CDs/DVDs
Thomas H. Green
Comparatively speaking, Rotherham appears in the news more than most British towns of an equivalent size. And much of that news is not good. Much of it is representative of poverty, social disenfranchisement, and the ugly face of flag-waving Britain. But self-released, 2020s grass roots indie rockers The Reytons offer a reminder of working class community power, a band who hark back to the days when the only way out of big city estates was through football and pop.Their last couple of albums (of four, including this one), made it to No.1 and No.2 in the UK album charts, respectively. This Read more ...
Ibi Keita
There is something quietly reassuring to me about hearing a record that knows exactly what it wants to be. Wales-born duo Overmono's latest release Pure Devotion isn't chasing reinvention or festival-sized maximalism. Instead, it leans into groove, atmosphere and immaculate production, trusting subtlety over spectacle.The opening tracks, "Lockup" and "Knight in Shining Prada", immediately set the tone. Both pulse with an unmistakable French house influence, their filtered loops, buoyant basslines and crisp drums recalling the house party fantasies of Daft Punk. It's a comparison that feels Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s absolutely normal to expect the weird and the wonderful each time those prolific Australian psychedelicists, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard release a new album. Yet, guitars are also pretty much expected to be somewhere in the mix. Not so with Alien Metal: their 28th album in 14 years.Fuelled by Joey Walker’s recent synthesizer obsession, Alien Metal apparently evolved from an extended seamless Eurorack jam that took in techno, breakbeat, house and the electronic end of prog rock to make something that is part thumping hardcore foot-stomper and part tripped out hard-spinner. However Read more ...
Ellie Roberts
The staggering musical talent of Citizen has become more and more apparent with each album they have released, and Halcyon Blues continues the trend.This album would in fact be a perfectly acceptable place to start for anyone who is still missing out on this band. Opening track “Good Fortune” immediately invites you to sit next to them before they take you on an almost 40 minute immersive experience, offering refined but effortless elements of everything that makes them unique as the tracks go on. Mat Kerekes’ imaginative, alluring lyricism and soothing but commanding vocals lead the way Read more ...
Guy Oddy
These days, Alfie Agnew is a Maths professor at California State University Fullerton. Back in the 1980s, however, he was singer and guitarist with US punks the Adolescents, as well as DI along with Sean Elliot. However, while academia might provide a more regular income than playing music, it clearly isn’t anything like as much fun. So, for the last decade, the pair of them have been scratching that itch in their side hustle, Professor and the Madman, along with Rat Scabies and Paul Gray of the Damned.Dreamworld is far from a group of punk veterans revisiting old glories though. In fact, its Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Since the release of her last album, Eternal Sunshine, in 2024, Ariana Grande, already a multi-platform superstar, has exploded to even greater fame, via the Wicked film franchise. Given her peaking global profile, one might have expected the 33-year-old, ex-teen TV idol to come charging out with a maximalist pop whopper in the vein of, say, Lady Gaga’s Mayhem. But, no, she’s headed to contemplative waters.Where Eternal Sunshine, a funky Dua Lipa-esque disco riff, celebrated pop, petal (sold to us in lowercase letters) has the smeary, slightly opiated-sounding production that the kids seem to Read more ...
Joe Muggs
You can’t really understand house music without grasping the influence of the Black American church. As it coalesced from the remnants of disco in Eighties Chicago, New York and New Jersey, the style brought together important influences: new technology, queer culture, Latin rhythms, and crucially, a sense that the club is a church. All of those joyous piano riffs, full throated singers, songs of peace and harmony / coming together / hope for a better world – which would in turn be sampled and used to amplify the ecstasy experience for UK ravers – and the sense of dancing, even without that Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
This album is such a remarkable document, and on so many levels. Perhaps its main "story" is that it could well be the very last studio recording by Jack DeJohnette (1942-2025), having been made during sessions on two successive days at a studio near the great drummer’s home just outside Woodstock in upstate New York, at a time when he was already avoiding travel, and, as it was to turn out, not quite a year before he died.DeJohnette was indisputably one of jazz’s greats and the sheer wonder of his musicianship shines through on this wonderful record. As Ethan Iverson has written, among jazz Read more ...
Graham Rickson
“Your civilisation is young but controlled by minds which are old,” says one of the alien Alphoids in Toomorrow to the four young musicians beamed aboard his spacecraft. He’s also hinting at one of the film’s problems; Toomorrow often feels like it’s been helmed by a creative team rather creakier than the young target audience, one contemporary review describing it as "a film for youngsters made by oldsters who are attempting to commercialise everything that’s dear to the teenage heart". That parts of it it resemble an extended episode of The Monkees is unsurprising, given that one of the Read more ...
Joe Muggs
We’ve said it before but it bears repeating. The globalisation of music culture, from ultra mainstream to underground, in the past decade has been a bigger revolution, affecting more people, than punk or acid house ever were. Case in point is the rise of South African dance music, in particular the slow and sensuous amapiano sound which exploded worldwide in 2020 as millions stuck inside in COVID lockdown simultaneously discovered its mood-lifting properties via online DJ sets. It got adopted by stars from Beyoncé and Drake down, created huge DJ careers, and has generated one bona fide Read more ...
Tom Carr
If there is only one artist who you could say is in their moment, then it would be hard to look past Charli XCX. Having set in motion a whole cultural zeitgeist with previous album Brat, the pop and dance extraordinaire has forayed into fashion and film, lending to the score of Emerald Fennel’s take on Wuthering Heights last year. With seemingly the world at her beck and call, Charli could have gone in any direction for album seven. Having conquered the mainstream with Brat, marrying electropop with dance and rave to wide acclaim, the easy choice could have been to return to that well Read more ...
Ibi Keita
Fans have been waiting for a new Strokes album for six years, and after a few listens, Reality Awaits left me feeling more disappointed than excited. There are moments where the band remind you why they've been one of the most influential rock bands of the last 25 years. The guitars still lock together effortlessly, the rhythm section is as tight as ever, and there are flashes of melodies that stick around long after the album ends. I can hear what they were aiming for, and I respect that they didn't just make The New Abnormal again. Some reviews have praised that willingness to push Read more ...