New music
Ibi Keita
Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something less distinct is up for debate. Known for her fiery rage-rap and punk energy, Rico tones things down here, trading some of her wild unpredictability for a more polished, trend-aware sound.Tracks like “TEETHSUCKER (YEAH 3x)” bring back her signature distortion and chaotic charm, but those moments are scattered. Songs like “Butterfly Kisses” and “Soul Snatcher” lean into vulnerability, showing a softer side of Rico that feels genuine, but are not especially groundbreaking. Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Lucy Farrell, one quarter of the brilliant, award-winning Anglo-Scots band Furrow Collective, and a solo artist whose stunning debut album, We Are Only Sound, was released in 2023, divides her time between the UK – she’s a native of Kent – and Prince Edward Island, a musically rich parcel of land off Canada’s eastern seaboard. The island is home to the other half of this sublime folk-acoustic double bill, Juno Award-winning songwriter Catherine MacLellan.They’re playing small venues across the UK till the end of the merrie month of May – the Blaxhall Sessions in Suffolk and the Hungate Church Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Metalhorse is a concept album that uses visions of a dilapidated funfair as a metaphor for life’s various ups and downs. It especially seems to concentrate on the downs though, especially when it employs opening lines like “My best friend’s dying” on “Nothin Worth Winnin”.Metalhorse is also Billy Nomates’ third album but the first to be recorded with a full band. More surprisingly, it also sees Sleaford Mods’ former collaborator, Tor Maries veer away from her previous DIY fare and towards less spikey, more middle of the road, yacht rock sounds. This largely involves replacing melodic heft Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Danish singer MØ is a paradox. Initially she appeared to be another Scandi electro-pop princess of the bangers. The monster 2015 hit “Lean On” with Major Lazer jacked her profile, briefly, through the roof, but, while she’s worked with everyone from Iggy Azalea to DJ Benny Benassi, she seemed to step sideways from pure pop, tempering it with something more Nordic and melancholy. Her fourth album persuasively continues in this direction.This isn’t to say that there are no clubby stompers. Those after that pure rush should head straight to “Keep Moving”, an Eighties-tinted 4/4 cruncher, created Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
According to PUP lead singer Stefan Babcock, the Toronto foursome practiced together a grand total of twice before embarking on their current UK and European tour.Given the band’s well-known habit for disagreements and teetering on the edge of imploding, that might have been a wise decision. It didn’t affect the show itself, for while the group’s history is littered with chaos, this was a lively but controlled display. There was little fuss or frills here, instead around 20 tracks being hammered through with a consistent bounce, inside SWG3’s pillar strewn concrete bunker of a Glasgow Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Soul Scene,” by Echoes Limited, is built from elements of the James Brown sound. But it’s put together in such a way that the result is unfamiliar. The angular drum groove edges towards a 5/8 shuffle. The circularity of the guitar suggests Congolese rumba. Funk, but outside recognised templates.Then there’s “Anoshereketa” by Oliver & The Black Spirits. The swirling township structure is recognisable but the drums and the nature of the guitar playing – clipped and spindly, respectively – give an edge. This music is hard to place aesthetically and geographically.Add in the loping, reggae- Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
It is a family affair at Supergrass shows these days. There were plenty of parents and offspring filing onto the Barrowland’s famous old dancefloor, and during the encore a pair of excitable, bouncing teenagers turned around and started bellowing for their dad, off on the sidelines, to join in pogoing. He declined, but was singing along with vigour nonetheless.That’s testament to Supergrass’s strength in writing catchy songs and having material that can resonate across generations. The sheer youthful exuberance of debut album I Should Coco, here being revisited in full, still comes across as Read more ...
peter.quinn
London's iconic Roundhouse, packed to the rafters, provided the perfect setting for the UK premiere of Louis Cole's groundbreaking album nothing – his fifth album and third on Brainfeeder. This one-night-only performance, featuring Cole on drums and keys with an orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley, delivered electrifying musicianship, fascinating stylistic mash-ups, and melodies that imprinted themselves on your consciousness.Released last August to critical adulation, nothing presented something far more ambitious than an orchestral rehash of greatest hits. The LA-based composer, multi- Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Following on from an impressive set with the Libertines – last year’s No 1 album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade – Peter Doherty returns to the fray with his first solo album in nine years. In youth renowned for opiates, crack and chaos, and for cholesterol over alcohol in middle age (he’s now 46), the songs on Felt Better Alive come across as swiftly taken snapshots developed in a musical dark room. Some tracks feel like demos awaiting a few more layers of invention, others more richly built up, but all of them trailing the loose, intimate charm of home-made things, wrapped in a Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”, the ineffable progressive rock epic that occupies side two of 1971’s Meddle, is having a moment. Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets released a sensational one-sided 12-inch vinyl version of the track on Record Store Day, April 12. Recorded at the Centennial Hall in Frankfurt last August, the 23.04-minutes single – which plays from the centre outwards – reached number six in the vinyl chart, dropped, and is rising again. It’ll be on Radio One next, jostling for air time with Taylor, Sabrina, and Ed.Then there’s the new Pompeii version. At the ruined Italian city’s re- Read more ...
Tom Carr
It has never been an exact science understanding when something will capture lightning in a bottle and go viral. Even less expected is for an anonymous metal band to become a social media sensation, but in early 2023 that's exactly what happened for Sleep Token.The anonymous UK metal collective had been slowly cultivating their following since arriving on the scene in 2016. Their gothic stage presence and mysterious lore set them aside from their contemporaries immediately, as did their playing with various genres around a modern metal sound. And though they had achieved steady success across Read more ...
joe.muggs
I’ve got an admission: I never really got Radiohead, in no small part because of Thom Yorke’s singing. I appreciate his technical abilities and songwriting, and that a lot of people find his anguish cathartic, but the more he goes for it the more I switch off.Even in gentler and less rockist songs he tends to go for a keening sound that still jangles my nerves. Rather like Paul Weller (not someone I imagine he’s compared to very often) straining to express intensity seems to have become a vital part of his musical brand, but just like Weller, I infinitely prefer it when he sits back a bit and Read more ...