Dirty Hit レコード& CD

Review: Testament to Rina Sawayama's showstopping success in the alternative pop market over the past few years, her most recent album Hold The Girl has already seen a reissue via its original label Dirty Hit, just one year after its release in 2022. While Sawayama's earliest releases channelled a more elusive pop sound, Hold The Girl opted for a much less abashed genre tour, working in every influennce from Kelly Clarkson to Clarence Clarity, amounting to an ultimately hugely-maximal pop record which veritably penetrated the dance-pop landscape, despite the absurd and senseless fan backlash about its original album cover. This new reissue follows up not one, but two concert tours in promotion of the album, evidencing its universal acclaim in the mainstream critical sphere.

Review: RECOMMENDED
There's absolutely no doubt in our mind Blue Weekend is a record Wolf Alice feel a sense of enormous personal satisfaction from. Of course time will tell if it can bag them another Top 5 position, or even a Mercury Prize nomination, but for all intents and purposes there's a real feeling of catharsis here. And it goes well beyond famously reserved singer Ellie Rowsell telling listeners she doesn't give a fuck if they like her.

The band's latest punches, bangs and has absolutely no time for dishonestly. In many ways, this is where they are fully realising influences that have always been present - grunge, punk, some of that 1990s British indie-garage-with-bite crossover stuff. But it's also a record that sees them realising just where they've got to, and now reaching for a louder and more prominent position on the main stage.