Formed in Bellingham, WA in 1997, Death Cab For Cutie almost immediately entered the ranks of the era’s definitive bands, fueled in large part by the remarkable power of co-founder, vocalist, guitarist, and lead songwriter Benjamin Gibbard’s complex, often bittersweet songcraft. Asphalt Meadows, their tenth studio album, finds them exploring further into their own unique…
The pick of this week’s crop kicks off with Melbourne quintet Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, who return in 2022 with Endless Rooms, their third album proper. Described by the band – Fran Keaney, Joe White, Marcel Tussie and brothers Tom and Joe Russo – as them “doing what we do best: chasing down songs in…
black midi’s new album, Hellfire, builds on the melodic and harmonic elements of last year’s Cavalcade, while expanding the brutality and intensity of their debut, Schlagenheim. It is their most thematically cohesive and intentional album yet. Note: The LP is initially available on clear red vinyl with a bonus flexi, exclusive to independent shops. Click…
This week’s six smashers start with Dropout Boogie, released one day before the twentieth anniversary of The Black Keys’ first album, The Big Come Up. As they have done throughout their entire career, the duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney wrote all of the material in the studio, and the new album captures a…
Her first official album since Hypoxia in 2015, Night Drives opens with some of Kathryn Williams’s most immediately electronic tracks to date, such as the nihilistic ‘Human’, big ballad ‘Answer In The Dark’ with all its bold, layered production, and the dynamic, infectious ‘Radioactive’. Elsewhere, on the likes of ‘Moon Karaoke’, ‘Magnets’ and ‘The Brightest’,…
Our May Day marvels open with Waysides, the third collection of songs from Bedouine, which summarises her creative headspace over the past year and a half. The album comprises some older material and a cover, and ties together many songwriting threads that act as a prologue of sorts. “The luxury of time afforded this whole…
Freakout/Release is another dizzying high in a multi-decade career that’s seen Hot Chip continuing to innovate and develop a rich, resonant songcraft. And while they continue to operate at peak form, the album also feels like a new chapter for the group – a collection of flesh-and-blood songs that finds the band reaching into the…
This week’s lovelies kick off with Zeit, composed and recorded by Rammstein during 2020’s lockdowns. Flake Lorenz confirmed that the recording sessions for the album were unplanned and that the quarantine caused by the pandemic had allowed for ‘less distraction’ and ‘more time to think of new things’. In October 2021, a song from the…
A Light For Attracting Attention is the long awaited debut album from The Smile: Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead with Tom Skinner from Sons of Kemet. The 13-track album was produced and mixed by Nigel Godrich and mastered by Bob Ludwig. Tracks feature strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass…
We start to unwrap this week’s Easter eggs with Giving The World Away, the new album from Hatchie, which is the truest introduction to the songwriter at the helm of the project, Harriette Pilbeam. Although her sound – a dazzling dream-pop and shoegaze tangle – arrived fully-formed, it’s here that she distils the core of…