Bill Ryder-Jones. Iechyd Da The album explores a wide spec­trum of emo­tions, encom­pass­ing joy and melan­cho­lia and much in between. Ryder-Jones’ care­worn and under­stat­ed vocals del­i­cate­ly weave their nar­ra­tive, enhanc­ing the emo­tion­al tapes­try of the music. If Tomor­row Starts with­out Me and This Can’t Go On are two stand­out tracks on this majes­tic album.
Label: Domi­no Records

Jane Weaver. Love In Con­stant Spec­ta­cle
Jane Weaver con­stant­ly shapeshifts, sub­merg­ing her­self in con­cepts and philoso­phies while retain­ing that spacey, dreamy motorik vibe. John Parish-pro­duced Love in Con­stant Spec­ta­cle fol­lows that pat­tern – the album draws on “themes of mor­tal­i­ty and fragili­ty’, with gor­geous, lush psy­che­delia. Swoony bal­lad Univers, unusu­al­ly, brings Jane’s vocals to the fore for com­plete clar­i­ty of the lyrics; do check out the shoegazey MEMORIALS remix too (not on the album). Label: Fire Records

Scions. To Cry Out in the Wilder­ness This con­cise album by the eight-piece col­lec­tive Scions from Hal­i­fax, Nova Sco­tia, is a cry of anguish for the plan­et and the destruc­tion man has wreaked; it is also the unique col­lab­o­ra­tion between three projects, bring­ing choir, drone and cham­ber-jazz quar­tet to stun­ning effect. The haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful cen­tre­piece of the album is title track To Cry Out in the Wilder­ness, with spo­ken-word lyrics recit­ing a tale of yearn­ing and of mourn­ing for the cli­mate and for human­i­ty. Idée Fixe records.

Yard Act. Where’s My Utopia? James Smith and his Leeds cohorts take a step for­ward and cre­ate an unprob­lem­at­ic sec­ond album. The lyrics tum­ble out, reflec­tions on the social land­scape with famil­iar grit­ty res­o­nance; there’s lots of humour and wit deliv­ered with a more nuanced and explo­rative feel than pre­vi­ous mate­r­i­al. We Make Hits is about the pow­er of friend­ship “two mil­len­ni­al men… mak­ing hits … Now we make hits (but not hits like Nile Rodgers)”. Fizzy Fish sees James go a tad John Coop­er Clark and there’s a great col­lab with Katy J Pear­son. Island Records

Eng­lish Teacher. This Could be Texas The debut album by the supreme­ly tal­ent­ed band Eng­lish Teacher for which they won the Mer­cury Prize. Eng­lish Teacher seem able to cov­er a mul­ti­tude of gen­res, with dancey bel­ters like Near­ly Daf­fodils through to tracks like the clos­er: Albert Road over­flows with emo­tion as vocal­ist Lily Fontaine casts an affec­tion­ate eye over her home town of Colne and its char­ac­ters. Label: Island Records.

Phos­pho­res­cent. Rev­e­la­tor A lush and beau­ti­ful album by Nashville’s Matthew Houck and band. Rev­e­la­tor’s lush and com­fort­ing instru­men­ta­tion and Houck­’s warm and world-weary vocals act as a foil for lyrics that express unease and fears for mankind. Such as on sparkling title track Rev­e­la­tor with its sweet pow­er to lures you into a state of alt-coun­try bliss. Anoth­er beau­ty is Impos­si­ble House. And dreamy bal­lad The World is End­ing is writ­ten by singer-song­writer Jo Schornikow and wife of Houck (see top albums 2022). Label: Verve records

W. H. Lung. Every Inch of Earth Pul­sates This their third album sig­ni­fies a shift for the fan­tas­tic Man­ches­ter /Todmorden band (review). The album, pro­duced by Ross Orton, aimed to recre­ate the expe­ri­ence of see­ing the band live in a nice­ly sweaty venue. Open­ing track Lilac Sky is rem­i­nis­cent of their ear­ly mate­r­i­al: you can almost feel the smoke machine on over­drive when you put this on the turntable. Bloom and Fade goes full on with gor­geous­ly chunky bass and 80s synth. And if there was an award for Album Title of the Year, Every Inch of Earth Pul­sates sure­ly wins. Label: Melod­ic Records

Deary. Aure­lia A much-await­ed EP by the all-out shoegaze duo who envel­op the lis­ten­er in their shim­mer­ing, floaty and atmos­pher­ic num­bers. The Moth is a gor­geous track which almost drowns you in its rich and lus­cious instru­men­ta­tion while Dot­tie’s vocals float with­in the lay­ers. Selene has a stat­uesque qual­i­ty that opens out to wash over you, lifts you up and car­ries you along. Watch­ing the audi­ence at End of the Road fes­ti­val rapt, sway­ing, was evi­dence of just how mag­i­cal and mes­meris­ing this band are. Label: Son­ic Cathedral 

Mer­cury Rev. Born Hors­es The birth of a new album by Mer­cury Rev (their first since 2015 and with two new mem­bers) is some­thing to cel­e­brate. And it’s a beau­ty, full of frag­ile and emo­tion­al songs, and famil­iar­ly with a range of instru­ments. Begin­ning with the smoky Mood Swings, Jonathan Don­ahue’s whis­pered spo­ken-word vocals, to the emo­tion­al Ancient Love – “This ancient love of ours buried under moon and stars” these unhur­ried tracks soar. As is A Bird Of No Address. This feels like Mer­cury Rev in a new, more mature phase, and rel­ish­ing it. Label: Bel­la Union

Gift. Illu­mi­na­tor This 5‑piece Brook­lyn out­fit accom­pa­nied Bode­ga on their recent tour of the UK and cap­tured the crowds, all with­in a brief 6‑song set. Psy­che­del­ic, hard­er-edge shoegaze would just about cov­er this band’s sound. Joy­ous track Wish Me Away opens the album with its jagged riff and floaty vocal lines float­ing over the top, Lat­er is a rich, moody jour­ney. Vocals are pri­mar­i­ly the pre­serve of TJ Fre­da, and occa­sion­al­ly Jes­si­ca Gure­witz. If you love shoegaze with a bit more mus­cle, Gift are your band. Label Cap­tured Tracks

Kel­ly Lee Owens. Dream­state Third album in, and KHL has slight­ly shift­ed yet again, bring­ing her vocals into promi­nence. Dream­state shares with her oth­er a work a pin­point accu­rate calm­ing effect on the ner­vous sys­tem inter­spersed with pop­ping and glim­mer­ing dance­floor beau­ties. Dark Angel plunges you straight into that “dream state” as a celes­tial choir beck­ons you in before twitchy synths start pop­ping. Sec­ond track Dream­state realivens the sens­es, final­ly bring­ing you down into rest for final track Trust and Desire. Label: Small­town Supersound

Father John Misty. Mahash­mashana To round off the year is this tranche of lush, exquis­ite­ly orches­trat­ed, dev­as­tat­ing­ly bleak obser­va­tion­al mus­es on life by FJM. With wry humour FJM describes a car-crash of an encounter/date, along­side orches­tral Bond-esque flour­ish­es in Josh Till­man and the Acci­den­tal Dose. The sev­enth track I Guess Time Just makes Fools of Us All is deliv­ered with weary res­ig­na­tion and feels a lit­tle like late-peri­od Leonard Cohen. Label Bel­la Union

Ghost­po­et. Am I The Change I Wish to See? Obaro Ejimi­we relo­cat­ed to Berlin where he’s been involved with var­i­ous projects, not all music relat­ed. His three-track EP Am I the Change I Wish To See? released in May, was a wel­come aur­al treat. First track Oh Lord! rep­re­sents some­what of a depar­ture for Ghost­po­et with the vocals far back in the mix, giv­ing promi­nence to a shim­mer­ing wall of synth and silky bass. Who Knows? is back to more famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry with Ejimi­we’s dis­tinc­tive drawl­ing vocals. Hold The Line! is almost suf­fo­cat­ing in its inten­si­ty. Ghost­po­et­’s pow­er is not dimin­ished. Mod­ern Revenge Records

Doves. Rene­gade If any band know how to infuse their sound with a brood­ing lay­er of melan­cho­lia like a cur­tain of rainy mist set­tling over the streets of Man­ches­ter, it is Doves. And the pass­ing of time has not dimin­ished this qual­i­ty. Jimi Good­win is now recov­ered and back in action, although he is not appear­ing on stage with them for live shows and new sin­gle Rene­gade is a glo­ri­ous­ly rich and atmos­pher­ic num­ber with Jim­i’s vocals on top, care­worn form. We await the album Con­stel­la­tions of the Lone­ly in 2025 with antic­i­pa­tion. EMI North

Phildel. Into the Woods Beck­on­ing you into the forests’ depths is this beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion of tracks by the ethe­re­al Phildel, open­ing with the atmos­pher­ic Into the Woods. The songs hang togeth­er as a cohe­sive whole and, as Phildel explained at her Lon­don show, sees her love for the nat­ur­al world tak­ing on a greater sig­nif­i­cance, want­i­ng to be at one with nature, respect­ing it and feel­ing its power.