Back catalogue: Indie/Alternative

Review: Dr. Robert of British 80s pop hitmakers The Blow Monkeys and British folk icon Matt Deighton (Mother Earth, Bill Fay, Paul Weller) have formed a new duo and release their album on the not-for-profit Last Night From Glasgow label. Their respective histories - writing really accomplished pop songs and performing in bands with some of the best artists in the history of rock n' roll - raise expectations, but they absolutely smash them. The title-track is a beautiful marriage of pastoral psych folk and glam rock, where there's melodies to spare and affecting, deeply soulful timbres at every turn.

Review: If you're unfamiliar with Dr Robert, we recommend checking out The Blow Monkeys. Robert Howard, as he's credited, formed the iconic new wave and 'sophisti-pop' group in 1981 and his piano keys, bass notes, guitar melodies, vocals and words define the band's sizeable back catalogue. Matt Deighton, meanwhile, might mean Mother Earth, Bill Fay, or Paul Weller to some listeners. He's been involved with them all. Here, the esteemed UK musicians run into one another on Last Night From Glasgow, a treasure of a patron-funded, not-for-profit label out of Scotland's biggest city. It couldn't be a more credible and thoughtful combination. Musically, the result packs crazy levels of musicality, taking a lead from pop, soft, folk and psyche rock to produce a sound which moves between soaring to understated grandeur to deceptively complex and overtly intimate.

Review: Mannequin Pussy’s second LP Romantic was a watershed wilding for the Philly hardcore punks. In 2016, as the aches and anguishes of the first quarter-century were increasingly felt, this deceptively billed “indie rock” band would proportionally increase the very same trash-humping snarl that could be heard in their sound as early on as 2012. A critical breakthrough despite years in the game, Romantic sounded to burn the tired institutional flag of romance, making way for a more vital, tumultuous, unwieldy love, not anchored in prescription: peak punk climaxes verge on post-rock limit states, where jangle pop moments fuse murderously with grimacing punk (just listen to ‘Denial’ for the best case of this).

Review: US art rockers The Mars Volta's latest project reveals an ambitious dual-disc journey, encompassing their sprawling range of experimentation. Early tracks like 'Fin' and 'Reina tormenta' establish a dense atmosphere, full of the band's signature unpredictability, with fluid transitions between moments of stark aggression and delicate, jazz-inflected interludes. The album's progression is marked by tracks such as 'Mictlan' and 'Nefilbata', where intricate rhythms are paired with surreal, often dissonant melodies, evoking the mysticism and chaos of their thematic inspirations. As the second disc kicks off, 'Celaje' and 'Vocifero' provide a cinematic depth, layering intricate percussion with droning, otherworldly synths, shifting the mood into darker territories before 'Mito de los trece cielos' bursts through with frenzied energy. The reprise of 'Cue the Sun' and the closing track, 'Lucro sucio', bring the journey to a close, suggesting a moment of reflection within the album's labyrinthine structure. While the album's tracklist is as labyrinthine as their sound, what stands out is the way The Mars Volta remain resolutely themselvesieffortlessly blending their psychedelic rock heritage with new, complex influences, creating something fresh, while never losing the raw intensity that made their earlier work so iconic. This album feels less like a return and more like a rediscovery of what makes them so vital.

Review: Melvins' back catalogue is so strong that they could make a living just re-releasing the hell out of it. But Melvins' Buzz Osborne is a true punk and has such an unrelenting passion for music that they will never stop. The good thing is that he is under no illusions that he's great... Melvins in 2025 sound absolutely incredible, like Black Sabbath good. The line-up for this album takes things back to 1983 as the band's original drummer Mike Dillard makes a relatively rare appearance. It's only the third album he's made with Buzz Osborne, but absolutely is it gold when it happens. Dillard famously played in a short-lived pre Nirvana group with Kurt Cobain called Fecal Matter and there's certainly parallels to Nirvana's frantic approach to drums on this album. In terms of the rest of the music it's tuneful in a heavy way and it's that balance between the two that was the cornerstone of grunge and you can hear how Melvins became such a prevalent influence, playing a role in shaping the sound of Nirvana, Soundgarden and countless others.