquely intimate and atmospheric setting, Steve reimagines Marillion classics and solo material through cinematic arrangements.
After two decades and nine albums as one of Britain’s best-loved bands, Wakefield-born siblings The Cribs have weathered enough storms, onstage and off, to realise that an indestructible bond exists between them. For years, it’s fizzed beneath the surface of their sound, perforating every thrash of guitar, every snap of snare, every impassioned vocal, roared back at them at live shows by sweat-drenched, devoted crowds. But rarely have the band acknowledged this bond out loud. “It’s not something we ever really said to each other explicitly,” admits bassist and lead vocalist Gary. That all changed, however, with the creation of Selling a Vibe – their bold new album, which captures The Cribs at their bottle-rocket energetic best.
Our release of the fortnight is the latest from Courtney Marie Andrews, long celebrated as an artist who challenges herself and who finds new interplays of folk and americana. Also a vivid poet and accomplished painter, she brings a multidisciplinary richness to her work that shines throughout her ninth studio album. Valentine prizes raw performance rather than perfection and is Andrews’s most sonically explorative record thus far – she plays flute, high-strung guitars, myriad synths, and draws heavy inspiration from her art outside of music. Her voice is gorgeous and acrobatic always, but on Valentine it finds a new depth, an assertiveness that brings new dimension to its biggest anthems and its softest moments.
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