Back catalogue: Pop

Review: Applying what we're all thinking in February 2021 to a kind of Netflix & Chill parody, Fickle Friends are definitely the most thematically fitting band of the month. The Brighton outfit join a long and esteemed list of British pop groups that manage to marry scathing, sarcasm, and bare-boned honesty with sweetness, beauty and universality. Providing you like those keyboards with a No.1-style glitter coating, of course.

Opening on biggest of the lot, 'What A Time', the troupe opt to get the most inescapably positive out of the way first before rolling out real variety. '92' is an icy cool, emotionally scarred (or scarring?) ballad, 'Million' is a stepping, rave-rock workout, with 'IRL' apparently made for sunnier times than the current UK winter, and finale 'Finish Line' closing out on a calming and uplifting tone that's not a million miles away from what some would describe as Balearic chill.

Review: Now firmly in "pop icon" territory after a 15-year career full of successes and commercial highs, Paloma Faith has earned the opportunity to do whatever the hell she likes musically. So, on her sixth album and first for four years, she delivers a set of deeply personal, often stirring pop songs whose lyrics form a narrative of coming back from messy relationship build-ups. Beginning with the Chase & Status produced 'Pressure' featuring Kojey Radical - a sub-heavy slab of punchy post hip-hop heaviness - Faith and lead producer Martin Wave confidently stride between empowering acoustic-meets-electronic dance-pop ('How You Leave a Man'), gospel-influenced anthems-in-the-making ('Bad Woman') and the kind of emphatic electronic pop that the artist has always done so well.