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Review: "In Rainbows", Radiohead's seventh album, finally gets a physical release! It's one thing downloading this landmark album, but to actually hold this is something special. Not only do you get increased sound quality, but you also get the amazing artwork from Stanley Donwood. This album includes "Nude", a live favourite for many years that was originally written during the "OK Computer" sessions. More minimal that their "Kid A" period, "In Rainbows" does something that very few albums have done - its sound is distinct from previous Radiohead albums, but is still clearly Radiohead. Hail to the kings, they are back on top form.

Review: Since they emerged in 2019, there's been a fair amount of hype around Black Country, New Road, with one noted media outlet calling them, "the best band in the world right now". While that might be a little over-the-top, there's no doubting that they're a unique proposition - as this much-anticipated debut album on Ninja Tune proves. Stylistically, they're hard to pin down, variously fusing post-punk guitars, fuzzy Stereolab synths and folksy strings with thoughtful, story-telling spoken word vocals (think Arab Strap), restless bass guitar and drums and sax sounds that have more in common with the more experimental end of jazz than alternative rock. It's an usual mixture, but a hugely alluring and surprisingly coherent one. For The First Time is, then, a genuinely impressive debut album.

Review: Given that Isle of White twosome Wet Leg (AKA late twenty-somethings Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers) broke through with an insanely infectious chunk of monosyllabic rap-sporting post-punk pop, the stupidly catchy 'Chaise Longue', it seems fitting that the song lands early on their self-titled debut album - track two, to be precise. While the set features little else quite as upbeat, energetic and unashamedly joyous, it's still a boisterous and at times brilliant debut full of tongue-in-cheek lyrics, low-slung post-punk intent, raucous references to vintage '80s and '90s indie, weighty guitar riffs and ear-catching melodic motifs. It's the kind of set capable of pushing them towards super-stardom and will undoubtedly be warmly received by critics.

Review: In interviews promoting Fossora, her tenth album, Bjork joked that it started life as "her Clarinet album" - a nod to the set's extensive (and sometimes experimental) use of regular and bass clarinet instrumentation. Really, though, it's her lockdown album, and one partly inspired by the grief she felt following the passing of her mother in 2018. In many ways it's an astonishing set, with the Icelandic artist adding her own distinctive lyrics and vocals - still effortlessly emotional and addictive after all these years - to tracks that brilliantly fuse, mix and mangle red-lined tribal drums, fuzzy IDM style electronics, brass band arrangements, jazz instrumentation and, on the inspired title track, increasingly intense, break-neck dancefloor rhythms that tend towards the gabber end of the spectrum. Unusual, entertaining and utterly beguiling; it's another brilliant album from a genuine one-off.

Review: Following a couple of years spent re-releasing many of her classic albums, alongside sets featuring demo versions of the same songs, Polly Jean Harvey is finally ready to release a new album - her first for seven long years. Reunited with long-time collaborators John Parish and Flood, Harvey delivers alluring, at times otherworldly songs - delivered beautifully and with more than a hint of world-weary emotions - backed by sparse, effects-laden instrumentation, metronomic grooves and plenty of pastoral, folk-influenced intent. We've not listened to the lyrics intently enough (yet) to adequately discuss their themes, but in advance Harvey's label promised "biblical images and references to Shakespeare" amongst the introspection and hard-worn commentary.

Review: Exactly pinpointing the essence of Little Dragon's sound is tough - it's always soulful and groovy, but it's not soul in the classic sense and there's plenty of other musical influences in the mix - but by now it barely matters. Each of their albums thus far has been special, and Slugs of Love is no exception. The Swedish four-piece impresses early with the head-nodding grooves, echoing house pianos and swirling atmospherics of 'Frisco', opts for a New York no-wave disco flex on 'Slugs of Love', and offers a perfect platform for mic man JID to the warped, hip-hop-goes-synth-pop shuffle of 'Stay'. There are highlights aplenty elsewhere across the album too, with our picks including Damon Albarn hook-up 'Glow', the moody house-not-house of 'Gold' and the picturesque, breakbeat-driven pop breeziness of 'Tumbling Dice'.

Review: Social Registry brings you Blood On The Wall's new album 'Liferz'. Having gone from hometown heroes to national fan favourites and critical darlings, the band has earned its reputation as top of the rock heap.
Putting out raucously fun records, this is a portrait of a band at the top of their game - somehow they have managed to get even more awesome.

Review: Long Island outfit The Lemon Twigs frequently leave critics confounded and confused, in part because their shape-shifting style tends towards the over-the-top and grandiose. Rooted in a love of 70s glam, the theatrical rock pomp of Queen and a tongue-in-cheek love of overblown rock operas, they seem to delight regular listeners while rubbing reviewers up the wrong way. On Everything Harmony, their new album, they've re-set their influences once more, delivering a blend of folk-rock, Simon & Garfunkel style folk revivalism, prime Beatles and the close harmony bliss of the Beach Boys, with a dash of fuzzy garage rock and giddy psychedelia thrown in. It's well-crafted and expertly executed stuff that's hugely easy-going and enjoyable, whatever sniffy critics may say,

Review: Having previously celebrated dance and pop hits of the 1980s, the long-running Now That's What I Call Music series - itself established that decade - has turned its attention to "alternative". It's a catch-all term that basically includes anything with indie roots, meaning a mix of goth, post-punk, indie, new wave, indie-dance and skewed synth-pop that emerged from the underground rather than the A&R departments of major labels. There's plenty of big hits and iconic cuts stretched across the four discs (think The Smiths, Simple Minds, Joy Division, REM, The Jam, New Order, Pixies, Sisters of Mercy etc), alongside lesser-celebrated favourites from the likes of Pop Will Eat Itself, Tom Robinson (the decidedly Balearic 'Atmospherics', which was co-written by Peter Gabriel), Sugacubes, Kissing The Pink and Big Audio Dynamite.

Review: Richard H Kirk was rightly praised for 2020's Shadow of Fear, his first album since turning Cabaret Voltaire into a solo project back in 2014, and his recently follow-up EP, Shadow of Funk. Both distilled the essence of the Cabs' club-friendly industrial funk sound, re-formatting it for the 21st century. Dekadrone, though, is a different proposition altogether. Focused not on clubs but on immersive home listening, the four-phase, single track set removes Kirk's clanking, often paranoid beats in favour of dystopian aural textures (think dark, droning tones, abstract electronics, apocalyptic ambience and dirt-encrusted samples). Those who prefer the Cabs' more experimental, ambient-leaning works will love it.

Review: Sharon Van Etten is in a philosophical mood on her sixth album, We've Been Going About This All Wrong, offering up a series of songs concerned with considering "how we feel, mourn and reclaim our agency when we think the world may be falling apart". While her lyrical inspirations may be weighty, the American singer-songwriter has a knack of cloaking her deeply personal words - delivered emotively, as you'd expect - in beautiful arrangements. Some of these bristle with her trademark "dark drums" and breath-takingly poignant synth sounds, while others are sparse and stripped-back, with just an acoustic guitar backing Van Etten's voice. She's kept the album under wraps - refusing, surprisingly, to release any teaser singles - but it's definitely been worth the wait.

Review: Ever-changing Slovenian collective Laibach seems to have mellowed with age, with the band's inherent desire to court controversy (see their 2015 performances in North Korea for a relatively recently example) currently curtailed. Love Is Still Alive, which marks their first new music since the release of last year's well-received album Wir Sind das Volk, is actually an "extension" of the music they wrote to soundtrack the 2019 film 'Iron Sky -The Coming Race'. It is, they say, a "trip through space music genres of recent decades" (albeit with bonus nods to country, pop and so on) that loosely tells the story of a spaceship full of post-apocalyptic survivors making their way across the solar system. It's a lot of fun, all told, with the band expertly showcasing the breadth of their musical knowledge as well as skip-fulls of imagination.

Review: The Midnight's latest Heroes is a stark display of the musical evolution of the New York duo. A band that started as a synth heavy proposition, extensive touring across the globe (including a headline at London's Brixton Academy) and the desire not to repeat themselves in creative terms has led to the bigger vision and wider appeal of what their label calls "fully-realised, arena-worthy songs".
Heroes is the final part in a trilogy of albums that started with 2018's Kids, followed in 2020 by Monsters. "For me, Kids is self-knowledge, Monsters is self-love, and then Heroes is empathy," said singer Tyler Lyle. "I got into depth psychology and this idea of aetiology, the way a human forms. The world doesn't get better but we do. We grow into ourselves. We grow into our voice."
Still, Heroes remains definitely more a case of evolution than revolution - there's still more than a hint of the gorgeous synth sounds in evidence, but with a lyrical maturity and smartness that gives even its most pop moments an unexpected twist.

Review: In her solo work, cult Melbourne musician Carla Del Forno has previously shown an aptitude for blurring the boundaries between slow-motion new wave, lo-fi immersive pop, outsider indie haziness, "dub damaged" dreaminess, trippy ambient soundscapes and the kind of krautrock-influenced bliss once perfected by Broadcast. Now based in the Australian bush, Del Forno has built on this distinctive, hard-to-pigeonhole sound on her latest album, which also mines the more laidback end of post-punk pop for inspiration. It's a tricky album to accurately describe, all told, but one blessed with a distinctive feel and sound - one reflective of her relative isolation, love of insomnia-fuelled late night recording sessions and the uniquely sweet but weary sonics of her voice. Like her previous albums, 'Come Around' is a triumph.

Review: Fans of luxurious, bittersweet, grown-up synth-pop rejoice - Junior Boys are back with their first album in six years! The Canadian twosome's music has lost none of its depth and sparkle, with Waiting Game containing the same key ingredients as its predecessors - namely dreamy, warming chords, soft-focus drum machine rhythms, melancholic melodies, occasional guitars and the distinctive, evocative vocals of front man Jeremy Greenspan. It's a formula that rarely fails if truth be told, so it's no surprise to find that Waiting Game is a genuinely strong set. Our picks of a very strong bunch include the simmering, sunset-friendly warmth of the CD-closing title track and the hushed, ultra-deep shuffle of 'Night Walk', where bubbly electronics, woozy pads and lo-fi electronic drums catch the ear.

Review: Almost seven years have now passed since Sean Dickson delivered his debut album under the now familiar Hifi Sean alias, the colourful blend of house, disco and downtempo sounds that is 'Ft'. On his belated sophomore set, Dickson has decided to aim higher, not only joining forces with long-serving British soul singer-songwriter David McAlmont, but also by opting for an expansive sound that makes greater use of sinewy strings and organic instrumentation. The results are undeniably impressive, with McAlmont's honeyed voice rising above backing tracks that fit between post trip-hop British soul and dancefloor-baiting takes on Dickson's beloved house. Highlights include synth-house hit 'All In The World', the crackling, subtly P-funk influenced 'Maybe', and the 'Unfinished Symphony' style loveliness of 'Beautiful'.

Review: Two years on from the release of her acclaimed mixtape-style full length debut, What We Draw, Kathy Yaeji Lee returns to XL Recordings with her debut studio album With a Hammer. Conceived (lyrically at least) as an examination of the singer-songwriter-producer's relationship with anger, the album sees Lee expand on her house/hyper-pop-influenced trademark sound via nods to trip-hop, rock, drum & bass and more, with the addition of - for the first time in her career - live instrumentation. Of course, amongst the musical tweaks and collaborations (Lorraine James, Nourished By Time, K Wata and Enganet all feature), there are still plenty of nods to her pop-leaning productions of old, not least bi-lingual vocals (she often sings in Korean as well as English) and a sense of sonic style that has always been one of the aural hallmarks of Lee's work.

Review: Given their roots as an all-female band helmed by two sisters, it's not surprising that Northumbrian folk stars the Unthanks have used their platform to deliver numerous albums inspired by, or made in tribute to, creative women. Perhaps the most famous of these is 2017's 'Diversions Volume 4: The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake', which first hit stores in 2017. Now reissued, the album sees them deliver interpretations of poems and songs written by Nick Drake's mother, Molly, whose incredible work only came to light following her death in 1993. It's an inspired and evocative collection all told, with sweet renditions of Drake's songs - laid to tape in typical Unthanks fashion, with the Unthank sisters' harmony vocals accompanied by evocative folk instrumentation - accompanied by acapella readings of some of her thoughtful and emotive poems.

Review: Sean Bowie's fifth full-length as Yves Tumor arrives with an epic title (the academically minded will be debating its meaning for years to come), a grandiose electro-rock/post-punk goes-electroclash sound, and a bagful of valedictory reviews. It's basically an extension of Bowie's previous work with a few twists, but that's no bad thing; after all, the artist's distinctive sound and strong songs have always been an impressive calling card. Highlights are plentiful, from the fizzing, 21st century punk-funk of 'Lovely Sewer', and the Prince-does-Nine Inch Nails-flex of 'Parody', to the alternately jangling and sleazy 'Operator', and the post-ESG dancefloor heaviness of 'Fear Evil Like Fire'.

Review: A warm welcome back to perennial genre-benders Hot Chip, who return to stores after three long years with their eighth album, some 21 years after making their debut. Freakout/Release is no dramatic change in direction, but instead a further distillation of what has always made the band so appealing - a trademark fusion of synth-pop, loved-up house sounds, lilting and sometimes melancholic lead vocals, loose-limbed organic drums, nods to Prince and an ability to craft killer hooks. There are highlights aplenty, from the gravelly live hip-hop funk of 'The Evil That Men Do' (where rapper Cadence Weapon delivers a star turn) and the subtly post-punk influenced, saucer-eyed brilliance of 'Hard To Be Funky' (featuring Lou Hayter), to the classic Hot Chip sing-along flex of 'Time' and the krautrock-tinged 'Out of My Depth'.