Juno Recommends Rock / Indie / Folk / Metal / Punk / 50s / 60s: Best of 2023

Review: Five years after they released their first EP, Cigarettes After Sex delivered their self-titled debut album in 2017 to a wave of anticipation. Tapping into our insatiable thirst for slow, melancholic music to melt away to, Greg Gonzalez's songwriting is steeped in American noir, all sad, twanging guitars with lots of reverb, barely there drums and an undercurrent of unease. It's not hard to see why they caught on, offering something a little more accessible than the languid whispers of early Low, but keeping haunted romanticism at the forefront of the sound. Now Partisan have repressed their debut album, so get busy and grab a copy if you haven't got one already.

Review: Shoegazers delight as Slowdive finally return with their first new album in six years. As you would expect, the band took their time working towards the perfect end result after lead singer and guitarist Neil Halstead laid down preliminary demos back in 2020. Obvious global crises impeded the progress until the band were able to reconvene and embark on two years worth of recording from those foundations until they reached the album we're presented with today (with a little help from Shawn Everett on mixing duties). As lead single 'kisses' intimates, the band's treasured dream-pop qualities remain intact while hinting at a more subtle, introverted sound than was heard on their standout self-titled album in 2017.

Review: I Inside the Old Year Dying is PJ Harvey's tenth studio long player but a first in some seven years. The last, The Hope Six Demolition Project, was a UK number one on the album charts and this one was again recorded with long-time creative collaborators John Parish and Flood. It is a vast sonic universe that is located "in a space between life's opposites, and between recent history and the ancient past." There is plenty of biblical imagery, Shakespearean references and lots of profound songwriting, as you would expect.

Review: American indie rock band the National rach their ninth studio album with First Two Pages of Frankenstein. It makes the start of a new chapter for the hugely popular outfit as they anchor their sounds in evocative melodies and lyrical narratives that are complex and enthralling throughout. The band produced the record at Long Pond Studios in New York with some high-level guests including Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens. It comes after busy touring years, two back-to-back albums and a period of creative block but suggests that was very much gotten over as it brings plenty of invention and originality.

Review: Everything But The Girl have transposed themselves from fragile indie pioneers to cross-fertilising their unique songwriting with drum & bass and house in the 90s, with the likes of 'Walking Wounded' becoming unexpected dancefloor anthems. True experimenters, the duo of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt now continue to tap into today's zeitgeist - making their comeback in 2023, and arriving without prior announcement, this time they turned their tender production choices to styles such as future house and UK garage. Echoes of Bicep and Overmono teem on this record, as heartfelt retellings of personal strife and brushes with death make up its lyrical subjects.

Review: Boygenius is the collaborative project of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, and 'The Record' is their next album, scheduled for March 2023. Combining pristine indie pop gloss with melancholic lyrics and experimental production, highlights such as 'Emily, I'm Sorry' amount to paeans for the death of relationships and braving extreme weather for the sake of love. Masterful harmonies dart and glide across each production mix, cementing the bandmembers' vocal abilities.

Review: Sufjan Stevens is nothing short of an enigma. Capable of shapeshifting in almost unfathomable ways, he's the sort of artist that can release a spellbinding and technically astounding collection of piano duets, written to score a ballet, but give tracks names like 'And I Shall Come To You Like A Stormtrooper In Drag Serving Imperial Realness'. High brow while totally accessible, his back catalogue to date is one for which you'd struggle to find anyone who doesn't appreciate, once they've taken the time to listen. Here we are then, mere months after the aforementioned song and its parent album landed, getting to grips with another very different beast. Javelin certainly shares in the beauty that ran through its predecessor - Reflections - but whereas the last LP was relatively minimalist, here things are often the opposite. Big, rousing, 1960s-70s style pop numbers, soulful journeyman acoustic with backing chorus, theatrical soft rock and plenty more besides.

Review: This Stupid World is an album from Yo La Tenga that sounds more live than anything the band has done for a decade. It's their first new record in five years and was created top to bottom by the band itself, building on their strong foundations yet bringing plenty of fresh new ideas. All three band members are going for it throughout almost every moment of every track, so it has an urgent, of-the-moment feel that is immediately impactful. It comes on limited transparent blue vinyl - a great record for indie fans whether or not they are familiar with this band.

Review: Released in 1994 on the ever-incredible Creation Records, Ride's Carnival of Light was the band's third full length, and didn't so much mark a shift but a progression in the journey of the critically acclaimed outfit, who still retain the shoegaze and noise pop elements we all fell head over heels for, but look to draw on more traditional British sounds, too. The result is something that might be described as a laddish, plugged-in take on folk, at times at least. Sadly, this wasn't quite what critics said about it, and after successive slamming in the press the band began to look unfavourably at the release, too, with frontman and guitarist Andy Bell even going so far as to describe it as "carnival of shite". More recently, he managed to make peace with it, and revisiting the songs now reveals myriad classics waiting to be rediscovered and appreciated out of the context and weight of expectations they were born into at the time.

Review: If you don't know what Nottingham duo Sleaford Mods are all about by now then where have you been? They lay down raw, ragged MIDI beats that are deceptively simply but impossibly catch, with pressing social commentary and Tory baiting lyrics over the top. This new album UK Grim - a play on UK Grime, no doubt - is even more dance floor focussed than any before it. The gritty reality of modern life and all its pitfalls are in sharp focus throughout making it another gem from this much loved duo that also somewhat redefines their sound in new ways.

Review: This 20th Anniversary reissue of the The White Stripes' Elephant will make you roar once more. Jack and Meg White's raw and minimalist garage rock, which they've been making since 1997, is by now a staple of the international rock market identity - and of course, the blinding hits 'Seven Nation Army', 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself' and 'The Hardest Button To Button' all feature on their debut here. Celebrating the now cemented legacy of a wholly original duo, this anniversary edition includes a bonus disc of alternative tracks, some of which come in a format of much import, mono. And that's not to mention a string of covers and rarities. It also comes in a deluxe bookback edition, with liner notes by Jack White himself!

Review: Black Country, New Road marks a new chapter as a six piece with this new album of previously unreleased music. It was recorded by therm at the Bush Hall venue in London, a legendary place where they played six special shows at the end of last year. This follows a busy and sold out run of shows and the success of 'Ants From Up There' as Lewis Evans, May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, Luke Mark, Tyler Hyde and Charlie Wayne find some of their highest nights. Critical and fan praise followed them everywhere last year and that will only continue with this, we sense.

Review: The Lemonheads' Come On Feel The Lemonheads is a rejuvenatory album of power-pop goodness and this double LP/CD reissue of the album - their sixth, from 1993 - will certainly cleanse your bad vibes once more. Led by Evan Dando, The Lemonheads have been making catchy, easygoing, melodicentric hits since the late 80s. 'Into Your Arms', 'It's About Time' and 'Big Gay Heart' all feature, not to mention guest appearances by Belinda Carlisle and Rick James - it's a stew that contributed readily to its stonking commercial success. This reissue celebrates the album's 30th anniversary, and includes a bonus disc of alternative/acoustic tracks, covers and curiosities. It also comes in a deluxe bookback edition with liner notes by Dando himself.

Review: Tarantula is one of those bittersweet moments in the history of UK rock & roll. On the one hand, it's a fantastic album that showcases the natural talent and innovative approach to song craft that Ride had first grabbed attention with. On the other, it marked the beginning of the end for the group, or more accurately, the first chapter following the end - finally getting a release after the outfit had called time and gone their separate ways. Still, in so far as swan songs go, there are plenty to celebrate here. Tarantula is a purist's rock & roll extravaganza at times, with its gritty riffs and forward momentum, tracks like 'Burnin'' perhaps best typify this, or those looking for a taste of the genre's 1960s origin story might look to 'Deep Inside My Pocket'. But then it's all much more complex than that, too, with the reflective indie balladry of 'Castle On The Hill', noise pop on 'Gonna Be Alright', and hypnotising layers on 'Ride The Wind'.

Review: Glass Animals are one of the hottest English indie rock bands out there right now. Their second studio album How to Be a Human Being came back in August 2016 was appreciated for its sense of wonder and lasting musical impression. Each of the tracks in the album is represented by one of the people on the original album cover and this reissue comes in the form of a zoetrope picture disc. Inspiration for the people on the cover came from people the band met and stories they were told during their travels on tour promoting their previous album.

Review: God bless XL Recordings. The UK label has been at the forefront of boundary pushing music since its inception, and almost 35 years remains a seal of quality. A constant source of inspiring surprises and new sonic experiences. The kind of organisation that will take a punt on British polymath Jai Paul's demo album, which, by all accounts, is pretty hard to describe, let alone define. More so, the type of team that would, eight years earlier, support and release one of the artist's earliest songs, 'BTSTU'. Coming full circle, that tune closes this collection of stuff produced around the same time, all of which was going to form the debut album, Bait Ones. One low-quality CD-R of the work stolen and then leaked online later, and the artist stepped away from music until the end of the last decade, when this "perfectly imperfect" LP was finally allowed to see the light of day. A lo fi, glitchy, trippy, granular, sexy sound that owes as much to hip hop, pop and r&b as experimental noise, ambient dub, and electronic soul.

Review: It's funny to think about the Blur v Oasis contest that defined British music in the mid-1990s. Then bright young things looking to shake things up after years of electronic rave dominance, the fact so much emphasis was placed on these two bands makes for an incomplete story of those times, while their individual output was not quite polar but certainly harder to compare than headlines suggested. Skip forward a few decades and differences are now pronounced. The Gallagher Brothers have pursued relatively familiar sounds in the 21st Century. Blur, or at least Damon Albarn, created a 3D animated virtual band while overseeing the first few editions of the globally acclaimed Manchester International Festival. Now, 33 years after the debut single, Blur return with studio LP number nine, and it's a stunner. Not so much growing old gracefully as tackling challenges that come with it, it's though proving, poignant and grittily woozy.

Review: In one of those unique cases where a compilation eclipses the studio albums, New Order's Substance is often considered the definitive representation of the band in their prime. It's understandable given it pulled together all their singles up to 1987, but equally they re-recorded classics like 'Confusion' and 'Temptation' so everything fitted together more naturally. As a result, Substance is a more cohesive listen than many similar offerings might be and these singles remain some of the finest to ever emerge from the UK's alternative music scene. Repressed and remastered, it's sounding better than ever.

Review: Scottish indie-pop darlings Belle and Sebastian are back with a second album in a year. Late Developers is their 10th overall and came as rather a surprise out of the leftfield when it was first announced at short notice. The first single 'I Don't Know What You See In Me' is a big, rousing, infectious pop tune that reminded us that this band is far from done yet. It is a creative powerhouse that comes some 25 years after their first release and is full of the magical hooks this band is so well known and loved for. From big and energetic cut to dance-ready jams via a co-write with young pop composer Pete Ferguson, this is a real doozy.

Review: Music From Dreams is a label that never fails to live up to its name. Next to soundtrack your gentle passage from awake to whatever comes next is The Zenmenn and John Moods. The Zenmenn debuted on this label back in April 2021 with Entry The Zenmenn which showed off their beat-making credentials. Not much else is known about them and the same can be said of John Moods. What we do know is that they make superbly horizontal music together as is demonstrated here. These are lush instrumental tracks that lean on folk, soft and yacht rock to help you empty your mind of all woes.

Review: Grammy-nominated artist M83 is a famously prolific producer and as such new long player Fantasy is his ninth over the course of the last 20 years. His music is not about escaping but about transporting you to whole new worlds entirety. He can do soundtracks, stage compositions, studio records and plenty in between, always with a rare grasp of time, space and emotion. This one was written with live performance in mind so it finds him very present both vocally and lyrically with plenty of dazzling musicianship and exuberant grooves.

Review: Five years on since their last, Young Fathers are finally back with their fourth album (if you don't include their introductory mixtapes Tape One and Tape Two). Heavy Heavy finds the trio of Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and G. Hastings embracing a back to basics approach formed around working in their own basement studio, keeping the equipment turned on and allowing the ideas to flow freely. Cherry picking the most fruitful moments from these extended sessions has resulted in a striking, invigorating album which bursts forth with the opening salvo of 'Rice' and 'I Saw', clutching you tight and not letting go for the duration of the album. It's been worth the wait.

Review: You know a band has iconic status when not only their LPs but all their singles get a fresh repress. If there's one group who warrant such indulgence, it's New Order, and amidst the many classics being spruced up for a new audience here is the evergreen The Perfect Kiss, originally released in 1985 and interestingly the first New Order single to have also been included on an album, Low-life. As well as the title track, there are some essential B-sides in the form of 'The Kiss Of Death' and 'Perfect Pit', but really it's about the special extended version of 'The Perfect Kiss' - a shining emblem of everything great about the 12" single.

Review: London retro soul specialists PREP almost feel lost in the 2020s. Everything from their sound, which is pretty unique in today's musical landscape, to release and merchandise artwork screams mid-late-20th Century modernism, owing as much to the crimson and purple-hued aesthetics of classic Miami iconography as anything more recent years have offered us. Meanwhile, aurally speaking, their output straddles lines between funk, soul, synth pop and yacht (those who know, will know), all of which have an ability to conjure strong images of easier, simpler times gone by. 'As It Was', a cover of the Harry Styles pop anthem, takes things into particularly seductive, slap bass and sax infused atmospheres, the air thick with intimate suggestion, which may or may not conjure thoughts of George Michael's 'Careless Whisper' letting loose at a boat party.