Review: Hull and Leeds-based band bdrmm finally follow up their acclaimed debut album Bedroom - which was instantly passed as a modern day shoegaze classic - with a new EP. It features the recent single 'Port' as well as fresh remixes by the ever more essential Daniel Avery, plus Working Men's Club, A Place To Bury Strangers and others. That single, 'Port,' took the band in a new direction with a darker sound fun of distorted drones and beats, with howls of anguish and manic guitar frenzies. That is carried over into the rest of the EP next to some radical reworks.
Review: Popular Hull-based shoegaze quartet bdrmm are building up to their latest tour with the release of single 'Standard Tuning, arriving hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed second album, 'I Don't Know'. Written and recorded during those same sessions and very much similarly flavoured, it continues a fine vein of form right now, with high praise coming in from the likes of Rolling Stone and Consequence. This special 10" also comes with a remix of the live favourite 'Alps' by Ninja Tune/Cambria Instruments electronica specialist Nathan Fake.
Review: Indie darling Beck has been 'Thinking About You' on what is his first new music in some time since he dropped his GRAMMY-winning Hyperspace album. This single gets pressed up to a limited edition golden-brown 7" to mark the much-loved artist's birthday and it is a sublime bit of prime and emotional Beck as his heart-tugging best. The ballad has some sombre harmonica, acoustic guitar lushness and was recorded in the same room as his classic 'Sea Change'. On the flip side is his GRAMMY-nominated cover of Neil Young's 'Old Man' which is a wistful sound with rich tones.
Review: Billy Nomates is coming off the back of a hugely acclaimed album in 2002. That was the self titled work on Invada Records and now she follows it up with a new EP that has already had heavy plays on BBC 6Music. Billy even stepped in for Iggy Pop on his show and impressed with her selections. Here the artist develops her unique sound and unflinching lyrics and says of the music that it is "predominantly about communication breakdowns; personally, mentally, physically. A strange thing to happen while communication has never had so many channels. Perhaps we need a direct line."
Review: ?Boys Wonder's 'Be Reasonable' is a lovely and limited edition new 10" etched vinyl released exclusively for Record Store Day 2025. Serving as a companion to their long-awaited debut LP Question Everything, this limited-edition single features two previously unreleased tracks exclusive to wax. The band's distinctive blend of glam-rock energy, sharp wit and infectious pop hooks brings both of these to life and are part of the reason they have been endorsed by Vic Reeves as the greatest band that never was and hailed by Jonathan Ross as one of my all-time favourite bands.
Review: The 60s Liverpudlian rock quartet are famed for their song '6 Day War', which has been sampled from the likes of DJ Shadow in Tokyo Drift and Pusha T on his album released earlier this year. This track is undoubtedly a classic, written in the aftermath of the ongoing Arab-Israeli war of 1967, '6 Day War' is one of the best anti-war tracks of all time. The slow jam-rock ballad comes from the band's album 'Oh What a Lovely War!' released in 1973 which has not been released in Britain until now, making this a landmark pressing. The record is a psychedelic soft-progressive rock LP with emphasis on heavy guitars like in 'Lay it Down' and even pulls from folk rock in 'Dirty Delilha Blues'. Colonel Bagshot were almost criminally overlooked, though their music seems to consistently stand the test of time and it's easy to hear why. The sound is quintessential Liverpool rock, even down to the naming conventions being evocative of The Beatles.
Review: This is a special and unique coming together that sees Turnstile join forces with the brilliant Toronto jazz ensemble and production team BADBADNOTGOOD. They have worked on reimagining songs from the former's well-received 2021 album Glow On and the results bring all new perspectives and dynamics to tunes like 'Mystery', 'Alien love Call' featuring Blood Orange and 'Underwater Boi.' Both Turnstile and BADBADNOTGOOD are untouchable in their fields right now with rave reviews for their records as well as their live shows. This is another standout project.
Review: California-born singer-songwriter BANKS, aka Jillian Rose Banks, creates moody, alternative pop with hints of contemporary r&b adding extra depths. After emerging in the early 2010s, she gained a cross-genre following with her downtempo, alt-r&b style and her debut album, Goddess, earned critical acclaim and gold certification with hits like 'Before I Ever Met You' and 'Warm Water.' BANKS followed three more albums and now drops her fifth which is another subversive blend of all sound that have gone before with an evolved attitude and still a great number of hooky groves.
Yes I Have Eaten So Many Lemons Yes I Am So Bitte (2:55)
Changer (3:22)
Horsey Girl Rider (2:46)
NOCD (2:50)
Best In Show (2:36)
Clark (2:22)
Harpee (3:11)
Friends (1:51)
Maddington (2:43)
Review: The poker-faced, jeans-wearing trio Bar Italia are back. Thus far, and across a sparse and steady stream of largely digital singles and albums - with grainy, Photo Booth and MS Paint-style visual editing to boot - they've managed to summon a strange form of mysterious, but relationally sad Britishness in their music. In our opinion they're often mis-touted as a shoegaze act, so we hope their latest LP and first-time Beggars release Tracey Denim here dispels that myth. Whether getting at the just-out-of-reach noughties blindspot nostalgia of Tracey Beaker, or nodding to the depressive relic-making of Tracey Emin, one fact remains: this is Bar Italia's most refined work yet, taking their increasingly emo sound to its most logical conclusions, while demonstrating mastery over the same boxy, warped naivete that has always defined them.
Review: The new Bauhaus BBC Sessions release hears British goth pioneers Bauhaus at their most vital, documenting the three-year period that they swept the airwaves like vampire bats with a hearse's worth of recordings made for UK radio. Spanning early post-punk urgencies to the relatively more textured darkness of their later work, these sessions were recorded for shows hosted by John Peel and David Jensen, flapping through alternate takes of 'Double Dare', 'In the Flat Field', and 'Third Uncle'. Together with a recent vinyl reissue of a 1983 performance at the Old Vic in London, which snapped a shot of Bauhaus at the peak of their dramaturgic snarks, both releases provide a compelling, rough-edged, bouffant counterpart to their studio albums, before goth went bird's nest: Bauhaus live and direct, with all the mood, menace and momentum fully intact.
Review: "A document created in the shadow of incredible darkness. One from which the creator hadn't planned on escaping and still doesn't. Hence the title of the album. It is the result of an illness that I've battled my whole life. It isn't something that the world has done to me. It's the world I live in, and it's no one's fault."
So says Brian Christinzio, AKA BC Camplight, of his sixth album. As ever, it's a musical masterpiece packing dense layers of instrumental experimentation and theses-worthy lyrical poignance. An artist who has never played by the musical rules, fans of strong juxtapositions will again be in there element, with a tracklist that spans grunge-y garage rock, twisted barroom journeyman stuff, theatrical guitar pop, and plenty more. But the sounds themselves are only one half the genius. When it comes to arrangements, things are as playful as they are innovative, keeping listeners guessing as to how structures will pan out.
Review: Sunshine Hit Me is the debut album from the British band The Bees. A testament to summery jovialty and DIY ingenuity, the album is as raw and earthen as it is soulful, with the band at the time only made up of founding members Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, who wrote, performed and recorded the album alone using a home studio in Butler's parents' garden on the Isle Of Wight. Don't be confused by the LP's normative categorisation as "indie rock"; deft listeners can hear everything from reggae to neo-soul in this one, flaunting the pair's impressive musical education going into its making.
Review: Hadsel, Zach Condon AKA Beirut's first album in four years, is named in honour of the place in which much of it was recorded, a remote Norwegian island that the neo-folk artist stayed in back in 2019. The tranquillity of his surroundings, as well as access to limited instruments (a lo-fi drum machine, a church organ, a basic synthesiser and his trusty acoustic guitar, is reflected in the beauty and slow-burn nature of the music on show, which naturally pushes Condon's distinctive, emotionally charged vocals to the fore and tends towards the atmospheric and musically opaque. The results are genuinely beguiling, with our picks of a very strong bunch including 'The Tern', where Condon's voice sails above sustained organ chords, a tribal-tinged rhythm track, and life-affirming vocal harmonies, and the brass-enhanced warmth of 'So Many Plans'.
Review: London based black feminist punk trio, Big Joanie, are set to follow up their exceptional 2018 debut, 'Sistahs', with a much more nuanced, dynamic collection of material on the upcoming sophomore effort, 'Back Home'. Produced and mixed by Margo Broom (Goat Girl, Fat White Family), the new project showcases an expansive push in every sonic direction; embracing the lo-fi, fuzzed out din of their Nirvana and Husker Du influences with increased abandon, while the strong pop sensibilities are more flagrant and emboldened this time around. A balancing act between grungy dance-punk, and wistful yet authentic pop, elevated by razor-sharp wit and earnest vulnerability, 2022 appears set to be the year that Big Joanie become a commonplace name in all the right circles.
Review: In honour of Record Store Day 2025, Canadian-American alt-rockers Big Wreck have decided to reissue one of their most popular albums, 2012's The Albatross. Available in limited numbers (only 1,000 of this CD version was pressed), it not only includes the freshly remastered original album in full, but also three alternate versions, rare bonus cut 'Fade Away', and a raucous live recording of title track 'Albatross'. The original album remains a timeless alt-rock classic where raw guitar riffs, bluesy solos and Ian Thurnley's distinctive lead vocals wrap around thickset bass and punchy drums. For proof, check standouts 'Wolves', 'Glass Room' and the rowdy 'The Rest of the World'.
Review: Violin extraordinaire and singer Andrew Bird teams up with an Americana icon, whose star has risen and is continuing to rise - Madison Cunningham. Bird says of Cunningham that she is one of the most talented musicians he's ever encountered. Together they've covered the 1973 album Buckingham Nicks - Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's pre-Fleetwood Mac LP and done a brilliant job of it. Buckingham Nicks was a flop commercially when it was released and despite the duo's subsequent success it was never remastered or re-released digitally, so hard to come by. Thankfully, Cunningham and Bird bring this underrated gem into the limelight and do so in style. "The best reason to cover anyone is that little part of you that thinks you might do it better. This album epitomizes excess and confidence and it only made sense to embody that spirit ourselves," says Bird in a press release. And he's quite right - there's no misplaced arrogance here - they've nailed this homage to a classic.
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