Back catalogue: Indie/Alternative

Review: A 12" split meeting of the minds between two equally iconic alt rock punk-lifers, this EP brings together Gainesville, Florida's Hot Water Music and New York City's Quicksand (brainchild of Gorilla Biscuits hardcore hero and Rival Schools emo-grunge auteur Walter Schreifels), covering each other's classic tracks with renditions of 'Fazer' from the Quicksand 1993 debut LP Slip and 'Free Radio Gainesville' off of Hot Water Music's 1999 third full-length No Division. Filling out the tracklist are the unreleased 'Supercollider' which marks the first new cut of Quicksand material since 2021's Distant Populations, and the b-side 'Undertow', originally recorded during sessions from Hot Water Music's latest 2024 LP Vows. With simple cover art featuring Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan on one side, and Quicksand's Alan Cage on the other, it perfectly summarises this playful, mutual celebration of one another's work, some new, some old, all great.

Review: If anybody thought QOTSA's previous offering '...Like Clockwork' indicated a band trying out new ideas, they're making far greater leaps this time around. Die-hard fans might be a little confused by the enlistment of Mark Ronson as the album's producer, perhaps even more so by the strong influence on Josh Homme of Ronson's ubiquitous 2014 hit 'Uptown Funk'. The outcome of this surprising collaboration proves to be a heady blend of the band's usual desert-rock sleaze and a crisp, infectious and floor-filling sound. This is an album to move to, and this new direction of dancefloor focus makes the blistering fuzzbox riffs and contortion-inducing solos sound even more cool and confident than ever.

Review: It's been a rough old ride leading up to In Times New Roman for Queens of the Stone Age frontman Joshua Homme. Private life very much splashed across the front pages (of the music press, at least) amid custodial battles with ex-wives, cancer diagnoses and surgery, the loss of several close friends, including former Queens and latterly solo legend Mark Lanegan. As such we can understand why this latest album is an unforgiving and at times surprisingly edgy place to be.
It's been a while since the Seattle, Washington hard rockers allowed themselves to go this hard, and reveal so much about themselves. For the most part, In Times is their heaviest sounding outing in more than 15 years, essentially since Era Vulgaris dropped. Even in the sonically softer moments, for example 'Straight Jacket Fitting', there's a brooding moodiness recalling the heyday of unplugged grunge. Simply put, they clearly had a lot that needed to be let out, and that's exactly what they've done.

Review: If anybody thought QOTSA's previous offering '...Like Clockwork' indicated a band trying out new ideas, they're making far greater leaps this time around. Die-hard fans might be a little confused by the enlistment of Mark Ronson as the album's producer, perhaps even more so by the strong influence on Josh Homme of Ronson's ubiquitous 2014 hit 'Uptown Funk'. The outcome of this surprising collaboration proves to be a heady blend of the band's usual desert-rock sleaze and a crisp, infectious and floor-filling sound. This is an album to move to, and this new direction of dancefloor focus makes the blistering fuzzbox riffs and contortion-inducing solos sound even more cool and confident than ever.

Review: Portland, Oregon's Graham Jonson urges our hurries once more with Heard That Noise, an anemological study in ascendant post-rock and psych. Jonson crafts intimate, zigzagging and west windy songs, ploughing the grey, sludgy boundaries of folk, pop, and noise. Following a subtle tangent from SoundCloud renown to 2021's The Long and Short Of It, he now follows that record up through a desultory reflection on breakups, memory, and creative rediscovery; Phil Elverum, Dijon and Nick Drake glance through the sonic cloud cover as ancestral muses, while the record blends warmth and discordance, where sweet ballads unravel into distortion; serene moments jolted by sonic "jump scares."