I’ve grown apart from trap as a genre over the years, which is exactly why DON’T BE DUMB caught me off guard in the best way. This album feels like the kind that rewards time and attention, one you keep coming back to and notice something new with each listen. After such a long wait, A$AP Rocky could have easily played it safe, but instead he delivers a project that feels expressive, confident and, most importantly, fun. It sounds like an artist who trusts his instincts completely rather than chasing expectations.What stood out to me immediately was the production. The album pulls from so Read more ...

The opening track  – “Ālibek’agnimi” (“አልበቃኝም” in its original title) – is a cool, close-to six-minute soul instrumental on which the organ suggests an at-least passing familiarity with Booker T. Jones. The tempo is slow, the moodiness enhanced by a smoky, wandering saxophone.Next, the similarly lengthy “Ānichī keto gidi yeleshimi” (“አንቺ ከቶ ግድ የለሺም”). Slightly less leisurely, its clipped guitar follows a reggae pattern. Again, despite a section of keyboard vamping and stabbing brass, the saxophone is what stands out. Wandering up and down the scale it then settles, fusing Read more ...

I have enjoyed Scenes From Above (Blue Note) more than any other album from Julian Lage since Modern Lore (Mack Avenue, 2018). There are many reasons for that, but the simplest is that it reunites the jazz guitarist with the drummer on the earlier album, the magnificently empathetic Kenny Wolleson.Wolleson has written of the importance of the drummer bringing her/his sense of structure and placement to music, and the way he consistently helps to shape its flow is ever-present, whether he is contributing to an irresistibly strong groove, as on “Talking Drum”, making a pulse-less texture Read more ...

Thrash metal’s “big four”, the ones who originally set the genre rolling, are, famously, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. These are American bands. In Europe, another band has a decent claim. They are Germany’s Kreator, whose early work, particularly 1986’s Pleasure to Kill, boasts venomous attack the equal of any peer. Decades later, their 16th studio album sees them offer similar velocity, if with more melodic finesse.For Kreator, wider appreciation was a long time coming. Their global breakthrough came with 2005’s Enemy of God (their 11th album!), and they’ve since Read more ...

The term “post-punk” is much overused to describe music, not least by we music writers. It usually covers anything with punk’s outsider attitude but boasting an arty, tricky musical ambition beyond 1977’s spit’n’roar. Not all music described thus sounds as if it might have bothered the indie charts between 1978 and 1984, but Dry Cleaning do. Their third album’s bubbling combination of musical scratchiness and impassively delivered spoken word is pure post-punk. It’s also an intriguing and likeable listen.The rhythm throughout is a groovy plod, guitars wilfully relishing atonal skronk, coming Read more ...

There’s a slight “Sympathy For the Devil” tone to the opening seconds of “Pendulum Swing”, the first track on the US country adjacent stylist and former Grammy nominee Courtney Marie Andrews’ ninth studio album – the descending piano figure, the circling percussion. As the song opens out, it develops into a dark-light exercise in contrasts, along the lines of the more muted moments of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Ambiance set, the ensuing nine tracks evince a similar restraint, where a low-key vibe is punctuated by flashes of gospel-esque drama. A lot of Valentine, Andrews' first album on Read more ...

In recent years, Sleaford Mods have moved on somewhat from sounding like an insistent and angry drunk yelling over a cheap Casio keyboard. Fortunately, not too much, though.Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson’s potty-mouthed, minimalist punk-funk is still one of the sharper musical commentaries of the UK’s seeming demise and their style fits the subject matter like a glove. Angry, harsh and taking absolutely no prisoners. Sleaford Mods are the perfect soundtrack to a country that over-estimates its worth, while blithely strutting towards the edge of a steep cliff. As John Peel used to say about Read more ...

Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong is the debut album by the London-based duo Woo. Originally issued on the Sunshine Series imprint in May 1982, it was subsequently picked up for a 1987 US release by the LA-based Independent Project Records label. After this, Woo's second album, It's Cosy Inside, came out in 1989 on Independent Project Records. There was no UK version of the follow-up album back then; a US reissue on Drag City followed in 2012.When Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong appeared in the UK in 1982, NME’s review said “How strange that in a year so packed Read more ...

One of the founding partners of theartsdesk back in the day, author of the immersive Manu Chao biography, Clandestino, roving world music journalist, composer and "nomad pianist" Peter Culshaw released his previous set, Music from the Temple of Light, in 2023. Surrender to Love is spun from the same threads that were woven through that Temple of Light – mixing an ambient piano as a grounding for the music, with a range of Eastern and Middle Eastern instruments and voices, and a ruling spirit and approach that’s drawn from the Sufi wing of spirituality – a music and practice associated Read more ...

That was clever. The original Wet Leg – singer Rhian Teasdale and guitarist Hester Chambers – instantly snagged global attention with a droll novelty single, launched with a knowing faux-rustic video, about a sexy piece of furniture. After scoring a chart-topping multi-genre debut album, the duo recruited three noisy, hirsute male musician-writers, toughened up, and metamorphosed into one of the hottest indie combos on the planet.  That evolution is crystallised in their second album, another smash and – in its flawlessness –  a 21st-century equivalent of the Human League’s epochal Read more ...

2025 was another year of flaunting for the ever impressive beast that is female-led pop domination. The now iconic line up of legends and future greats, and their growing class of inspired apprentices, have punctuated the year with defiance and celebration in the form of fantastic pop songs. The prevalence across festival stages, TikTok trends, and radio are telling of the power that this entity basks in but doesn’t take away from the deserved success of most of it. Lady Gaga’s Mayhem took the crown for me this year, it’s an all round well planned and polished album with a perfectly Read more ...

“Ace tribute to The Doors” is what the poster says. And after The Fire Doors stroll on stage and blast into “Break on Through (to the Other Side),” Jim Morrison and Co’s January 1967 debut single, it’s instantly clear this band has the chops.The bass – played left-handed on a keyboard balanced upon a Crumar Mojo 61 Hammond-organ style synth – pumps relentlessly. The spikey guitar penetrates. The drumming swings, jazzily. The keyboard fills are baroque, filigreed. The singer, though he doesn’t look exactly like Jim Morrison or attempt to, inhabits the persona of The Doors' frontman Read more ...