Back catalogue: Indie/Alternative

Review: Echo & The Bunnymen's first ever best-of compilation, first released in 1985, gets a reissue. Accruing all the hits, we begin with the seminal 'Rescue' before careening through 'Never Stop', 'The Killing Moon' and 'Seven Seas', recalling the new wave band's emotive drawl and gushing instrumentals, coinciding with the time in which their contemporaneous album, 'Songs To Learn and Sing', was released.

Review: Rhino have embarked on a grand reissue mission and plan to put out all of the Echo & The Bunnymen's first four albums. Here we have a remastered version of Ocean Rain on 180-gram black vinyl. It was the fourth of the band's albums and was related back in 1984. It reached number four on the UK Albums Chart thanks to singles like 'Silver', 'Seven Seas' and personal favourite 'The Killing Moon.' The album got the band back to the top of their game after the rather less than warm reception to previous album Porcupine the year before thanks to its new found romantic sweetness and the band's bittersweet melodies.

Review: Talk about taking your sweet time. Anyone want to hazard a guess at how long Blinking Lights & Other Revelations took to finish? Thought not. In truth, Eels started work on it in 1998, but it wouldn't see the light of day until 2005. Marking the start of a new era for the band, contractually at least - their deal with David Geffen and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Records having dissolved the previous year - the album was high concept, too.
As per frontman E, writing on the band's official website at the time of Blinking Lights' release, the record is about "God and all the questions relating to the subject of God." Suddenly the extended production period makes sense. Then you see it has 33 tracks listed on the sleeve and it all becomes clear. A classic piece of alternative rock with big, bold ideas, it should always be remembered as one of the first landmarks to come from America this millennium.

Review: When Mark Eitzel first unveiled 'The Ugly American' there were a few murmurs about the fact this was his second album of non-original material, seizing on moments from his back catalogue with a revisionist's eye (or ear). But this was missing the point, a collaborative concept sees work written during his American Music Club era given an injection of new inspiration thanks to a group of Greek musicians he hooked up with. Bringing winds, reeds, bouzouki and mandolins, among other instruments, the result is transcendental and yet familiar, a folk-ish journey through the mythologised landscapes of southern Europe as seen through the outsider's gaze, with a culture clash at play thanks to the western indie pop foundations. The combination works effortlessly, with some moments of real ingenuity, and better yet it will sound great on 180g vinyl.

Review: Multi-instrumentalist, music-maker, and singer-songwriter Elderbrook shares his second album 'Little Love' for ADA, channelling a mixture of big, bold electronic and more sensitive acoustic pop elements to express the lows, highs and neutrals of becoming a father. Speaking of "glimmers in your eye" and "being there if you need me", this is a promise of unconditional love in album form, with its overarching mood being one of surety.

Review: In many ways, the debut solo album from Ed O'Brien could have sounded like anything - the Radiohead guitarist has been involved in plenty of sonic experimentations with that outfit, while comrade in arms Thom Yorke has managed to triumph both on the indie rock and electronic club music circuits, elements that could easily have found their way onto this record. The truth is 'Earth' doesn't really sound like Radiohead, or most contemporary electronic permutations. You could almost argue there is an air of nostalgia running through the release, certainly 'Shangri-La' feels that way, shades of Madchester and the great indie-dance crossover days are more than audible. From there we have lo-fi pop edginess ('Banksters'), the sweet and innocent acoustic job 'Long Time Coming', and the breathy, loose, broken and floaty 'Olympik'. In short, it grooves, grows, ebbs and flows in a way that shows a true master at work.

Review: By the time they released "Amplified Heart" in 1994, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn had spent a decade churning out admired but relatively commercially unsuccessful "lite-jazz" albums. Then, on the back of a string of on-point club remixes (Todd Terry's chart-topping version of "Missing" included), the set surprisingly became a runaway success. To celebrate the album's 25th birthday, "Amplified Heart" has been given the audiophile reissue treatment. It suits the album's gently breezy, emotion-rich feel, with Thorn's evocative, lovelorn vocals perfectly matching Watt's sunset-friendly blend of acoustic guitars, soft-touch double bass, trip-hop style beats and Balearic-minded electronics. It remains one of the duo's greatest albums and should be in every discerning listener's collection.

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.