fri 23/05/2025

New releases on CD & DVD

Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi

Mark Kidel

Ammar 808 is the high octane vehicle for the Tunisian-born producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, now based in Denmark. His first album Maghreb United (2018)struck hard and fast in a field already well-populated by the fusion of traditional Arab sounds and modern electronics. It was a marriage made in heaven.

Album: Sports Team - Boys These Days

Thomas H Green

How do you solve a problem like Sports Team? Taking them at face value, they’re a living metaphor for the slow music biz relegation of the working class in favour of the privileged, a bunch of snarky ex-Cambridge University students who make smug guitar pop, a Brideshead Revisited version of The Kooks.

Album: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film

Joe Muggs

Stereolab always walked a knife edge between deadly serious and dead silly. Their sound was constructed around the sort of reference points – French...

Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries

Kieron Tyler

“Tell me what you see” invites Robert Forster during Strawberries' “Tell it Back to me.” The album’s eight songs do not, however, necessarily...

Album: Rico Nasty - LETHAL

Ibi Keita

Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something less distinct is up for...

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Album: Billy Nomates - Metalhorse

Guy Oddy

East Midlands post-punker tries on some yacht rock

Album: MØ - Plæygirl

Thomas H Green

Scandinavian singer injects a dash of outsider melancholy into her fizzing electro-pop

DVD/Blu-ray: Slade in Flame

Tim Cumming

One of the great rock movies gets a 50th anniversary revival

Album: Peter Doherty - Felt Better Alive

Tim Cumming

Doherty returns with his first solo album in almost a decade

Album: Sleep Token - Even In Arcadia

Tom Carr

The anonymous UK metallers' fourth album is breathlessly inventive and emotive

Album: Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke - Tall Tales

Joe Muggs

A toning-down leads to an opening up of new possibilities in a fertile collaboration

Album: PinkPantheress - Fancy That

Thomas H Green

Hot rising pop star's new mixtape lacks tunes and dynamism

Blu-ray: Laurel & Hardy - The Silent Years (1928)

Graham Rickson

Ten more early shorts, handsomely restored and annotated

Album: Arcade Fire - Pink Elephant

Thomas H Green

Seventh from Canadian stadium-slayers contains enough juice to convince

Album: PUP - Who Will Look After The Dogs?

Ellie Roberts

A compelling balance between absurdity and sincerity

Album: Suzanne Vega - Flying With Angels

Liz Thomson

A diverse album that's still uniquely Vega

Album: Lael Neale - Altogether Stranger

Kieron Tyler

Arresting art pop with a touch of creepiness

Album: Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars

Mark Kidel

A rock opera too scholarly?

Album: Dr Robert & Matt Deighton - The Instant Garden

Thomas H Green

A couple of old mods waft into delightfully Seventies hippy territory

Album: Self Esteem - A Complicated Woman

Kathryn Reilly

Dissecting the utter tripe 21st-century western women navigate every day. In song!

Album: Billy Idol - Dream Into It

Joe Muggs

Immense charm and uniqueness shine through, but too much leaning into the generic

Album: Viagra Boys - Viagr Aboys

Ibi Keita

Louder, weirder and all the way in

Album: Maria Somerville - Luster

Kieron Tyler

Irish musical impressionist embraces shoegazing

Album: Ronny Graupe's Szelest - Newfoundland Tristesse

Sebastian Scotney

A deep, subtle and constantly engaging album

Album: Gigspanner Big Band - Turnstone

Tim Cumming

Third album from British folk’s biggest big band

Album: Mark Morton - Without the Pain

Thomas H Green

Second solo album from Lamb of God guitarist lays down hefty southern boogie

DVD/Blu-ray: In a Year of 13 Moons

Nick Hasted

UK disc debut for Fassbinder's neglected, tragic, tender trans tale

Album: Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson - What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow

Liz Thomson

Finger-picking good

Album: Joe Lovano - Homage

Sebastian Scotney

Free-flowing spontaneity

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