Altın Gün, the Grammy-nominated Turkish psych-groove quintet from Amsterdam, return with their sixth studio album Garip — their most ambitious and diverse release to date, and a heartfelt tribute to the legendary Turkish folk bard Neşet Ertaş.

Neşet Ertaş (1938–2012) was a beloved icon of Anatolian music; a gifted singer, lyricist, and bağlama virtuoso who carried the spirit of the ashik folk tradition into the modern era. Garip ("Strange"in English) features ten of his compositions, each reimagined and richly expanded through Altın Gün’s distinctive lens.

An electrifying live band with an ever-growing global following, Altın Gün push their sonic boundaries even further on Garip — weaving in lush Arabesque string arrangements, bursts of saxophone, glimmering synth balladry, and a fresh surge of tightly wound rock ’n’ roll. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Altin Gün's 6th LP - a tribute to Neşet Ertaş, one of Turkey's most cherished singers - is the first album after the departure of co-vocalist Merve Daşdemir was announced. Having been an integral part of the band since the start I was unsure how her leaving would impact the band but I have seen them live since and can confirm they were as magnetic as ever. And if the new singles are anything to go by ("Neredesin Sen" has already become one of my favourites of theirs!) we should be expecting this album to be another beautiful record.

TRACK LISTING

1. Neredesin Sen
2. Gönül Dağı
3. Öldürme Beni
4. Niğde Bağları
5. Benim Yarim
6. Suçum Nedir
7. Gel Yanıma Gel
8. Zülüf Dökülmüş Yüze
9. Gel Kaçma Gel
10. Bir Nazar Eyledim

When the idea of recording a 4th album came up (for the second time), American Football knew things were going to get darker. After touring a year’s worth of sold-out 25th anniversary shows around the world and releasing a covers album (featuring Iron & Wine, Ethel Cain, Blondshell & more), the quartet of Mike & Nate Kinsella, Steve Lamos, and Steve Holmes, linked up with producer / engineer Sonny Diperri (My Bloody Valentine, M83, Kurt Vile) to record what would become their most substantial record to date. Blending atmospheric textures with emotive, post-rock style catharsis, 'LP4' is unlike anything American Football have recorded thus far, yet it fits right in with their evolving and beautiful catalog.

Recorded during a 10-day retreat at Panoramic House in Stinson Beach, CA, 'LP4' finds the band intentionally walking into the abyss - themes of divorce, upheaval, and uncertainty are at the forefront, yet the band sounds more engaged and legitimized than ever before. Opening track, 'Man Overboard', showcases each member’s strengths - the un-matched style and jazz swing of Lamos’ drumming, the lyrical vulnerability and multi-instrumental mastery of both Kinsellas, and Holmes’ signature guitar work - all of it swirling together like a shoegaze tornado, the guitars and bass surging into something twisted and warped. Other standouts like 'Blood On My Blood' showcase the band’s unique use of alternating time signatures while 'Bad Moons' (the longest track the band has ever recorded) includes some of Kinsella’s most intense lyrics yet. The album also features additional guest vocals from Turnstile’s Brendan Yates ('No Feeling'), Wisp ('Wake Her Up'), and Rainer Maria’s Caithlin De Marrais('Blood On My Blood').

'LP4' is an ambitious artistic statement from a band who have continued to push the boundaries of genre and culture. It’s a gorgeous and elaborate album, one that takes its time to show you its beauty, while hinting at the darker parts that are trying their best to stay hidden.

TRACK LISTING

1. Man Overboard
2. No Feeling
3. Blood On My Blood
4. Bad Moons
5. The One With The Piano
6. Patron Saint Of Pale
7. Wake Her Up
8. Desdemona
9. Lullabye
10. No Soul To Save

The second LP from those mad polkadot wearing microtonal wizards Angine De Poitrine. Amazing wacked out psych that's got r/indieheads in a frenzy!

Channeling the spirit of Earth’s greatest rockstars, time-traveling duo Angine de Poitrine are endlessly fascinated by hot dogs, pyramids, and the sheer grandeur of rock music.

With driving drum grooves and intricately layered microtonal guitars, Klek and Khn de Poitrine conjure hypnotic sonic and visual vortices. Their live KEXP session has racked up millions of views—and counting. At the time of writing, Fabienk sits among the 50 most Shazamed tracks worldwide. Add to that sold-out shows, international festival appearances, and vinyl pressings in the tens of thousands to keep up with demand… All of which mostly matters to humans. Angine de Poitrine, for their part, are just happy to play rock’n’roll.

With Vol. II, a dense, no-frills, high-impact record, the “Poitrine brothers” push their sound even further, with sharper dynamics, stranger structures, and a sense of humor that reveals itself only if you’re paying attention. The recipe still revolves around the same three ingredients: acid techno, disco, and rock. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's obviously a strong visual element to Angine De Poitrine that's echoed on their sleeve, and indeed is a huge art of their identity. Fortunately, their incredibly densely packed psych-rock, disco-funk maelstrom sits just as well on it's own merits as it does with the rather bonkers visuals. Proper mad but undeniably brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fabienk
2. Mata Zyklek
3. Sarniezz
4. Perep Utz
5. Yor Zarad
6. Angor 

With “Creature of Habit”, Courtney Barnett leans further into the quietly transportive charm that has always defined her songwriting - the ability to turn the mundane into something intimate, profound, and strangely luminous in just a few lines. Recorded in the expansive openness of Joshua Tree, the album doesn’t push Barnett’s voice into the background so much as let it float within a noticeably wider sonic space, where atmosphere becomes as important as lyricism.

There’s a strong sense of place running through the record: faint silences between instruments, unhurried pacing, and arrangements that stretch outward rather than rush toward resolution. “Creature of Habit” often feels meditative, cohesive, and unforced, with tracks built less around traditional verse-chorus structures and more around steady, evolving grooves that reward patient listening.

Sonically, this is perhaps Barnett’s most textured work to date. While guitar remains central, it’s frequently softened, with warm, rounded basslines layering underneath and subtly guiding each track without ever dominating it. The rhythm of the album tends to breathe - building, receding, and circling back - creating a hypnotic quality that makes the record feel less like a collection of songs and more like a continuous emotional environment.

The opening track, "Stay in Your Lane", sets the tone with a hazy, dreamlike drift, establishing the album’s preference for atmosphere over immediacy. It’s followed by "Mostly Patient", which feels like a love song viewed from a distance: gentle guitar strums cradle Barnett’s restrained vocal delivery, which carries an ease and comfort that feels newly settled. Across the record, her voice is notably more restrained than in earlier work, favouring spaced-out phrasing and repetition over her once more rapid-fire delivery. At its most effective, it takes on a mantra-like quality - calming rather than confrontational.

This shift in vocal approach deepens the album’s emotional palette. When she sings lines like “The sky stretches wider than I thought it could,” they land less as literal observation and more as shifts in perspective - moments where external landscape and internal state quietly blur into one another.

Compared with earlier records like “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit”, “Tell Me How You Really Feel”, and “Things Take Time, Take Time”, this is a more expansive, patient iteration of Barnett’s voice - less focused on immediacy, more willing to linger in ambiguity. Even the sharper edges of earlier releases like “The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas” feel reinterpreted here through a slower, more reflective lens, while her collaboration with Kurt Vile on “Lotta Sea Lice” feels like a distant precursor to this looser, more spacious sensibility.

If there’s a challenge, it’s also the album’s defining trait: its patience. “Creature of Habit” doesn’t chase instant hooks or immediate gratification. Instead, it unfolds gradually, layer by layer, revealing emotional weight that only becomes fully visible with time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning new album, replete with soaring melodies and clever, incisive lyrics delivered in a typically laid-back, jangling bed of woozy indie. There are hints of off-piste electronics and experimental leanings (Thanks Floating Points) but in all, a wholly melodic, reliably brilliant Barnett outing.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Stay In Your Lane
Wonder
Site Unseen (featuring Waxahatchee)
Mostly Patient
One Thing At A Time

Side B
Mantis
Sugar Plum
Same
Great Advice
Another Beautiful Day

'Trying Times' is James Blake’s seventh studio album and features British rapper Dave, and singer-songwriter Monica Martin. Written between Los Angeles and London, it’s a record about being in love whilst battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty. He explores the tension between intimacy and isolation, the pressure to curate and perform even as everything, inside and out, feels fragile and precarious. Themes of reflection, both literally and metaphorically, run through the record’s visual presentation, as Blake holds a mirror to the contradictions of modern connection - how we see ourselves, how we’re seen by others, and what gets lost in between. It’s about the disorienting loop of joy and dread: feeling safe in love, yet knowing the bubble could burst at any moment; struggling to stay present while global anxiety and private doubt pull you in different directions. A meditation on love, identity, and fragility in an age where the world feels balanced on a knife edge.

Since emerging in the early 2010s, British producer, songwriter, and musician James Blake has become one of the most influential artists of his generation. He has earned nine GRAMMY® nominations and two wins, a Mercury Prize, and an Ivor Novello Award, while his groundbreaking blend of electronica, soul, hip-hop, and alternative R&B has shaped the sound of contemporary music. Across six acclaimed albums, including his GRAMMY®-nominated 'Playing Robots Into Heaven', the platinum-selling ‘Overgrown', and the UK Top-5 'Friends That Break Your Heart', Blake has evolved from post-dubstep visionary to globally celebrated vocalist, composer, and producer. His signature sound and midas-touch production have supported some of the most defining artists and albums of the last decade, including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, ROSALÍA, SZA, Travis Scott, Jay Rock’s GRAMMY®-winning hit “King’s Dead" and most recently ground breaking UK rapper Dave.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Walk Out Music
2 Death Of Love
3 I Had A Dream She Took My Hand

Side B
1 Trying Times
2 Make Something Up
3 Didn’t Come To Argue (ft. Monica Martin)

Side C
1 Days Go By
2 Doesn’t Just Happen (ft. Dave)
3 Obsession
4 Rest Of Your Life

Side D
1 Through The High Wire
2 Feel It Again
3 Just A Little Higher


Exclusive Bonus 7”
Side A: So Far Away (Carole King Cover)
Side B: Landslide (Fleetwood Mac Cover)

After thirteen years of silence from the compound, during which anticipation has grown day by day, Boards of Canada finally return. Inferno retains their signature melodies and atmospheres, drawing on the esoteric influences explored in Societas X Tape (their 2019 NTS mix for Warp Records’ 30th anniversary) and the darker ambience introduced on Tomorrow’s Harvest, further deepened by an expanded role for speech soundbites.

Spanning seventy minutes, the new album is available on special edition limited red translucent 2LP vinyl in triple gatefold sleeve with a 16-page booklet, black 2LP vinyl and CD with 20-page booklet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the most beloved electronica bands of the past several decades returns for another highly anticipated slice of retro-futuristic, saturated bliss. Bucolic drifting ambience and deep, clattering percussion with guitars and those ever-present vocal snippets. Undeniably brilliant .

TRACK LISTING

A1. Introit
A2. Prophecy At 1420 MHz
A3. Hydrogen Helium Lithium Leviathan
A4. Age Of Capricorn
A5. Father And Son
B1. Somewhere Right Now In The Future
B2. Naraka
B3. Acts Of Magic
B4. Memory Death
B5. The Word Becomes Flesh
C1. Into The Magic Land
C2. Blood In The Labyrinth
C3. Deep Time
C4. All Reason Departs
D1. Arena Americanada
D2. The Process
D3. You Retreat In Time And Space
D4. I Saw Through Platonia

Marking their first new studio album in nearly a decade, 'Remember The Humans' reunites the Toronto collective with producer David Newfeld, who helmed their breakthrough 'You Forgot It in People' (2002) and self-titled 2005 album. Across the 12 tracks the arrangements are dense and enveloping - a lattice of horns, guitars, voices, and electronics - yet melody always remains sovereign, refusing to be swallowed by the sheer sound. When the music drifts towards abstraction, a grounding bass line arrives to anchor the listener, reminding us always that there are human hands on the controls and that, however artful, this is still rock and roll. As ever, Broken Social Scene operates less as a band than as a community and songs evolve by ceding control to whoever can best carry them forward in the moment. Drew may be the designated driver, but collaborators on 'Remember the Humans', including Hannah Georgas, Lisa Lobsinger, and Feist, step into the foreground throughout the record, shaping songs with a sense of collective authorship that has always defined the group’s ethos.

TRACK LISTING

1. Not Around Anymore
2. Only The Good I Keep
3. Mission Accomplished (Kingfisher)
4. The Call
5. Relief
6. And I Think Of You
7. This Briefest Kiss
8. Life Within The Ground
9. Hey Amanda
10. Paying For Your Love
11. What Happens Next
12. Parking Lot Dreams

A friend of mine told me he had visited the place that Cancer House live and record. He said they jammed together all afternoon. In the moment, in the zone so to speak, he became more and more convinced that what they were making together was the best music he had ever been involved with. As the afternoon drifted by, second by revelatory second, he began making grandiose plans to release the recording. By the time it was dark outside the windows he imagined it as a future lost classic, a key live document of a scene, a moment and an aesthetic. He thought about all the record she loved. He thought about the great, little known, statements of lo-fi, downer indie: dark, sweet, crawling guitar music by bands like Farewood, Bedhead, UN, or The Sonora Pine. He could even picture the sleeve down to the last detail.

The session ended and as they were all packing up he asked about the recording. And someone said ‘oh, we weren’t recording.’ ”- Jack Rollo

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Don't sleep on this folks, me and Matt have been absolutely bowled over by this. Amazing slowcore from Chicago, Cancer House will scratch the itch of those who love a bit of Codeine, Deathcrash and Moin. Proper beautiful misery, this is one of our tips of the year!

TRACK LISTING

1 Camera Obscura
2 Waterscene
3 In My Pocket A Letter, A Red Wrecked Line
4 Flowers Over There
5 Bloodchimes
6 The Moth

'Another Country' is the fifth full-length album by Cindy, the San Francisco-based group built around the songwriting of Karina Gill. Recorded, like all of its predecessors, in their hometown and with a consistent line-up held over from their previous record, it is replete with the poetry of private vistas, eavesdropped dramas and confusing winds. These are classic Cindy concerns, and yet, as always, contain new mystery and charm to somehow feel like quiet revelations each time. 'Another Country' is both opaque in its intentions and specific in its presentation, and as such presents the kind of truth that keeps the listener on the search for answers just out of reach.

"The title of this record, 'Another Country', refers to the James Baldwin novel of that name. The book has a kind of drama that makes sense to me. When I look around, the obvious explanations are not enough. The miasma of feelings and ideas that is supposed to account for it all, doesn't. Baldwin washes past that to longings that begin to explain. Cindy songs come out of the x-rays my particular brain makes out of what I see and experience. What you hear on this record is the result of collaboration with the members of Cindy that transforms that shadowy thing into full color, fully fleshed. Each of them, in music, is sure-footed and unblinking, and making this record together felt like, yes, yes, you see what I mean."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's something about Cindy that screams Jefferson Airplane for me, is it the Tambourine? San Francisco? Gravelly female vocals and loose, jam-adjacent structure? Long Hair? I'm not sure, but It's a beautifully evocative journey, taking in hazy indie, rock and alt-pop with aplomb.

TRACK LISTING

1. Another Country 
2. Daytime 
3. Soft Inheritance
4. Killer Kid In The Camaro 
5. Procession
6. The Violins
7. The Thousand First
8. Talking To Mary 
9. Another Country II

The Coral return with '388', their thirteenth studio album, officially released following an initial physical-only run through record shops across the UK. Led by new single ‘Let The Music Play’, the record draws inspiration from the sound and spirit of vintage reggae and dub cassette tapes, while continuing the band’s long-standing blend of psychedelic rock, melody and escapism.

Following the UK Top Five success of 2023’s 'Sea Of Mirrors', '388' further expands a catalogue that has produced six UK Top Five albums, including the Mercury Prize-nominated self-titled debut The Coral, alongside 'Magic and Medicine', 'The Invisible Invasion' and 'Coral Island', as well as defining singles such as ‘Dreaming Of You’ and ‘Pass It On’.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The Coral return! Bringing with them an initially limited, but now widely available new LP that swims in the rippling waters of dub, via their more established psychedelic rock filter. There has always been an element of sunny dub-forward grooves and syncopated stagger to their sound but this time it's bolstered by a saturated, straight-to-tape heft and woozy, hazy warble. Top stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Let The Music Play
2. Where Will You Go
3. Leave It In The Past
4. You And Me (And The Beautiful Sea)
5. Shame
6. Here Come The Tears
7. Yellow Moon
8. Sad Girl
9. High Tide
10. Spirit Catcher
11. Crossing The Sands

'Sidings' is the third full-length double LP by Craven Faults, following the 2020 debut 'Erratics & Unconformities' and 2023’s 'Standers'. These long-form releases have each been punctuated with shorter single disc albums – 'Enclosures' at the end of 2020 and 'Bounds' in 2024.

Each one builds on Craven Faults’ lore and takes a unique view of the north of England through the spectrum of slowly unfurling analogue electronic music. On the one hand it draws influence from the global underground of the arts and music, via seminal records, studios and concerts, and on the other it traces journeys through the post-industrial landscape outside the old mill Craven Faults calls home.

The journey on 'Sidings' isn’t made with people in mind. It begins in an isolated community which built up around one of the great engineering projects of its age - 14 tunnels and 22 viaducts to open up the north - and finishes at an enclosed field on a moor in 1858. It takes in studios from Los Angeles to Rochdale from 1952 to 1980, while drawing inspiration from the progress in manmade infrastructure and the transport of goods.

The devil’s in the details. It always was and it always will be. It’s there for those who seek it out.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another gorgeous transmission from the modular synth whisperer from Misc. Yorkshire, Craven Faults. Swells of rich analogue monosynth bass and echo-enriched arpeggios swirl and bloom, warmed with saturation and crackling hiss, resulting in a wholly immersive and incomparably evocative experience.

TRACK LISTING

CD & 2LP Tracklisting:
1. Ganger
2. Stoneyman
3. Yard Loup
4. Three Loaning End
5. Up Goods Distant, Down Goods Home 
6. Incline Huttes
7. Drover Hole Sike
8. Far Closes

4CD Box Set Tracklisting:
CD1:
1. Ganger
2. Stoneyman
3. Yard Loup
4. Three Loaning End
5. Up Goods Distant, Down Goods Home
6. Incline Huttes
7. Drover Hole Sike
8. Far Closes

CD2:
1. Long Stoop (from Bounds)
2-2. Groups Hollows (from Bounds)
2-3. Lampes Mosse (from Bounds)
2-4. Waste & Desmesne (from Bounds)

CD3:
3-1. May Birching

CD4:
1. Introduction (from Thwaite Watermill)
2. Odda Delf (from Thwaite Watermill)
3. Deipkier (from Thwaite Watermill)
4. May Birching (from Thwaite Watermill)
5. Hurrocstanes (from Thwaite Watermill)

At the start of this summer, following a three-year hiatus for Daphni (punctuated only by his first ever collaborative Daphni track ‘Unidos’ alongside Sofia Kourtesis), he dropped ‘Sad Piano House’. The track represented something of a continuation in the Daphni catalogue, its roots growing from 'Cherry’s ‘Cloudy’ and its subsequent Kelbin remix, something in that song’s makeup having a profound effect when played on dancefloors by Snaith and countless others. ‘Sad Piano House’ deployed more intangibly irresistible bendy piano to equally satisfying effect and continues to achieve similarly rhapsodic dancefloor saturation.

Though a sizeable gap for Daphni releases, between 'Cherry' and 'Butterfly' however of course sits 'Honey', the latest Caribou album and one that saw the more instantaneous and dancefloor leaning traits of Daphni peaking through the cracks more than ever before. This blurring of the lines leads to an intriguing collaboration in Butterfly’s lead single ‘Waiting So Long (feat. Caribou)’. An unlikely duo - in that both artists are the same man, Dan Snaith - ‘Waiting So Long’ is not so much an identity crisis, ego trip, or the result of a chemical spill in the Snaith laboratory. It’s simply a track that Snaith felt for the first time belongs to both aliases, and might appeal to fans of both. He has never sung on a Daphni track before, and did not set out with the intention to do so this time, and yet this strange billing was born.

Daphni music has always been Snaith’s way of hitting directly to the core of the dancefloors he spends so much of his time playing to, and those dancefloors have been steadily expanding as his name grows, with the music following suit. This album however also draws from further back with a definite kinship to the very first Daphni album, the invigorating bag of ideas that was Jiaolong.

'Butterfly' is a showcase of the wonderful variety and surprising twists and turns that made that album such an exciting new prospect and that still to this day make Snaith such an intriguing DJ. There are more heavy hitters here, tracks that fill those dancefloors better than anyone, like ‘Clap Your Hands’ which picks up the energy of ‘Sad Piano House’ and flips it, exposing the gritty and intoxicating underbelly of Snaith’s hitmaking side, while retaining the playful urgency that runs through all of his work of late. Meanwhile ‘Hang’’s comic-strip horns are unpinned by gleeful force, unrelenting and thrillingly unshakeable. Elsewhere though comes a clutch of other tunes that might creep out somewhere more off the beaten path, a path Snaith has never stopped seeking in amongst his larger billings. ‘Lucky’ is squirmy and elusively intoxicating, ‘Invention’ skitters down meandering, inviting corridors, ‘Talk To Me’ grumbles and broods in the murk, and ‘Miles Smiles’ could roll on endlessly, so confident in its groove. There are no obvious peaks in these tracks or unifying moments, in fact many of them really have no business being on the dancefloor at all, and yet in the right setting, they could be the most fun to be had all night.

One such club is a good microcosm for the ethos of Butterfly as a whole. “Around the time I was finishing up this album I played a long set in a club called Open Ground in Wuppertal, Germany.” Snaith recalls, “It’s kind of, in one sense, the platonic ideal of the kind of club I’d want to play in. Every single decision has been taken, at great expense, with the aim of making the perfect sounding medium sized club room. But on top of it being the perfect acoustic environment it also is run by an amazing collection of people in a way that gives it a sense of community that dance music at its best provides. It is an absolute pleasure to play in that room to a crowd of people who come from all over. Playing in there you feel like you can play anything, and I played works in progress of pretty much every track on this album in my set there. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing a short set at a festival or in a more raw warehouse kind of club where you bang it out and only really functional music works but on record I guess the point of these Daphni records is to keep in mind a more expansive idea of dance music where the parameters are broad and the church is broad. I think that actually, putting really functional stuff next to weirder tracks (both on an album and in a dj set) might be the thing that’s still most interesting to me.”

This is the feeling that’s most palpable on Butterfly, and in every single time you see Snaith DJ. Right from the inception of the Daphni alias - and even before that – the thrill of trying stuff out, pushing at the boundaries has always been there and on 'Butterfly' is present in all its twists and turns. It leaps all over the place and yet it hangs together, never feeling like a grab bag of dancefloor utilities but rather a distillation of all the strings to Snaith’s bow, exhilaratingly human and unified by one singular concept – simple and joyful exploration.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sad Piano House
2. Clap Your Hands
3. Hang
4. Lucky
5. Waiting So Long 
6. Napoleon’s Rock 
7. Goodnight Baby
8. Talk To Me
9. Two Maps
10. Josephine
11. Miles Smiles 
12. Goldie
13. Caterpillar 
14. Shifty 
15. Invention 
16. Eleven

'Existence is Bliss' is the sophomore album from London-based post-punk six-piece Deadletter. This album follows their critically acclaimed 2024 debut, 'Hysterical Strength'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Purity I
2. To The Brim
3. Songless Bird
4. It Comes Creeping
5. What The World Missed
6. Cheers!
7. Among Us
8. Focal Point
9. (Back To) The Scene Of The Crime
10. Frosted Glass
11. He, Himself, And Him
12. Meanwhile In A Parallel

Birds are alluring, fascinating creatures. Unencumbered by earthly concepts, they soar through the skies, only briefly interacting with those of us watching them from below. It's like they inhabit a parallel world, almost, one where the turmoil of daily life on Earth is entirely escapable. When deary, the London- based dreampop three-piece of Ben Easton, Dottie Cockram and Harry Catchpole named their debut album 'Birding', it wasn't just as an homage to our feathered friends--they were referencing the sense of expansion, wonder, and abandon their music evokes. They chose the title to draw attention to the direct impact humans have on the world around us, whether that be nature, or ourselves.

With 'Birding', deary have purposely evolved their sound, opting for starker lyrics and heavier instrumentation than on their previous releases. A perfect example of this is 'Smile', the album's opener: amid buzzsaw guitars and airy windchimes, Dottie sings of the announcement of a national epidemic of violence against women. It's a haunting track, and the first time the band have tackled such an intense subject matter.

'Seabird', the album's lead single, takes 'Smile's heaviness and transmutes it into something heartening. Propelled by Harry's Portishead-esque backbeats, the track sonically resembles a wide open sky, with layer upon layer of guitar chords echoing to the heavens. Other focus tracks include the seven-and-a-half-minute long dreampop epic 'Alfie' and 'Alma', probably the album's most pop-forward moment.

Across 11 tracks that run the gamut from ocean-deep shoegaze riffs to
cloud-light sprinkles of ethereal indie, Birding is the sound of a band who
have definitively found their groove.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: We've been anticipating forever to hear the debut LP from Deary and now it's finally here... and oh boy, it's sure worth the wait! Absolutely immaculate dream-pop that is full of textures and dreamy soundscapes. Whilst there's nods to Slowdive and Cocteau Twins, this record is wholly Deary and properly cements them as one of our favourite bands of recent years - gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Smile
2. Seabird
3. Baby's Breath
4. Gypsophila 
5. Blue Ribbon
6. Garden Of Eden
7. Alma
8. No Sweeter Feeling
9. Terra Fable
10. Alfie
11. Birding

Death Cab for Cutie is one of the definitive indie-rock bands of the century.

After twenty-odd years in the major label system, the band returned to their indie roots and signed with ANTI- Records and they're back with their brand-new eleventh album. I Built You A Tower is the sound of loss, compartmentalization, and then grief bursting out from the seams. It's also the sound of the growth that comes after falling apart, of acknowledging pain without letting it destroy you. "I see the tower existing on your emotional horizon," Ben Gibbard states. "You don't always have to look at what's inside it, but it's a reminder that it happened. You know it's there. You have to face it."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brand new, vigorously energetic slice of DCFC's trademark poppy indie, wrapped in the freedom of small-label release and unhindered by expectation. The resulting album is gloriously chameleonic and in parts, emotionally taxing. In the end though, if you're a fan of DCFC, you'll love this and if you're not already then this might be time!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Full Of Stars
2. Punching The Flowers
3. Pep Talk
4. I Built You A Tower (a)
5. Envy The Birds
6. Stone Over Water

Side B
1. How Heavenly A State
2. Trap Door
3. Riptides
4. The Flavor Of Metal
5. I Built You A Tower (b)

deathcrash’s third album, Somersaults, glimmers with an everyday euphoria. The London-based slowcore/ post-rock quartet has always had an affinity for building worlds only to crush them. From their breakout EP, People thought my windows were stars (2021), through two critically acclaimed studio albums, Return (2022) and Less (2023), they have been both the architects and the destroyers, the creationists and the ones manning the flood barrier. But, recorded between Black Box Studio in the Loire Valley and Haggerston’s Holy Mountain, Somersaults is almost joyful.

Its ten tracks are more vocal heavy than any of the band’s catalogue – think Mark Linkous via The Kinks – but lyrically, Somersaults resists revelation. For all its abrasion, phrases appear half-swallowed, broken off at the edge of meaning, consumed by the smaller textures of living. “Thirty, no career, it fucking worries me / And doing the band doesn’t help,” Banks sings in ‘NYC’. But, “This life is the best life,” he finishes in ‘CMC’ on top of the ambient white noise of an office printer, thankful that the band is still there, “still making noise in the doorway.”

Musical abstractions jettison the same way sunlight might catch the broken glass of a ransacked liquor store. Within those prisms are songs crafted from real hurt, but reflect beautifully. Their role as caretakers of Duster, Low and Codeine’s slowcore lineage is all across Somersaults – songs scud to a narcotic crawl, sound monolithic and inwards before spotlighting a crystalline nothing. Cathartic builds are muddied with tenderness, the bass a heavy grounding, the drums an exhausted heartbeat grasping for air. But more so than ever, even the silence feels collaborative – a gesture of communal trust – friends celebrating the room they’ve made for each other’s ghosts, and some of the biggest, brightest songs they’ve made to date.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Somersaults
NYC
CMC
Triumph
Bella

Side B
The Thing You Did
Wrong To Suffer
Stay Forever
Love For M
Marie’s Last Dance

'Secret Love' is the finest expression yet of the profound friendships that created Dry Cleaning, between frontperson Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton and bassist Lewis Maynard. Here, the south London four-piece take their place in rock’s avant garde, catalysing the Reaganite paranoia of early 80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence’s delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates’ soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins.

The follow-up to 'Stumpwork' started life in Peckham rehearsal spaces, all four members writing, playing and responding to each other in the room: in Dry Cleaning, music and lyrics form an inseparable, generative whole. 'Secret Love' evolved through affirming sessions at Jeff Tweedy’s Chicago studio the Loft and explosive ones with Gilla Band’s Alan Duggan and Daniel Fox at Sonic Studios in Dublin, taking advantage of the sonic particulars of each space, and finally with Cate Le Bon at Black Box in the Loire Valley. After interviewing various potential producers, they picked Cate – an esteemed solo artist who has also made albums for Deerhunter, Devendra Banhart, Wilco and Horsegirl – for her unabashed positivity and openness. “Being in a room with them and hearing that vitality and life force that exists between them all, it’s such a unique expression,” she says.

Trust is 'Secret Love’s guiding theme, as signified by compulsively catchy ‘Hit My Head All Day’ which opens the album. Powered by pistons of breathy synths and cresting arcs of guitar, Florence’s signature mix of absurdism and sensitivity, “The song is about manipulation of the body and mind. The lyrics were initially inspired by the use of misinformation on social media by the far right. There are powerful people that seek to influence our behaviour for their own gain; to buy certain things, to vote a certain way. I find it hard to read people’s intentions and decide who to trust, even in everyday life. It’s easy to fall under the influence of a sinister stranger who seems like a friend.

We took a playful approach to the song. At one point it had harmonica on it instead of a vocal. At the demo stage we were inspired by There's a Riot Goin' On by Sly and the Family Stone.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A scathing, storied stroll through the halls of post-punk, art rock and punk from London's Dry Cleaning. Though their sound has always been rich with the off-kilter jank of their more arty contemporaries, Cate Le Bon's production only serves to exacerbate the jank while reigning in some of the more distracting sonic outliers. It's the perfect choice for this sound, and results in the best Dry Cleaning LP of their career.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hit My Head All Day
2. Cruise Ship Designer
3. My Soul / Half Pint
4. Secret Love (Concealed In A Drawing Of A Boy)
5. Let Me Grow And You’ll See The Fruit
6. Blood
7. Evil Evil Idiot
8. Rocks
9. The Cute Things
10. I Need You
11. Joy

The Early Years' new album, ‘Modern Moonlight’. It’s their first in a decade and just their third in 20 years, following their eponymous debut for Beggars Banquet in 2006 and ‘II’, which was released on Sonic Cathedral in 2016 and recently named as one of Uncut’s Greatest Albums of the 2010s.

It was worth the wait. It’s a stunning mix of Davids Bowie and Byrne, John Cage, Conny Plank, Brian Eno, Radiohead. “All the usual stuff,” says nominal frontman Dave Malkinson. “Loved ones and Italian red wine played a part, too, Oblique Strategies…”

There is nothing particularly oblique about the ten tracks here, though. ‘A New Way Of Living’ is a nod to not only Berlin-era Bowie, but also their own single ‘Like A Suicide’, the band’s first release for Sonic Cathedral back in 2008. The febrile funk of ‘Get Up Get Out’ is like The Stooges recoding the DNA of ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’. ‘The River’ – which snuck out as a single late last year – aims for an Eno / Moroder cross, but ends up sounding like James Holden. ‘Heaven Over There’ is huge and heartbreaking, a ballad for our times, up there with The Verve or even Elbow at their most anthemic and vulnerable. ‘Tired Eyes’, meanwhile, recalls ‘Fading Frontier’-era Deerhunter.

The start of the second half ups the tempo. ‘Shimmering Stone’ mixes LCD Soundsystem with what sounds like Gregorian chants. ‘The Gift’ sounds like a party in a studio, which it was, recorded at Monnow Valley in South Wales. ‘Three Quarters’ is a Beta Band meets A Certain Ratio-style groove based around a simple Steve Reich-esque loop with timbales. The title track is inspired by the more acoustic Verve tracks on ‘No Come Down’ and closer ‘Silver Lips (Champagne Eyes)’ sparkles and fizzes across its two halves, with vocals by Lorena Quintanilla from labelmates Lorelle Meets The Obsolete.

“I wanted the album to be called ‘III’, but the others vetoed that,” says guitarist Roger Mackin. “‘Modern Moonlight’ came about at 2am when we were writing the song.”

“Heroes don’t stand in sunlight anymore, they stand in the bluish glare of a phone at 2am wondering if anyone else is listening or even awake,” expands drummer Phil Raines. “Moonlight is not a thing, it’s a condition, light that has already touched something else. It’s borrowed. Reflected. Slightly late. It is the expectation of the present arriving after we’ve moved.

“So, this is not about our moon. It’s about how we’re all responding to the world we’ve found ourselves living in, hoping for utopia, but realising we’re all late to the party.”

In the case of ‘Modern Moonlight’, it’s better late than never.

TRACK LISTING

1. A New Way Of Living
2. Get Up Get Out
3. The River
4. Heaven Over There
5. Tired Eyes
6. Shimmering Stone
7. The Gift
8. Three Quarters
9. Modern Moonlight
10. Silver Lips (Champagne Eyes)
11. The River *HEX Edit* ^
^ CD-only Bonus Track

Fcukers’ debut album Ö finds the band in full-throttle mode, encapsulating the unruly, kinetic energy that has earned them status as party starters. Due for release on 27th March on Ninja Tune, ö was produced by Kenneth Blume (FKA Kenny Beats) - recorded last year in a whirlwind two week recording session following an initial prospective meeting between the trio, with multi-Grammy-winning engineer Tom Norris (Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, The Weeknd etc.) on board to mix the record, and additional production coming from Dylan Brady of 100 Gecs across three of the album’s tracks. Containing recent breakout singles “Play Me”, and “I Like It Like That” – the latter already proving a firm live-favourite at their riotous headline shows – Ö guides the listener through all the highs and lows of a metaphorical night-out in Fcukers world. Sharp, muscular and oozing with the kind of peak-time party energy that the duo have honed throughout their short existence, Ö demonstrates a band firmly in command of their sound, working at the top of their game, and ready to set the pace for 2026.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Pristinely produced, crisp anthemic rave and soaring gritty house clash together on this constantly blooming suite of 90s - 00's adjacent dance music. There are clever twist and turns, but the meticulous production never ceases to amaze. Awesome.

TRACK LISTING

1. Beatback
2. L.U.C.K.Y
3. Butterflies
4. If You Wanna Party Come Over To My House
5. Play Me
6. Shake It Up
7. I Like It Like That
8. TTYGF
9. Lonely
10. Getaway
11. Feel The Real

Kim Gordon’s vision of art and noise has come sharper into focus just as readily as it has changed—a paradigm of possibility that, four decades on, still feels like a dare. The adventure continues on the artist’s third solo album, 'PLAY ME'.

'PLAY ME' is distilled and immediate, expanding Gordon’s sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautrock. “We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says of her continued collaboration with LA producer Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira, Yves Tumor). “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.”

In 2019, Gordon’s debut solo LP 'No Home Record' proved she was attuned as ever to vanguard sounds, mixing avant-rap and footwork into her sonic conceptual art. 'The Collective', in 2024, was brick-heavy and even more daring, led by the tectonic industrial clatter of her packing-list-cum-rage-rap banger ‘BYE BYE’ and earning two Grammy nominations.

The fast-following 'PLAY ME' processes, in Gordon’s inimitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill-vibes flattening of culture - where dark humor voices the absurdity of modern life. But despite its frequent outward gaze, 'PLAY ME' is an interior record, one in which a heightened emotionality pulses through physical jams, rejecting definitive statements in favor of an inquisitiveness that keeps Gordon searching, ever in process.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Four decades into a career built on experimentation, Kim Gordon continues to refine her singular blend of art and noise. Her third solo album, PLAY ME, feels focused and direct, sharpening her sound while subtly broadening it. Bringing in more melodic rhythms and the steady motorik propulsion of krautrock, Gordon crafts hypnotic grooves that retain the cool, exploratory spirit that has always set her apart.

TRACK LISTING

1. PLAY ME
2. GIRL WITH A LOOK
3. NO HANDS
4. BLACK OUT
5. DIRTY TECH
6. NOT TODAY
7. BUSY BEE
8. SQUARE JAW
9. SUBCON
10. POST EMPIRE
11. NAIL BITER
12. BYEBYE25!

'The Mountain' is Gorillaz 9th studio album. The album is a collection of 15 new tracks featuring artists and collaborators including: Ajay Prasanna, Anoushka Shankar, Asha Bhosle, Asha Puthli, Bizarrap, Black Thought, Gruff Rhys, Idles, Jalen Ngonda, Johnny Marr, Kara Jackson, Omar Souleyman, Paul Simonon, Sparks, Trueno and Yasiin Bey; as well as the voices of Bobby Womack, Dave Jolicoeur, Dennis Hopper, Mark E. Smith, Proof and Tony Allen. Produced by Gorillaz, James Ford, Samuel Egglenton, Remi Kabaka Jr. and Bizarrap (Orange County), The Mountain was recorded in London, Devon, Miami, Jaipur, Mumbai, New Delhi and Rishikesh; and features artists performing in five languages: Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish and Yoruba.

The artwork for 'The Mountain' sees Jamie Hewlett’s distinct, yet ever-evolving, style illustrate the world of Gorillaz with an ever more detailed and beautiful intricacy across a series of hand-drawn illustrations. Circumstances find Murdoc Niccals, Russel Hobbs, 2D and Noodle in India, where our heroes are immersed in the rhythms of mystical music-making as they navigate the mountainous terrain of this thing called life.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Mountain (feat. Dennis Hopper, Ajay Prasanna, Anoushka Shankar, Amaan & Ayaan Ali Bangash)
2. The Moon Cave (feat. Asha Puthli, Bobby Womack, Dave Jolicoeur, Jalen Ngonda And Black Thought)
3. The Happy Dictator (feat. Sparks)
4. The Hardest Thing (feat. Tony Allen)
5. Orange County (feat. Bizarrap, Kara Jackson And Anoushka Shankar)
6. The God Of Lying (feat. IDLES)
7. The Empty Dream Machine (feat. Black Thought, Johnny Marr And Anoushka Shankar)
8. The Manifesto (feat. Trueno And Proof)
9. The Plastic Guru (feat. Johnny Marr And Anoushka Shankar)
10. Delirium (feat. Mark E. Smith)
11. Damascus (feat. Omar Souleyman And Yasiin Bey)
12. The Shadowy Light (feat. Asha Bhosle, Gruff Rhys, Ajay Prasanna, Amaan & Ayaan Ali Bangash)
13. Casablanca (feat. Paul Simonon And Johnny Marr)
14. The Sweet Prince (feat. Ajay Prasanna, Johnny Marr And Anoushka Shankar)
15. The Sad God (feat. Black Thought, Ajay Prasanna And Anoushka Shankar)

The 10-track 'Train On The Island' was co-produced by long-time collaborator John Parish (PJ Harvey, Dry Cleaning) at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, where the pair recorded the New Zealander’s previous bodies of work, 'Party' (2017), 'Designer' (2019) and 'Warm Chris' (2022). Joining Harding and Parish on 'Train On The Island' were pedal steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte, harpist Mali Llywelyn, synth artist Thomas Poli, drummer Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear) and Huw Evans (H. Hawkline) on bass, vocals, acoustic/electric guitar and organ.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully evocative collection of swooning alt-pop, insistent folky indie and jam-adjacent fluidity, all topped with Harding's unmistakeable vocal. A wonderfully warm, constantly evolving suite of pieces, packed with personality and groove.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Ate The Most
2. One Stop
3. Train On The Island
4. Worms
5. Venus In The Zinnia
6. If Lady Does It
7. San Fransisco
8. What Am I Gonna Do?
9. Riding That Symbol
10. Coats

Lande Hekt has quietly become one of the UK’s best underground songwriters. On her 2021 debut full-length Going To Hell and 2022’s House Without a View, she explored her queer identity, sobriety, and childhood trauma through the lens of heartfelt, conversational indie-pop, which led to spots opening for the likes of Alvvays, Throwing Muses and The Beths. Her new album Lucky Now, written and recorded with producer Matthew Simms (Wire, It Hugs Back), reflects the most mature and confident version of Lande Hekt yet. “I’m not as concerned about how I’m presenting myself,” Hekt says. “I’ve tried to think less about how things are coming across, and just write songs that make me feel connected to myself and what I value.”

Hekt’s musical touchstones — The Wedding Present, The Sundays, The Replacements — remain the same, but at the same time she’s delved deeper into other influences. Lucky Now is indebted to 1980s twee-pop and jangle-pop like The Pastels, Tallulah Gosh and The Bats, plus more modern iterations of the sound such as Autocamper and Jeanines, in its ecstatic, soaring melodies and gorgeous, tactile guitars. The sound is fitting for Hekt’s new lyrical outlook, where, though despair and anxiety rear their heads, she digs deep to find the gratitude. “I wanted to try and push for something slightly more positive, which I’m trying to do more of generally — just to not fall apart,” Hekt says.

In keeping with that, opening track “Kitchen ii” is a love song about sharing simple, domestic moments with a partner, while “Rabbits” is a song about hope inspired by one summer solstice spent on Glastonbury Tor. Meanwhile, the slower, acoustic-based “Middle of the Night” is about “reeling from a realisation of being properly happy for the first time in my life,” Hekt says. Hekt also returns to more politically-based songwriting, after largely avoiding politics in both life and music during a disillusioned period, on “Circular” (“they change the law like it’s a game and we’re the pawns getting played”) and “A Million Broken Hearts”. “If you get swept up in the notion that being politically engaged in any way is embarrassing, that is so dangerous,” Hekt says now. “It’s really important to try and find a way to reject that.”

During the process of making the album, Hekt also moved from Bristol back to her hometown of Exeter. She wrote Lucky Now’s closing track, “Coming Home”, about the experience of returning there after a long tour; smelling the familiar smells, spotting the familiar faces. In a lot of ways, Lucky Now is about return — return to joy, return to places and parts of the self once left behind. Who you once were can seem unreachable, but sometimes you can build a bridge.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Airy jangling indie music rendered in chorused guitars and throbbing bass, beautifully bolstered with distorted thrust and a slowly building wash of haze. Hekt's evocative vocals flutter and drift with the soaring melodic line, providing the perfect bolster to the airy backdrop. A wonderfully emotive, beautifully executed ride.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Kitchen II
A2 Lucky Now
A3 Rabbits
A4 Favourite Pair Of Shoes
A5 Middle Of The Night
B1 Circular
B2 A Million Broken Hearts
B3 My Imaginary Friend
B4 The Sky
B5 Submarine
B6 Coming Home

'For Love of Grace & the Hereafter' is the sixth studio album from beloved Danish quintet Iceage. Across the sprawling, twelve song arc of the album, a universe of love variously expands and contracts in an eternal tango, Elias Rønnenfelt’s lyrics burn with apocalyptic intimacy while the band masterfully maneuvers within their shape-shifting scenery of feral post-punk.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jagged, incisive guitar lines and cavernous clattering percussion work away underneath the snarling vocals of Elias Ronnenfelt. Lurching between Refused-adjacent punk heft and staggered 12-bar blues, Inceage's sound is theirs alone. A chameleonic, raucous masterstroke.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ember
2. Match Head Girl
3. The Weak
4. No Fear
5. Salve for Every Sore
6. mother-of-pearl
7. Tender Blades
8. 1835
9. Star
10. Lifetime
11. Holy Water
12. True Blue

KNEECAP return to bend genre, language, and rules. The most talked about artists in the world are turning the page. A new chapter, new sounds, new manifestos. A blistering album that revels in darkness while bursting through the void with illuminated revery. This is 'FENIAN'.

Produced by Dan Carey (Fontaines D.C., Kae Tempest, Wet Leg), 'FENIAN' upends expectations with an expansive sonic palate, traversing acid house, trip-hop, dubstep, and more - Masters of rave and rap theatre, 'FENIAN' represents Kneecap’s most sophisticated exploration of language and sounds.

More darkness. More confrontation. More craic. More energy. More solidarity. More absolute bangers. And more fuel for the unrelenting engine that powers this unstoppable force. For their remarkable second album, Kneecap have come out fighting.

Throughout, the sirens and alarms ring, and the chorus’s blast. Revolutionary and rebellious, confrontational and impossibly catchy, inescapably intelligent and brilliantly rendered, 'FENIAN' doesn’t just represent the next phase in Kneecap’s trajectory but stands as a remarkable record that thrills as much as it surprises. The mayhem of their breakout year is a memory now. But Kneecap are neither dwelling on that nor merely persevering through it. In 'FENIAN' they excel, reaching a new peak that is undeniable in its mastery.

Pressure makes diamonds, and 'FENIAN' glistens with Kneecap’s uncut gems.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: No doubt one of the biggest bands in the world right now, and the blistering FENIAN shows why, a cataclysmic clash of roaring electronics and shuddering bass, charged lyrics and a huge swathe of influences ranging all over the musical spectrum. A roaring call to arms, and a brilliant new chapter for the band.

TRACK LISTING

1. Éire Go Deo
2. Smugglers & Scholars
3. Carnival
4. Palestine (feat. Fawzi)
5. Liars Tale
6. FENIAN
7. Big Bad Mo
8. Headcase
9. An Ra
10. Cold At The Top
11. Occupied 6
12. Gael Phonics
13. Cocaine Hill (feat. Radie Peat)
14. Irish Goodbye (feat. Kae Tempest)

'Look Outside Your Window' is NOT a "lost Slipknot album". Look Outside Your Window is Corey Taylor, Jim Root, Sid Wilson, and Shawn ‘clown’ Crahan, who in the downtime during recording sessions for Slipknot's 2008 album 'All Hope Is Gone', began to freely create songs for themselves, exploring new directions with no outside expectations. Over the years, the existence of this project has seen coverage in outlets including Vice, Revolver, NME, Kerrang!, and countless others, and the fans have only grown louder in their demand to hear this album. Now over 15 years later, the fans will finally get to experience it for themselves.

TRACK LISTING

1. 11th March
2. Moth
3. Dirge
4. Christina
5. Is Real
6. Away
7. In Reverse
8. Toad
9. Juliette
10. U Can't Stop This

For Mandy, Indiana, the truth is the only way through. On their Sacred Bones debut URGH, the four-piece - vocalist Valentine Caulfield, guitarist and producer Scott Fair, synth player Simon Catling, and drummer Alex Macdougall - are a force of uncanny nature, grafting together a record that is as much a call to action as a parlay into oblivion and transcendence. Across the ten tracks, the band interpolate their own unconventional language into a mantra for self-determination and resilience, forging a template for a brighter future before it fades to black.

Much of the album was written during a residency at an eerie studio house in the outskirts of Leeds, then recorded across Berlin and Greater Manchester. It was an intense environment partially due to the health issues faced by Caulfield and Macdougall during the writing and recording process.

Yet Mandy, Indiana remain uncompromising. Caulfield uses her voice as a distorted instrument and a weapon, oscillating between playful and eviscerating. The throbbing siren-sound of “Magazine” stands alongside the cut-up vocal fry of “try saying” and the shapeshifting ferocity of “ist halt so,” which channels the urgency of protest movements, referencing resistance to the genocide in Gaza while speaking to struggles more broadly, while final track “I'll Ask Her” is a deliberate directness calling out toxic boy’s club culture and a tenacious reckoning that hangs over the album at large.

Although there are still undeniable “bangers” (like the frazzled rap of “Sicko!” featuring billy woods), URGH often feels hewn with precise cinema. From the bristling techno of “Cursive” to the deconstructed feedback loops of “Life Hex,” the album moves between industrial catharsis and cinematic unease, threading a tension that Fair describes as “a remix of itself.” This contrasting palette is both a necessary aspect of the record as well as the underlying connective tissue.

Though deeply personal, URGH reflects the violent, fractured state of the wider world. Caulfield’s lyrics grapple with assault, systemic indifference, and the omnipresence of pain, while also insisting on moments of beauty and solidarity. URGH belongs in the physical world, and the artwork by Carnovsky, featuring an anatomical illustration of Andreas Vesalius, underscores the record’s visceral confrontation with the body and its limits.

URGH is both otherworldly, and physical and cathartic, a first step toward healing and a refusal to let the conversation die. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A sonically scathing, rave-indebted mix of post-industrial soundscapes and fever-dream glitch. There are moments of perfect, uninterrupted melody but it feels like the unintended result of endless, dizzying syncopation rather than ultimate the goal of it. Endlessly surprising and undeniably rousing post-everything electronica.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Sevastopol
Magazine
Try Saying
Dodecahedron
A Brighter Tomorrow 

Side B
Life Hex
Ist Halt So
Sicko! Ft. Billy Woods
Cursive
I’ll Ask Her

Two years after her debut EP, Meduulla returns with "Tabula Rasa" - a collaborative debut album created alongside acclaimed hip-hop producer Ethan Hill. The album is both a timestamp and a turning point in her evolving career: the product of two years of sonic exploration, vulnerability, and trust in Ethan’s finely tuned ear.

"Tabula Rasa" - Latin for 'blank slate' - is more than a title. It's a creative ethos. Rooted in the philosophical idea that all knowledge comes from experience, the album reflects a process of unlearning and rediscovery. Together, Meduulla and Ethan approached the studio like a canvas, throwing paint freely, allowing each track to take shape organically.

Paying homage to her poetry roots, the album interweaves rhythmic spoken word and cutting edge raps that demand the listeners attention from the get go. Ethan’s production, known for its gritty underground edge, finds new sophistication here. The duo fuses their unique styles into something fresh yet familiar - a dynamic blend of soul, jazz, hip-hop, and experimental flair. Birthed right here in Manchester but more than fit for a global stage. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Super strong stuff here from this rising Manchester MC / poet. Imagine a Mancunian Little Simz, with just as much natural charisma and lyrical wordplay. Dexterous references that belie her young age, working sympathetically with the dusty, sampled-based production provided by the masterful Ethan Hill. This is the f**kin BOMB pop pickers - sleep at your peril!

TRACK LISTING

1. Shangri La 01:24
2. Rule No.1 (feat. Summer Pearl & Niambi) 02:49
3. Baldwin 02:05
4. Wolfpack 02:46
5. Tabula Rasa 00:29
6. Writers Revival 01:33
7. Melanin Monroe Feat. RozzzQween 02:47
8. Blasé Shades Interlude 01:22
9. New Kid (feat. Jay Malakhi & Jess Edie) 03:02
10. Good Food (feat. Gio Genesis) 02:56
11. Gizdodo 02:42
12. Y(earn) More 03:15

'Nothing’s About to Happen to Me' is the eighth studio album by Mitski. All songs and vocals are by Mitski. The album was produced and engineered by Patrick Hyland and mastered by Bob Weston, with assistance on drums and logistics from Kris Bulakowski. Continuing the musical through line established with 'The Land Is Inhospitable' and 'So Are We', the album features live instrumentation by The Land touring band and ensemble arrangements. The orchestra was recorded at Sunset Sound and TTG Studios, arranged and conducted by Drew Erickson, engineered by Michael Harris, with additional engineering by Isaac Diskin and assistance from Alex Miller. Standout singles include 'Where’s My Phone?', 'I’ll Change for You', and 'If I Leave'.

TRACK LISTING

1. In A Lake
2. Where’s My Phone?
3. Cats
4. If I Leave
5. Dead Women
6. Instead Of Here
7. I’ll Change For You
8. Rules
9. That White Cat
10. Charon’s Obol
11. Lightning

As the bassist and sometime frontman of black midi, Cameron Picton and his bandmates practiced an explosive form of musical world-building, weaving complex storytelling through thrilling passages of controlled chaos. When the group called it quits in 2023, the artist didn’t immediately feel like making a solo record or jumping back into another band. It was from this position of a not-quite team player, not-quite bandleader that Picton entered the studio and the seeds of My New Band Believe gradually began to emerge. The moniker serves as an open invitation, a subtle nod that if a listener is willing to meet the music on its own terms, they’ll be rewarded for taking a flying leap into the dark.

The group’s self-titled debut is a massive and hallucinatory record. It is a collection of music that swerves through wildly different emotional and thematic registers, all the while unraveling an endlessly compelling thread of dream logic. Picton is an unreliable but charismatic narrator, and together with an all-star cast including 7 members of caroline, Kiran Leonard, Caius Williams, Steve Noble, he guides the listener through a rapidly unfolding multi-verse of the band’s making.

The record is almost entirely acoustic, using the barest amount of reverb and electronic effects possible. It would be a mistake to assume these light touches mean that their music is any less maximal. Picton leads his band so that each track forms, scatters and re-groups, so that the uplift of one song crashes head-long into the rush of another. Inspired by Bert Jansch’s hypnotic, hard-driving guitar and Judee Sill’s panoramic pop, My New Band Believe is both all-encompassing and constantly in flux.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A hugely experimental, melodically disparate offering that definitely has lineage in Picton's previous projects but escews the deeply electronic vibe of Black Midi for an equally chaotic but much more organic selection of instruments. Soaring, stretched sounds and finely wrought melodies clash and grow together while threads of melody pull together into an eventual orchestra. Mad, lovely.

TRACK LISTING

1. Target Practice
2. In The Blink Of An Eye
3. Heart Of Darkness
4. Love Story
5. Pearls
6. Opposite Teacher
7. Actress
8. One Night

Bonus 10”:
1. Numerology (One Night)
2. Numerology (One Night) (Instrumental)

Evolution can be ugly and beautiful, painful and euphoric. 'An Undying Love For A Burning World' is the first new release from Neurosis in a decade, and a potent statement of intent and rebirth - one that marks the first new steps of resolve and resilience.

'An Undying Love For A Burning World' is an epic album of colossal hypnotism - beautiful, fearsome and utterly compelling in a way that only Neurosis can be. Aaron Turner (Sumac, Isis) joins the band on vocals and guitar, a name whose legacy is intertwined with the band’s own and a true kindred spirit. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'There is no way in hell Neurosis with Aaron Turner will be anything but outstanding' turned out to be a pretty bang-on summary, with their latest album (and first in a decade) having all of the punky thrust of the early years and all the dark, complex melodicism of their later years. An ESSENTIAL album from one of the greatest bands in the arena.

TRACK LISTING

1. We Are Torn Wide Open
2. Mirror Deep
3. First Red Rays.
4. Blind
5. Seething and Scattered.
6. Untethered
7. In the Waiting Hours.
8. Last Light

Since the release of his critically acclaimed debut full length, 2023’s Come Around and Love Me, Jalen’s career has undergone a meteoric rise. The track “If You Don’t Want My Love” went viral, garnering 253 million streams to date. Jalen has appeared on a number of major television programmes, including The Graham Norton Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Later with Jools Holland. He opened for Thee Sacred Souls on their national US tour, and has sold out countless club dates across the globe as a headliner. Now, in 2026, with the embers of his debut still burning brightly, Jalen prepares to release his eagerly awaited sophomore album, Doctrine of Love.

The hard work and relentless touring behind his debut have fortified his craft. His message: “The doctrine of love holds that every thought and action should be guided first by compassion for others, because love is the highest measure of human worth.” The tracks on the forthcoming album are born from this creed. With his deep knowledge and love of classic soul, Jalen delivers authenticity in abundance. Doctrine of Love blends pop sensibility and soulful melodies with raw grit and groove, expanding on the orchestral arrangements of Come Around and Love Me with flourishes of horns and gospel-kissed backing vocals, creating a highly stylish example of modern soul artistry.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: While Jalen's debut album was steeped in early-'70s soulful grooves, Doctrine of Love reaches even further back, drawing inspiration from the sounds of the 1960s.

The album opens with "Anyone in Love", awash with sweeping strings and soulful backing vocals, before launching into the James Brown-inspired lead single and title track, "Doctrine of Love". The uplifting groove of "Mr Train Conductor" is followed by the soul stomper "Burning Temptation", while the sweet melancholy of "Love Is Gone" brings Side One to a close.

On the flip side, "I Can't Ever Leave You" and "Hannah What's the Matter" both explore the complexities of love. The former is a slow burner, punctuated by bursts of horns and bluesy guitar riffs, while the latter is a hook-filled, upbeat number driven by a punchy chorus.

The sweet doo-wop of "Good Good Love" is perhaps the album's most uplifting moment, closely followed by "Hang It on the Shelf". Finally, the melancholic heartbreak of "Taken Out of the Picture" provides a perfect closing statement.

Doctrine of Love is a timeless modern soul album that wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Motown release back in the day.

TRACK LISTING

1. Anyone In Love
2. Doctrine Of Love
3. Mr. Train Conductor
4. Burning Temptation
5. Love Is Gone
6. I Can’t Ever Leave You
7. Hannah, What’s The Matter?
8. Good Good Love
9. Hang It On The Shelf
10. Taken Out Of The Picture

Jim Noir's last LP 'AM Jazz' was critically acclaimed, orbiting the top 10 of many best albums of the year lists, including the number 2 spot in our very own chart back in 2020.

In the intervening years, Noir has managed to release a criminally underrated masterpiece, 2023's ‘Rotate’ LP, under the ‘Co-Pilot’ moniker, with long time collaborator Leonore Wheatley (International Teachers of POP/Soundcarriers), along with 18 E.P.'s released direct to fans via Patreon.

'Programmes for Cools' draws from the best cuts from these E.P.'s, bookended with instrumental intermissions which evoke Noir's excursions into computer game music (Little Big Planet), with an orchestrated focus, as if scored by John Barry with Mort Garson waving the conductor's baton at a vintage synth ensemble.

The last time Noir embarked on a similar creative exorcism was for 2012's Jimmy's Show LP which selected choice cuts from 18 E.P. 's released via straight to fan subscription over as many months. The resulting album is one of his most lauded and beloved by fans, with the vinyl now selling for silly money on Discogs.

Programmes for Cools is Jimmy's Show's spiritual successor, idiosyncratic, other worldly and brimming with timeless melodies. Noir's influences seep through the track list, wrapped with a haunting, dreamlike delivery.

First single 'Out Of Sight' is a Fleetwood Mac meets Selected Ambient Works era Richard D James, four to the floor banger. Already a fan favourite, it propels Side A forward with a somewhat misplaced optimism, much like Neil Young's 'Walk On' starting On the Beach.

Side B is more esoteric, exemplified by 'Fireworks’which includes lyrics and vocals from Marie Claude Dequoy,produced with the wooze of golden era Boards of Canada. Elsewhere, influences as disparate as Stevie Wonder, on the wonky clav funk of 'The Fountain', and Ian Brown 'I think I found it' illustrate Noir's disregard for musical straightjackets (the latter may have the most unapologetic baggy, hypnotic groove since the Mondays' 'Halleluiah').

As the album swells to its conclusion, via the epic Led Zeppelin meets the Warhol clique 'Morning Light’and the heart tugging finale of 'Motorbike’(the first song released from the most recent run of E.P.'s), there is a sense of completion and finality... ‘This is the last Jim Noir album. There are no more Jim Noir albums after this one. This time I'm serious. It's been the hardest I've ever worked on anything. I think I have created my own Be Here Now...Sorry.’ Joking and hyperbole aside, the album has more of an Abbey Road feel, and needs to be experienced in one sitting. If the infamous Davyhulme prankster is to be believed and this is his final outing, then you could wish for a more fitting album. - NM

TRACK LISTING

1.start
2.out Of Sight
3.the Fountain
4.these Are Things
5.manchester Cat
6.longsword
7.harum Scarum
8.bit 42
9.one More Hand
10.i Think I Found It
11.fireworks
12.morning Light
13.motorbike
14.close

Nothing have always been rule-breakers. Shoegaze renegades who’ve rebuilt the stereotypically lightweight genre in their own bloodyknuckled American image. Outlaw poets spilling existential dread on mile-wide canvasses of fuzz and reverb. Beginning as a Philly-born bedroom solo project in 2010, Nothing’s music has always captured the full scale of the human condition, both the blaring anger and the whispering sadness. 'a short history of decay', Nothing’s fifth album and first for Run For Cover Records, widens that aperture even further, providing the most hi-def rendering of Nothing to date.

The band have never sounded this colossal, never felt this intimate, never been this honest. With the strongest arsenal in Nothing’s ever-shifting lineup locked in -- guitarist Doyle Martin (Cloakroom), bassist Bobb Bruno (Best Coast), drummer Zachary Jones (MSC, Manslaughter 777), and third guitarist Cam Smith (Ladder To God, also of Cloakroom) -- singer-songwriter Domenic “Nicky” Palermo knew he had the manpower to make the band’s most ambitious record yet. Cowritten and produced with Whirr guitarist Nicholas Bassett, and with additional production and mixing work from Sonny Diperri (DIIV, Julie), 'a short history of decay', is the most evolved musical statement in Nothing’s catalog. Songs like 'Cannibal World' and 'Toothless Coal' are cataclysmic lashings of mechanized industrial-gaze that sound like My Bloody Valentine -- except more extreme. On the other end of the spectrum, the ornately morose 'Purple Strings' boasts a beautiful string arrangement that includes harpist -- and two-time Nothing contributor -- Mary Lattimore. That baroque delicacy permeates other a short history of decay, highlights, particularly 'The Rain Don’t Care', a lilting ballad that channels the worn-down elegance of Mojave 3, and also 'Nerve Scales', a pattering bop that resembles Radiohead in its marriage of otherworldly atmosphere and mortal precision. Palermo calls the new record “a final chapter.” Not the end of Nothing, but the conclusion of a story that began with Nothing’s 2014 debut, 'Guilty of Everything' -- another album about time, regret, and confronting uncomfortable truths -- and now resolves with 'a short history of decay',. As much a snapshot of Palermo’s past as it is a leap into Nothing’s future.

TRACK LISTING

1. Never Come Never Morning
2. Cannibal World
3. A Short History Of Decay
4. The Rain Don’t Care
5. Purple Strings
6. Toothless Coal
7. Ballet Of The Traitor
8. Nerve Scales
9. Essential Tremors

Ed O'Brien, the acclaimed guitarist and singer-songwriter known for his role in Radiohead, announces 'Blue Morpho', his absorbing, second solo album and first under his own name.

Named for the iridescent butterfly, 'Blue Morpho' was written during lockdown and recorded at The Church Studio, London and Seven Sound in Wales. The tranquil Welsh countryside proved inspirational, capturing a sense of reflection, healing, and acceptance. Musically the album blends a collage of hypnotic psych-folk, jazz, triphop, radiant guitars and rhythm sections. Blue Morpho marks a fresh and deeply personal chapter in O'Brien's musical journey.

Produced by Paul Epworth (Adele, Coldplay), with additional production from Riley MacIntyre (Ezra Collective), and mixed by Ben Baptie (Sault, Little Simz). The album features an array of musicians, such as Shabaka Hutchings (flute), Dave Okumu (guitars, bass), Philip Selway (drums), and The Tallinn Chamber Orchestra.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An expansive, rich distillation of classical music and ambient, brought to life by O'Brien's keen ear and significantly overlooked instrumental acuity. There are moments of solemn calm and bright, frenetic activity but it never veers too far from the superbly wrought emotional heft he does so well. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Incantations
2. Blue Morpho
3. Sweet Spot
4. Teachers
5. Solfeggio
6. Thin Places
7. Obrigado

“You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums,” begins Henry Wade, guitarist for The Orielles, describing the foundations of the band’s fourth studio album, Only You Left. “It comes naturally,” adds singer and bassist Esmé Hand-Halford, “it’s not something we consciously do.”

Through this process of creative renewal, the Manchester-based trio – completed by drummer Sidonie Hand-Halford – have managed to weather a pandemic, defy the fickleness of a trend-led music industry, and emerge, phoenix-like, with something familiarly Orielles, yet altogether different. Recorded in two locations – Hydra and Hamburg – over the summer of 2024, the 11 tracks of Only You Left sees the band consolidate the bold experimentation of their previous LP, Tableau (2022), with a return to the more stripped-back, song-led approach of their early origins.

“There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio. Originally from Halifax, the Orielles first came to recognition in 2018 with their debut album, the indie-rock Silver Dollar Moment, which is approaching its eighth birthday in February 2026. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we've come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people.”

By exploring binaries and contrasts, the Orielles are finding shapes in the chaos and confusion of the world around us – it’s an undertaking that benefits from more than 15 years of close collaboration, driven by friendship and the artistic compulsion to find meaning in music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Esme, Sid, and Henry return after the dark majesty of Tableau, bringing an album that still explores mysterious, shadowy landscapes but lets more light in. Jangling, post-rock-inflected jams often unfold into bright, melodic pop songs, revealing a newfound warmth and clarity in their sound. The Orielles’ adventurous spirit remains intact, but there’s a sense of growth and confidence throughout, proving that the band has matured while keeping their playful, genre-blurring charm fully alive.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Three Halves
Shadow Of You Appears
Tears Are
Embers
Tiny Beads Reflecting Light

Side B
The Woodland Has Returned
All In Metal
You Are Eating A Part Of Yourself
Whenever (I May Not Feel So Close)
Wasp
To Undo The World Itself

'Double Exposure' isn’t a departure, necessarily, but this new album contains some of the rawest and most deconstructed sounds that James Hoare – of Veronica Falls, Ultimate Painting and Proper Ornaments – has recorded to date. Principally, and for the first time, the guitars take a back seat. It’s not a ‘no guitar’ concept album by any means; it’s mostly just the way it came together. It would also be inaccurate to suggest the guitars have been banished altogether, especially after the dual six-string solo that rips through the speakers on the mighty album opener Regrets. It’s not ‘Skynyrd’ necessarily, but it’s a hairs-on-end experience for sure.

Following 2024’s gorgeous 'Backwater Collage' debut LP under the Penny Arcade nom de plume, this is a hallucinogenic experience, and the backbone of 'Double Exposure' is the drum machine that informed the songs. It’s also an album of sweet duality. For all the darkness of early highlight 'Worst Trip' – a haunting stagger through “the worst trip I ever had” – the following 'You’ve Got the Key' is a gorgeously knotty workout, so rich in a distinctly English take on psychedelia that it’s hard not to believe it was recorded to tape fifty years ago. The mood then swaps sunny psychedelics for a slice of blue-eyed soul on 'Everything’s Easy', the soundtrack to melancholic, sunshine-stained car journeys. The album features flashes of guest appearances, but for the vast majority it is an album of solo experimentalism, with gestations that bubble to life across the stereo before fading back out again. Nothing is overthought; this is an album of ideas.

The drum machines take centre stage on 'Rear View Mirror', playing out like In Rainbows-era Radiohead channelled through Silver Apples, a trip in three minutes that you can play on an infinite loop. Like so much of the album, it was recorded almost instantaneously, with a simplicity and rawness that heavy overdubs and meticulous arrangements could never achieve. It is an album high on vibe. James explains: “I was preparing to move to the south of France when half of the album was recorded. This fed into the lo-fi feel of the record; it had to be recorded quickly and that does give some of the tracks a demo-like quality.” When one of the album’s many highlights is a hazy two-minute cut called 'Instrumental No. 1', you know this is about rolling the tape and capturing the vibe.

Clicking drum machines and oozing organs interplay with different hues of guitar work, from the ragas of the George Harrison-esque 'Early Morning' to the tripped-out, smoke-drenched 'We Used to Be Good Friends'. 'Double Exposure' is an unfussy collection of songs. Closing track 'Riverside Drive' – like so many of the album’s sublimely melancholic highs – appears, fully forms, then dissolves, never outstaying its welcome and softly ringing in the ears like a daydream. It is also a fitting title. 'Double Exposure', named after the photographic technique, is layers of ideas that weren’t written as parts but rather spontaneous melodies that form their own abstract picture. The album harks somewhere between the restless experimentation of Syd Barrett and the uninhibited analogue innovations of Tim Presley as White Fence. It very much is what it is.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: On this, their second album, Penny Arcade deliver a collection of stripped-back, sun-dappled psyche-pop songs. Loose and lightly frayed at the edges, melodies drift and shimmer, favouring texture and mood over polish. Perfect hazy Summer afternoon listening.

TRACK LISTING

1. Regrets
2. Memory Lane
3. Worst Trip
4. You've Got The Key
5. Everything's Easy
6. Early Morning
7. Rear View Mirror
8. Time
9. Instrumental No.1
10. We Used To Be Good Friends
11. Mercy
12. Riverside Drive

Cosmic exploration. Spiritual transformation. Unbridled spontaneity. These are the guiding principles of Pigeon, a psychedelic five-piece rooted in the English seaside town of Margate, yet making music that transcends borders. Pigeon are Falle Nioke (vocals, percussion), Graham Godfrey (drums), Josh Ludow (bass), Steve Pringle (keys, synths) and Tom Dream (guitar), musicians whose combined credits include Little Simz, Michael Kiwanuka, SAULT and Saul Williams.

Their debut album, OUTTANATIONAL, is a thrilling collection of party songs without limits: think William Onyeabor in outer-space or early Hot Chip making motorik afrobeat in a 70s New York loft. Building on a string of acclaimed EPs that have been playlisted on 6Music and led to coveted live slots at UK festivals like Glastonbury, Pigeon have evolved out of Afro-disco territory into something moodier. It’s an expansive record laced with heady krautrock, post-punk and punk-funk, indebted to the power of the groove and questing to find the meaning of home. Pigeon must fly.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Driving cosmic passages and soaring synth lines, snappy kosmische percussion and distorted vocal snippets, Pigeon present a wonderfully deep and danceable mix of indie, post-punk and afrobeat.

TRACK LISTING

1. NRG
2. Black James Dean
3. Miami
4. Horse With A Blind
5. 117
6. Mirror Test
7. Hype Prototype
8. Future Country
9. Today Is Another Day
10. Caramel

CrackedanklesRecords are proud to present Polypores “Wrigglers” - the latest emergence from Stephen James Buckley’s strange and overgrown brainforest, an artist who has seen recent albums crack the national top 40 charts. From the opening bars of lead single ‘Memespawn’, it is clear that this incendiary release is going to defy all precedent Polypores releases. Kicking off with a heady mix of woozy, slewed melody lines and a relentless Motorik beat, it soon breaks down into a gritty instrumental redux and a frenetic syncopated woodwind jazzathon before bursting out again into spine-tingling melody that resembles some deformed cousin of synth-pop. It’s beautifully melodic, whilst still maintaining Buckley’s trademark sense of the chaotic and the downright wonky. Endlessly listenable electronic music that breathes and moves like a physical organism, and always refuses to stand still. A restless misfit of an artist who inhabits the fringes of whatever scenes he inhabits, Buckley maintains a certain crackling unease throughout the whole thing, but it results in jubilant outbursts and freewheeling joy, tethered only by the mechanical constraints of the machines it’s wrought from, like some broken robots have cobbled together an orchestra and they’re writing a soundtrack for a film they haven’t seen.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm a massive Polypores fan. I love the music, love the vibe and the trajectory, and I love the musician, so i'm probably not best placed to comment. That being said, i'm contractually obliged to so i'll tell you without haste, this is the most beautifully strange and wonderfully wonky brain-melting electronic music that has ever been. It's majestic, beautiful and terrifying. Absolute dynamite.

TRACK LISTING

1.Memespawn
2.Wrigglers
3.Troublebath
4.Naut
5.Alice Drums
6.Puzzles
7.A Thinking Thing
8.Cranial Escape
9.Primordia

Following the crazily limited Dinked Edition white label pressing of this incredible album (it sold out in minutes), we now bring you the official worldwide release on Mute. Hailed as one of the US’s most exciting and provocative new bands, Prostitute’s bracing debut Attempted Martyr has been quite the talking point!


Emerging out of Dearborn, Michigan, this five-piece deal in pure chaos and catharsis - fiery live shows, razor-sharp intensity, and a sound that’s as incendiary as it is brutally tight. Their name reflects their fixation on identity, desperation, and survival under late capitalism.

Attempted Martyr was written in the midst of global and personal turmoil, capturing the zeitgeist of a world unraveling. A loose concept record, it chronicles the rise and fall of a doomed zealot whose pursuit of holy vengeance spirals into a psychotic orgy of violence, greed, and lust. It’s dense, turbulent, and charged with blaring Middle Eastern, African and East Asian influences - all scorched into shape by producer Chris Koltay (The Armed, Mdou Moctar).

With mounting online buzz, critical acclaim and a run of sold-out bootleg editions, Prostitute’s debut continues to gain momentum.

“Really heavy, intense, intriguing, thrilling, and thematically unique album, and aesthetically unique, too” - Anthony Fantano

“Calling the Dearborn noise rockers’ debut “intense” is somehow still underselling it.”- Pitchfork

“...a terroristic noise rock opera, complete with groovy riffs, pummeling drums, and a frontman more crazed than anyone in their orbit” - Stereogum

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: The insanely fabulous debut album from Michigan’s Prostitute is provocative, intense, and deeply unsettling. The band forge an uneasy, densely layered collision of brutal post-industrial percussion, blown-out noise rock, and eerie Middle Eastern-tinged motifs. The result is a raw, claustrophobic sound that feels both hypnotic and confrontational, pushing distortion and rhythm into dark, ritualistic territory. Bold, abrasive, and strangely captivating - amazing stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 All Hail
A2 Judge
A3 M. Dada
A4 Body Meat

Side B
B1 Senegal
B2 In The Corner Dunce
B3 Joumana Kayrouz
B4 Harem Induction Hour

Pye Corner Audio releases a new album, 'More Songs About The Sun'. It’s his second studio album for Sonic Cathedral and a sequel of sorts to 2022’s acclaimed 'Let’s Emerge!'. The title is a light-hearted acknowledgment that the album picks up exactly where the last one ended with ‘Warmth Of The Sun’, with opener ‘Euphoria’ mixing blissed-out Balearica with guitars by labelmate (and Ride / Oasis member) Andy Bell. “I definitely wanted it to feel like a direct continuation from the previous one,” explains Pye Corner Audio, aka Martin Jenkins. “I wanted the whole record to be awash with distortion and saturation, but not in a blown-out guitar amp kind of way.” He’s right: everything here feels a lot bigger, bolder and acid bright. “The musical influences are all the usual suspects – Stereolab, Spacemen 3, Harmonia, Cluster, Suicide,” he reveals. “But I think that this album wears them in a much more direct way.”

Several songs feature vocals, and not all by Martin himself – ‘The Breath Of Now’ has a stunning, spoken word monologue by Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin. The resulting dystopian nightmare is the first time that clouds of darkness obscure the sunshine, but, as Martin says, “you need the shade to appreciate the sun”. “If there’s a theme that runs throughout then it’s optimism, even in these darkened days. The sun will continue to rise… even if there’s no one around to see it.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Euphoria
2. Analogue Dreams
3. Cycle
4. Greet The Dawn
5. Eight Thousand Years
6. Inverted Dreams
7. The Breath Of Now
8. The Race Is Run
9. Rays Of Sunshine
10. As We Begin
11. My Shimmer
12. Blooms Fade

Recorded between the iconic Abbey Road and Polish Radio studios, Hania Rani’s original music for Joachim Trier’s Cannes and Golden Globe winning, Oscar and Bafta nominated ‘Sentimental Value’ is a deeply intuitive collaboration, composed before a single frame was edited.

For Hania Rani composing for the most recent film by Joachim Trier was nothing less than a true joy and a real artistic adventure. As she explains: “It doesn’t happen often that I’m asked to work on a film by a director whose work I know so well and which resonates with me so naturally. What I understood while working with such an intriguing mind and intelligent artist as Joachim is that the role of a film composer is to wander along with the director, hand in hand, rather than follow one another. The collaboration should be a partnership - evenly balanced and able to invigorate people on both ends - otherwise it will always feel superficial, imposed, and timid”

Intriguingly Hania worked on the score for Sentimental Value without an edit in hand; instead, she was given a carefully written script and the freedom of her own substantial imagination. “This way of composing suits me perfectly, as I’m not the type of composer who works comfortably with particular scenes, slightly immune to functionality in music in general. I prefer to ponder sound in separation from the image. It enables me to fabricate more abstract sequences that are not yet expressed in the film and to bring a new context to the existing narrative. Music as an inherent counterpoint - this sounds more intriguing to me”.

For Hania the biggest challenge of the score was its gravity - or rather its visibly elusive nature. The story told in the film oscillates around three characters and the motionless presence of the house, yet the relationships between all these personalities are not fixed, but in progress. Those subtle qualities were at the center of her attention and became the core topic of numerous discussions with Joachim about the music, the film, and the philosophy behind Sentimental Value. “I wondered how to express such translucent virtues in this score; that’s why a great deal of the process was embedded in exercises of mediation and translation. In order to avoid directness, I decided to impure the sound with a succession of small sonic gestures - whether re-arranging, re-orchestrating, revisiting, stretching the duration, or simply recording in a new acoustic environment. The mediated sound and expression allowed me to model a soundscape that inhabits both the old and the new, much like the house, which holds within itself the past, present, and future”.

In September 2024, Hania went to Oslo and spent a couple of days in the main film (the family home in Oslo) with her sound engineer, Agata Dankowska. The film crew was away in France to shoot another scene for the project, so they were allowed to freely explore the space - both visually and sonically. They made field recordings in the building, capturing the sounds of objects and furniture found in the apartment, and they also managed to record a couple of piano pieces. The house plays a significant role in the story, silently witnessing the tangled trajectories of its residents. “To explore its interiors so closely inevitably reminded me of getting to know a real person, with all their vulnerable parts and secrets. And although most of the recordings were not supposed to become part of the final soundtrack, I felt that this visit gave me access to another, far more intimate layer of the film, which immensely informed my composing process afterwards and reshaped my relationship with the project. There was a real sense of immediacy that felt exciting, instinctive, and simply incredibly special.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Stunningly evocative modern classical soundscapes and soaring ambient swells, solemn contemplative stillness and the tentative unease and uplifting resolve Hania Rani has become known for. A wonderfully apt soundtrack, and a beautiful listen on its own merits.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sentimental Value
2. The House
3. Childlike
4. Lighter And Lighter
5. Riksarkivet
6. Agnes
7. Rachel
8. Speaking To The Past
9. Gustav
10. Nor

Somewhere close to Manchester’s ever changing city centre, as the sun fades and peeks through the newest glass facade, you’ll find Shaking Hand. One part in shadow, the other basking in prisms of light as they sketch out their own sonic landscapes in the dusty redbrick mill they call home. One that is just about clinging on from the encroaching developments that surround them.

Against this back-drop where buildings are constantly torn down & built back again, the three piece craft away. Pulling from early post-rock, and 90s US alternative rock, crafting their own brand of Northwest-emo. Assembling something new, yet nostalgic. Looking ahead towards the transforming horizon. Shaking Hand’s music is built on tension and release – quiets that stretch, louds that overwhelm. Repetition that feels both hypnotic and destabilising. “The best ideas are when it feels like it’s just about to fall apart and we’re only just holding on,” says Freddie.

The band’s musical DNA runs through experimental guitar outfits like Women, Slint, Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Ulrika Spacek, balanced with the melodic sensibility of Big Thief and the dynamic intimacy of Yo La Tengo. Their compositions push against structure: sudden jolts of tempo, polyrhythms that almost fall apart, and riffs that unravel into something fragile or ecstatic. Yet, as Ellis notes, there’s an underlying warmth too: “Like walking through an empty city late at night but catching flickers of life in the buildings you pass.”

Early ideas like ‘Night Owl’ and ‘Sundance’ grew out of George’s lockdown “bedroom years,” where new tunings (open E, drop D, and stranger Pavement-inspired set-ups) opened up uncharted textures. Later, in grim rehearsal rooms, the murky epic ‘Cable Ties’ and the hypnotic ‘Mantras’ absorbed the gloom and grit of the band’s surroundings.

The album was recorded with producer David Pye (Wild Beasts, Teenage Fanclub) at Nave Studios in Leeds, housed in a converted church. “The live room was huge and perfect for capturing our sound,” says George. Determined to bottle their onstage energy, the band tracked the foundations live, layering vocals and guitars later. Soviet-era microphones, odd mic placements, and even phone-recorded demos fed into the mix. “You’ve got to watch out for David though,” Freddie laughs. “He made me play four tambourines in one hand, really hurt, man.”

Lyrically, the record drifts between abstraction and lived moments. George’s words often spill out instinctively, words falling into place before their meaning becomes clear. “A lot of the lyrics look like they’re buried in abstraction,” he says, “but when I look back I can see what they were about — whether that’s an emotional response at the time or just an observation of what was happening around me”. There’s contrast at the heart of it all – optimism vs. doubt, the lightness of youth vs. the monotony of work, a city in constant redevelopment vs. the people drifting through it.

The album artwork is taken from unused plans for the 1970s redevelopment of Los Angeles by architect Ray Kappe, entitled ‘People Movers’. Hypothetical buildings for real people, it feels a complement to the band’s own constructions. One thing’s for sure, Shaking Hand’s debut is built to last.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Massive pick for me this week, this brilliant alt-rock post-everything debut from Manchester's Shaking Hand. Jagged, flickering melodies come of out of nothing (instantly reminiscent of the Samuel Jackson Five or Yndi Halda's mid-heavy guitar drive) before being joined by woozy vocals and sky-cracking melodic boom. Ace. RIYL : Cloth, SJ5, Ascent Of Everest, Pavement.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sundance
2. Mantras
3. In For A... Pound!
4. Night Owl
5. Up The Ante(lope)
6. Italics
7. Cable Ties

Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson’s most expansive and ambitious release to date, the album features a rare guest appearance from former Life Without Buildings frontwoman Sue Tompkins, plus collaborations with Aldous Harding, soul singer Liam Bailey and grime MC Snowy, the latter two both hailing from band’s hometown Nottingham.

In her first foray into music, actress Gwendoline Christie (Wednesday/Severance/Game Of Thrones) also joins Midlands band Big Special on the opening track and single The Good Life.

Boasting the duo’s most varied and expressive musical approach so far, ‘The Demise Of Planet X’ charts, critiques and satirises our times, while offering a universal cry of anger and release of energy that pushes against the encroaching cultural darkness.

Contemplating the world coming to an end not with a big bang but in slowly rising tide of irritating mundanity, ‘The Demise Of Planet X’ strikes back with vivid sonics, acerbic words, enveloping atmospheres and a engaging wit across 13 tracks that will move hearts, minds and feet.

‘“The Demise Of Planet X’ represents a life lived under immense uncertainty, shaped by mass trauma,” declares frontman Jason Williamson. “When we wrote the last album, it was about stagnation, a country that felt like a lifeless corpse. Three years later, that corpse has been split open by war, genocide, and the lingering psychological fallout of Covid whilst social media has mutated into a grotesque, twisted form of digital engineering. It feels like we’re living among the ruins. A multi-layered abomination etched into our collective psyche.”

He adds: “I don't want to pat myself on the back while the rest of the world falls to shit, but we’re really happy with ‘The Demise Of Planet X’. The music and ideas are really fresh and it's in your face, but it pays to put your glasses on to look at the ingredients.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another transmission from the Sleafords, this time moving further from their established loutish maelstrom, introducing guest vocals from Aldous Harding and Sue Tompkins. Though the core sound is still in situ, there are branches that veer into synthpop, indie-rock and hold a much grander depth of sound, resulting in their most stylistically broad outing yet.

TRACK LISTING

The Good Life Feat. Gwendoline Christie + Big Special
Double Diamond
Elitest G.O.A.T. Feat. Aldous Harding
Megaton
No Touch Feat. Sue Tompkins
Bad Santa
The Demise Of Planet X
Don Draper
Gina Was
Shoving The Images
Flood The Zone Feat. Liam Bailey
Kill List Feat. Snowy
The Unwrap

Snail Mail's — the project of Lindsey Jordan — highly anticipated third album, 'Ricochet'. Her first album in five years, she returns with a renewed sense of clarity and control, asserting herself as a generational songwriter with a sharpened perspective. While her early work chronicled the emotional turbulence of young love, 'Ricochet' reveals a deeper fixation: time, mortality, and the quiet terror of watching the things you love slip away. The album’s 11 songs are steeped in introspection, anxiety, and acceptance — an acknowledgment that the world keeps turning regardless of what’s unfolding in your own small orbit.

Written during a period of intense personal change that included a move to North Carolina from NYC, 'Ricochet' finds Jordan reckoning with questions she once avoided, namely death and what comes after. The album pairs her incisive lyricism with newly expansive melodies, ornate string arrangements, and hypnotic textures, marking a natural evolution from Lush’s poised guitar work and Valentine’s raw emotional charge. Sonically, 'Ricochet' channels the luminous side of ’90s alternative rock — echoing Smashing Pumpkins at their sunniest, Radiohead at their most Britpop, and the shoegaze haze of bands like Catherine Wheel and Ivy — all filtered through Jordan’s singular voice.

After undergoing surgery for vocal polyps and intensive speech therapy ahead of 2021’s 'Valentine' tour, Jordan emerges on 'Ricochet' as a more confident and controlled vocalist — an ironic strength for an album centered on uncertainty. She recorded the album with producer and bassist Aron Kobayashi Ritch (Momma) at Fidelitorium Recordings in North Carolina, as well as Nightfly and Studio G in Brooklyn. The sessions, Jordan says, felt “refreshing, trusting, and comfortable,” allowing her to fully inhabit the songs without compromise.

The album also marks a departure in Jordan's creative process. "I've never done this before, but I wrote all of the instrumentals and vocal melodies on the piano or guitar, and then I filled in the lyrics all at once over a year," she explains. This shift gave her more time to craft the expansive melodies that define 'Ricochet's sound

The album’s lyrical world is informed by art that grapples with existence itself. Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York looms large, while tracks like ‘Nowhere’ draw inspiration from Laura Gilpin’s poem “The Two-Headed Calf.” On ‘My Maker’, Jordan imagines overstaying her welcome at a celestial airport bar, pleading, “Oh, bouncer in the sky / Let me in, I’m scared to die.” Elsewhere, 'Ricochet' mourns fading friendships, lost simplicity, and the ache of emotional distance — a record about being anxious not over the bad, but over how fleeting the good can be.

The album’s artwork mirrors its themes. 'Ricochet' is the first Snail Mail release not to feature Jordan’s face; instead, a spiral shell floats in a distressed blue expanse, symbolizing both inward collapse and outward infinity — the push and pull of growth, distance, and perspective.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Evocative, soaring indie-pop as ever from Snail Mail, beautifully toeing the line between pop-punk and singer-songwriter indie music with an unmatched melodic skill and unforgettable ear for a progression. Another step forward for one of the most captivating voices in modern indie.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tractor Beam
2. My Maker
3. Light On Our Feet
4. Cruise
5. Agony Freak
6. Dead End
7. Butterfly
8. Nowhere
9. Hell
10. Ricochet
11. Reverie

Studio Kosmische’s music is rooted deeply in the ethos of the 1970s krautrock movement. Blending psychedelic instrumentation with a healthy disregard for conventional song form, this is music intended to encourage altered states. Primarily the solo project of musician and producer Dom Keen, usually working in collaboration with fellow musician and label mate Jonathan Parkes. Through Keen’s influences and ongoing collaborations, SK has carved out a niche within modern kosmische and psychedelic music, creating immersive journeys that blur the boundaries between inner and outer space.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: BOOM! Dom Keen's superb Studio Kosmische project returns for another selection of deeply evocative Harmonia-flavoured krautrock, wonderfully rich and almost dubby in parts, showing the true range of emotion that Keen and Parkes manage to eke out of their instruments. This time sees a much more loose, improvisational spirit, but results in something that feels a lot more organic while retaining the core spirit. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Sorcerers Gather
2. In Search Of Magick
3. Golden Dunes
4. Esoteric Modulation
5. The Great Author Of The Universe
6. As Above, So Below
7. Eternal Dream Musick

For nearly 30 years, SUNN O))) – Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson – have pushed the boundaries of heavy music, straddling the worlds of the avant-garde and rock to forge a style instantly recognisable as their own. Now, SUNN O))) return with their first album of new material since 2019’s acclaimed Pyroclasts. Their tenth album – their debut for Sub Pop – demonstrates the duo’s mastery of time and space, light and dark, and their willingness to evolve their unmistakable sound into bold new forms.

The eponymously titled SUNN O))) was tracked at Bear Creek Studios, Woodinville, Washington with Brad Wood (HuM, Tar, Sunny Day Real Estate, Liz Phair). This location proved crucial to the recording process. “The vast tracking room had big windows looking out on trees,” says O’Malley. “We could go hiking and be out in the woods, spend time outdoors. That became a big part of it.”

SUNN O))) have long welcomed collaborators into their self-contained world: past work has featured, Attila Csihar (Mayhem), composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, multi-instrumentalist Steve Moore, polymath Mark Deutrom, Silkworm’s Tim Midyett and legendary singer-songwriter Scott Walker. But on this album O’Malley and Anderson found fresh possibilities in the primal territory of the duo format, performing all the instrumentation themselves. “What’s been happening with our performances over the last couple years with the two of us and no other collaborators has been really fresh and exciting,” says Anderson.

The compositions on SUNN O))) are expansive and panoramic yet finely detailed, reflecting the arboreal setting in which they were recorded. Amidst howling feedback and glacial crunch, one finds surprisingly delicate moments: a field recording of water trickles beneath, piano interludes lend a hushed, solemn feel. All while the duo attains fresh heights of telepathic intensity as they shape music that breathes the bracing, earthy air of the Pacific Northwest.

Framing the album visually are two paintings by the late American artist Mark Rothko. Liner notes are by award-winning British writer Robert Macfarlane, famed for his works concerning landscape and the relationship between humanity and nature. Through the work of the band, Macfarlane, and Rothko, sound, word and visual combine into a fully immersive experience that is undeniably, completely SUNN O))).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the most infamous outfits in avant music, Sunn release their newest, eponymously titled behemoth. If you don't know them already, and you like cataclysmic distorted drone and world-shatteringly heavy lurches of slo-mo full-spectrum heft then give it a go! If that sounds good to you and you've not heard them before, then definitely give it a go! If that sounds bad, then you're wrong and it might not be the record for you. Long Live Sunn.

TRACK LISTING

1. XXANN
2. Does Anyone Hear Like Venom?
3. Butch's Guns
4. Mindrolling
5. Everett Moses
6. Glory Black

Kurt Vile returns with third release on Verve Records. The album title, 'Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me', illustrates his love for his home city, where he still resides and records most of his music.

Musically, the album includes everything fans have come to love about KV: jangly guitars, soaring instrumental passages, and lyrics that are both cheeky and sentimental at the same time.

This album depicts a musician who, in spite of having a majorly successful career, has stayed true to his roots and continues to represent artistic integrity.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brand new suite of laid-back slacker grooves and slo-mo rock from the king of laid-back, Kurt Vile. For a start, the superb video for standout single 'Chance To Bleed' (inc. appearance from Barry & Liam's favourite 19yo alcoholic poet) is brilliant, and it highlights a deep sense of fun and anti-serious tomfoolery. All wrapped in Vile's consistently brilliant musicianship.

Willow says: For his whole career, Kurt Vile has been strongly poised in the Neil Young lineage of cutting-edge country-infused rock guitarists. He has as much right as anyone going, then, to take something of a victory lap ten solo albums deep with Philadelphia's Been Good To Me, which sees Vile showing off all his tricks with some style. From some of the most rocking moments of his solo career to the warm blanket of his familiar, winding woodland drawl, Philadelphia... is one of the strongest statements Vile has made with a record, an endearing boast of his undeniable skill as a songwriter and guitar player. Skronk.

TRACK LISTING

1. Zoom 97
2. 99 BPM
3. Rock ‘o Stone
4. You Don’t Know Cuz It’s My Life
5. Chance to Bleed
6. Philly’s Been Good to Me
7. 99th Song
8. Red Room Dub
9 .Holiday OKV
10. Every Time I Look at You
11. Piano for Sarah
12. Avalanches of Snow

“I’ve always wanted to make work that’s a reflection of my life experience,” says singer-guitarist James Petralli, leader of venturous L.A.-based rockers White Denim. “The just-below-the-surface significance to ‘13’ as an album title is that I was born on the thirteenth of August. ‘13’ in numerology can signify independence, creativity, and a solid foundation, but inversely is often considered to be unlucky and can signify chaos and misfortune. Like everyone, I can certainly see both sides in my life.”

‘13’ also happens to be the thirteenth album of White Denim’s career. An incandescent, groove-heavy alchemy of rock, funk, dub, soul and down-dirty blues – and plenty more besides – it’s imbued with the same questing spirit that’s been the band’s trademark since first starting in Austin, Texas, some 20 years ago.

Petralli’s wide-ranging musical appetites have become more voracious over time. The sounds and textures of ‘13’ are informed by everyone from Scritti Politti to The Gap Band, Terry Reid to King Tubby, Caetano Veloso to John Cale, Stevie Wonder to ‘80s-era Steve Winwood. Such diversity is reflected in multi-faceted gems like “(God Created) Lock And Key”, “Only A Fool” and “That’s Rap”. The seed of the project is rooted in the irresistible “Chew Nails”. “It’s a straightforward glam-rock tune,” says Petralli. “My take on the ‘New York Groove’, which is itself a take on the Bo Diddley beat. It has a big ol’ guitar riff and a singalong chorus. It’s familiar territory for me, yet the vocal is perhaps more forward than most things I’ve done for the band. It’s the song that made me feel like I was definitely making a White Denim album.”

The duality of ‘13’ is immediately apparent. The pungent funk-blues of opener “(God Created) Lock And Key” begins with a piece of waggish self-mythology – “On the thirteenth day God created White Denim…” – but soon goes somewhere darker. “This is a Beefheart / Sun Ra sort of thing,” Petralli explains. “I hope that it’s a somewhat terrifying, startling, and visceral piece for everyone that hears it. Everything I say in that song is the truth. It's about power, generational cycles of abuse, shame, violence, and survival. The things that we all understand and know and see and push down to get through the day.”

Elsewhere, the temperate “Time Time” heads into the kind of soulful, horn-gilded territory that earmarked White Denim’s previous album, 2024’s critically lauded ‘12’. Here, Petralli addresses the roll of the years, creative freedom and the importance of family: “It’s a sort of promise that, as long as I’m alive, I will try to prioritise my wife and children and our relationships above all else.” This is a key theme of ‘13’. “I felt that I had to write about my life and experience as a middle-aged dad trying to do better for a family and make sense of this life through making art,” he adds.

A similar sensibility drives the fabulous “Earth To”, a hallucinatory piece of self-reflection that charts Petralli’s journey thus far. Though, as ever with White Denim, it also speaks to the universal. “If you zoom out a little bit, the song is ultimately a sort of takedown of the American dream,” he says.

Then there’s “Keep Calling Me (Baby)”, which rides a fine line between dubby calypso and shimmery sunshine-pop. Petralli likens it to “sort of Ace of Base meets Cyndi Lauper meets Roy Orbison in my mind. Nick Lowe’s ‘Jesus Of Cool’ tells me it’s OK to do whatever you want. He gave me permission to do this one.”

The song features band members Michael Hunter (keyboards) and Cat Clemons (guitar), alongside original drummer Josh Block, who, having also journeyed west from Texas in recent times, is now Petralli’s neighbour. Block’s presence on ‘13’ - alongside the likes of Matt Young (drums, percussion), Jesse Chandler (clarinet, sax, flute), Kosta Galanoupolis (bass), and Dawes siblings Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith – highlights both the fluid nature of latter-day White Denim and Petralli’s determination to honour the band’s initial directive. Also aboard is fellow original, bassist Steve Terebecki. “I wouldn’t call a project White Denim if it didn't include significant contributions from another founding member of the group,” asserts Petralli. “‘12’ and ‘13’ both feature Josh and Steve in various capacities. I recorded and arranged these last two records for the most part, but I really don’t ever want to be alone. Music has given me a place and purpose in this world. And it’s been the primary way I’ve connected with other people over the years.” ‘13’ proves that Petrali continues to do so. And in imperious style

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An unabashed tribute to rock and roll here from White Denim, with a roaring selection of distorted guitars and screaming gravelly vocals, rolling basses and pummeling percussion. Though there are moments of off-kilter funk and melodic oddities peppered around, this is at it's heart, a great rock record. If it ain't broke...

TRACK LISTING

Side A
(God Created) Lock & Key
Chew Nails
Only A Fool
Time Time
Crossfyre
Keep Calling Me Baby

Side B
1. Earth To
That’s Rap
3. Hired Hand #2
4. Ruby
5. Matchbook Baby
6. Quiet Moments
7. Drive Trucks

WU LYF the enigmatic Manchester-based band release 'A Wave That Will Never Break', their long-awaited second album.

Arriving 15 years after their debut 'Go Tell Fire to the Mountain', the record marks a brand-new chapter for the recently reunited band. Produced by Sonic Boom, Recorded between Lisbon and Wales in 2025, 'A Wave That Will Never Break' captures WU LYF sounding as vast and uncompromising as ever, it carries the scale of a sermon delivered at full volume, music that feels physical, devotional and cathartic.

Where once WU LYF embodied the restless energy of youthful defiance, they now channel something more refined, an enduring flame tempered by the humbling of time.

Their creative philosophy has evolved from reactive protest into something closer to wu wei: effortless action, flowing around systems of control rather than confronting them head-on, and in doing so, inspiring a reclamation of potential and presence.

WU LYF is Ellery Roberts, Joseph Manning, Evans Kati & Thomas McClung

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Super special record this. Arriving 15 years after their seminal debut 'Go Tell Fire To The Mountain', Manchester's very own WU LYF return. 'A Wave That Will Never Break' doesn't try and replicate 'Go Tell Fire To The Mountain' (that'd be impossible), but instead WU LYF develop that unbridled fire and intensity in to something truly amazing. With the 11-minute epic 'Tib St. Tabernacle' acting as the album's centrepiece, 'A Wave That Will Never Break' is full of that unique heart and kinship that WU LYF have always represented. Bold, meaningful and uncompromising, WU LYF have started their next chapter with their second masterpiece.

WORLD UNITE LOVE YOU FOREVER

TRACK LISTING

1. Love Your Fate
2. Robe Of Glory
3. Letting Go
4. The Fool
5. Tib St. Tabernacle
6. Wave
7. At The End Of The Day (It Is What It Is)