fri 04/04/2025

New Music reviews, news & interviews

Album: Miki Berenyi Trio - Tripla

Tim Cumming

I saw the Miki Berenyi Trio play a warmly received sold out set at the Lexington last autumn, at which many of the songs now coming out on Tripla ("three" in Hungarian) had their live previews, alongside a few from the Lush years – the likes of “Kiss Chase” and “Ladykillers” – and Piroshka, the four-piece that emerged briefly from the ashes of the 2016 Lush reunion.

Album: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Death Hilarious

Guy Oddy

Pigsx7 have hardly got a reputation for penning tender and soulful ballads, but Death Hilarious is a particularly aggressive and punishing album even by their standards. Taking cues from Black Sabbath’s heft, Motorhead’s “bend not stab” sound and soul shaking noise rock, their new album is the aural equivalent of being mugged by a gang of feral kids and being left feeling particularly battered by the experience.

Album: Elton John and Brandi Carlile - Who...

Liz Thomson

Spring may have sprung, but there’s little in life to truly raise the sprits, so this week’s release of Who Believes in Angels? the much-...

Album: Erlend Apneseth - Song Over Støv

Kieron Tyler

A pizzicato violin opens Song Over Støv. Gradually, other instruments arrive: bowed violin, a fluttering flute, pattering percussion, an ominous...

Music Reissues Weekly: Yeah Man, It's Bloody...

Kieron Tyler

The sticker on the front cover says “The heaviest proto-metal compilation ever released.” And considering the label behind Yeah Man, It's Bloody...

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Album: Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt - Loose Talk

Graham Fuller

A match made in urban nightlife and the mysteries of everyday living

Album: Will Smith - Based on a True Story

Ibi Keita

Big Willie’s back - but maybe he should’ve stayed home

Album: Perfume Genius - Glory

Joe Muggs

Album seven from an artist carving out his own space in the most modernist of ways

Album: Alison Krauss & Union Station - Arcadia

Tim Cumming

Their first album in 14 years looks hard at the past, and its role in the present

Lauren Mayberry, Barrowland, Glasgow review - solo star stays too close to the day job

Jonathan Geddes

The Chvrches singer mixed some great tunes with an overly heavy sound.

Album: Toria Wooff - Toria Wooff

Kieron Tyler

Assured but too measured debut album from Americana-inclined singer-songwriter

Music Reissues Weekly: Too Far Out - Beat, Mod & R&B From 304 Holloway Road 1963-1966

Kieron Tyler

Maverick producer Joe Meek’s maximum-impact approach to the beat-group scene

Album: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco - I Said I Love You First

Thomas H Green

An album by a pair of loved-up Hollywood celebs that is, whisper it, rather good

Album: The Horrors - Night Life

Thomas H Green

A new line-up proves no hindrance to a band bringing electro-rock zip to the darkness

Mercury Rev, Islington Assembly Hall review - the august US psychedelic explorers cover all bases

Kieron Tyler

Balance is maintained between the anticipated and the spontaneous

Lizz Wright, Barbican review - sweet inspiration

Mark Kidel

Soul, jazz and gospel seamlessly mixed

Wardruna, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - Einar Selvik's Norsemen return to Mercia in triumph

Guy Oddy

Operatic neo-pagans’ magnificent show is an uplifting call for unity

Album: Billy Hart Quartet - Just

Sebastian Scotney

The drum legend's group in perfect balance

Album: Greentea Peng - Tell Dem It's Sunny

Guy Oddy

South Londoner’s smoky sophomore album is loaded with dope tunes

Music Reissues Weekly: Norma Tanega - I Don't Think It Will Hurt If You Smile

Kieron Tyler

Cult album from 1971 which deserves its status as a lost classic

Album: The Loft - Everything Changes, Everything Stays The Same

Kieron Tyler

Belated debut album from the early Creation Records mainstays

Album: Jason Isbell - Foxes in the Snow

Joe Muggs

Small stories, big talent from the Alabaman storyteller extraordinaire

First Person: singer-songwriter David Gray on how the songs on his new album came to him

David Gray

One of this century's most successful British singers still finds magic in the act of creation

Album: Steven Wilson - The Overview

Graham Fuller

Infectious prog concept LP ponders Earth's insignificance and what lies beyond

Album: Coheed and Cambria - The Father of Make Believe

Ellie Roberts

An impressive welcome back to the group's imaginitive universe

Album: Reg Meuross, Fire & Dust: A Woody Guthrie Story

Liz Thomson

At once a celebration and an exploration of the timeless Dust Bowl Balladeer

Music Reissues Weekly: Liverpool Sunset - The City After Merseybeat

Kieron Tyler

Times changed, but the city which birthed The Beatles still came up with the goods

Album: Lady Gaga - Mayhem

Joe Muggs

The godmother of theatre-kid pop is back! Back!! BACK!!!

Album: Spiritbox - Tsunami Sea

Tom Carr

Second album from Canadian metalcore band is a sonic assault yet graceful and beautiful

Footnote: a brief history of new music in Britain

New music has swung fruitfully between US and UK influences for half a century. The British charts began in 1952, initially populated by crooners and light jazz. American rock'n'roll livened things up, followed by British imitators such as Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard. However, it wasn't until The Beatles combined rock'n'roll's energy with folk melodies and Motown sweetness that British pop found a modern identity outside light entertainment. The Rolling Stones, amping up US blues, weren't far behind, with The Who and The Kinks also adding a unique Englishness. In the mid-Sixties the drugs hit - LSD sent pop looking for meaning. Pastoral psychedelia bloomed. Such utopianism couldn't last and prog rock alongside Led Zeppelin's steroid riffing defined the early Seventies. Those who wanted it less blokey turned to glam, from T Rex to androgynous alien David Bowie.

sex_pistolsA sea change arrived with punk and its totemic band, The Sex Pistols, a reaction to pop's blandness and much else. Punk encouraged inventiveness and imagination on the cheap but, while reggae made inroads, the most notable beneficiary was synth pop, The Human League et al. This, when combined with glam styling, produced the New Romantic scene and bands such as Duran Duran sold multi-millions and conquered the US.

By the mid-Eighties, despite U2's rise, the British charts were sterile until acid house/ rave culture kicked the doors down for electronica, launching acts such as the Chemical Brothers. The media, however, latched onto indie bands with big tunes and bigger mouths, notably Oasis and Blur – Britpop was born.

By the millennium, both scenes had fizzled, replaced by level-headed pop-rockers who abhorred ostentation in favour of homogenous emotionality. Coldplay were the biggest. Big news, however, lurked in underground UK hip hop where artists adapted styles such as grime, dubstep and drum & bass into new pop forms, creating breakout stars Dizzee Rascal and, more recently, Tinie Tempah. The Arts Desk's wide-ranging new music critics bring you overnight reviews of every kind of music, from pop to unusual world sounds, daily reviews of new releases and downloads, and unique in-depth interviews with celebrated musicians and DJs, plus the quickest ticket booking links. Our writers include Peter Culshaw, Joe Muggs, Howard Male, Thomas H Green, Graeme Thomson, Kieron Tyler, Russ Coffey, Bruce Dessau, David Cheal & Peter Quinn

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