First of this week’s smashers is The Beths’ new album, Expert In A Dying Field. Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting on the album positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but they’re also character sketches of relationships – platonic, familial, romantic – and, more importantly, their aftermaths: the…
Björk returns with her 10th album, Fossora, the feminine version of the Latin word for digger. The album is organic, spacious and has depth and tenderness. It’s an astonishing piece of work that is both complex yet easy to digest with a dream like quality. Björk once again gives her body and soul to this…
Kicking off this week’s peaches is How Do You Burn?, the ninth studio album from The Afghan Whigs, which finds the band in peak form and making the most thrilling music of their lives. The album is virile, ready for action, and frontman Greg Dulli is as swaggering, enigmatic and darkly charismatic as ever, and…
This week’s sensational six start with This Is Midpoint, the first album in which Tom Chaplin presents his whole self: as a writer, a singer, a husband, a world-beating artist with a past – and all the ups and downs that come with it – and, now, as a middle-aged man. It’s a beautiful collection…
We’ve got some exciting news for you: Arctic Monkeys have announced a new album! The Car is the seventh studio album from Arctic Monkeys. The album features ten new songs written by Alex Turner, and it was produced by James Ford and recorded at Butley Priory, Suffolk, La Frette, Paris and RAK Studios, London. Note:…
Breaking a decade of omertà, The Mars Volta reawaken from their lengthy hiatus with an eponymous album that radically reshapes their paradigm. Formed by guitarist/composer Omar Rodríguez-López and singer/lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, The Mars Volta rose from the ashes of El Paso punk-rock firebrands At The Drive-In in 2001. On a mission to “honour our roots…
The Blues Don’t Lie is the amazing new album from Buddy Guy, and is the legend’s 34th studio album, following 2018’s Grammy-winning The Blues Is Alive And Well. Produced by songwriter and drummer Tom Hambridge, The Blues Don’t Lie features guests including Mavis Staples, Elvis Costello, James Taylor, Jason Isbell, and more. The album will…
We kick off this week’s round-up with a record to bring solace to anyone who has experienced loss. Over six months spanning the end of 2019 and early 2020, American Aquarium’s B J Barham lost his grandmother and mother, and watched as the world fell into a more than 2-year pandemic that decimated businesses, relationships…
Four-and-a-half years after the release of their previous album, Ruins, First Aid Kit (Swedish duo of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg) return with their eagerly anticipated follow-up, Palomino. Note: The LP is initially available on white vinyl, exclusive to physical record shops. Click here for more details and to order your copy.
The first of this week’s hot six is Day-Glo – an unexpected album, featuring 10 brand-new Erasure songs, each track created using elements from The Neon’s universe. Familiar but unexpected, the songs bear little resemblance to the original album, although echoes of The Neon can be heard from time to time. The album is an…
