Brid­get Hay­den and the Appari­tions. Cold Blows the Wind Record­ed in Tod­mor­den, West York­shire, Brid­get Hay­den’s oft mourn­ful and mea­sured album of trad folk tunes is record­ed in and inspired by the gloom of the Calder Val­ley. It feels as cold and bleak as the moors it takes its inspi­ra­tion from.
Month: Jan­u­ary Label: Basin Rock

Pan­da Bear. Sin­is­ter Grift is the eighth stu­dio album by Amer­i­can musi­cian Pan­da Bear. Its, unsur­pris­ing­ly, replete with lush Beach-Boys style har­monies and catchy melodies, encom­pass­ing retro swoops but at the same time feel­ing con­tem­po­rary. End’s Meet with its Lati­no rhythm and euphor­ic cho­rus feels indul­gent­ly sun­ny while Just As Well, with a touch of Vam­pire Week­end. Defense rounds off the album with a melan­cholic (but still sun­ny) retro track that fin­ish­es with a flour­ish.
Month: Feb­ru­ary Label: Domi­no Records

Parasta­t­ic Con­crete Reborn Inspired by Bru­tal­ist archi­tec­ture on a trip to Berlin, the shoegazey New­cas­tle band who last released an album in 2015 Recall, Fade, Return (on our top albums), have made a come­back with Con­crete Reborn. Accom­pa­nied by the pas­sion­ate vocals of spo­ken word artist Late Girl intro­duc­ing an emo­tion­al ele­ment, Parasta­t­ic has pro­duced a pow­er­ful and album with atmos­pher­ic songs.
Month: Feb­ru­ary Label: Workie Tick­et Records

The Weath­er Sta­tion Human­hood After her majes­tic album about the cli­mate cri­sis, Tama­ra Lin­de­man returns with anoth­er beau­ti­ful album. Human­hood address­es her men­tal health issues plus wider issues such as AI and pol­i­tics. Despite the grander arrange­ments, Lin­de­man con­jures an intense inti­ma­cy between her­self and the lis­ten­er.
Month: Feb­ru­ary Label: Fat Pos­sum Records

Great Grand­pa. Patience, Moon­beam The songs on this album encom­pass a vari­ety of gen­res and emo­tions, shift­ing from alt-coun­try to indie to shoegaze – the result of each band mem­ber con­tribut­ing their indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences to the shared project. The cen­tre­piece is Doom – the most com­plex song on the album, radi­at­ing a Radio­head feel with its gid­dy swoops. Instru­men­tal­ly it gath­ers and coa­lesces before retreat­ing with Al Menne’s rich vocals car­ry­ing the dra­ma of the song.
Month: March Label: Run for Cov­er Records

Divorce. Dri­ve to Gold­en­ham­mer No won­der Divorce’s star shines ever more bright­ly: this lat­est album released in March by the Not­ting­ham four-piece con­tains a sure­fire var­ied set of 12 pre­dom­i­nate­ly alt-coun­try tracks. Warm and dis­arm­ing, the vocals of Tiger Cohen-Tow­ell and Felix Macken­zie-Bur­rell com­ple­ment each oth­er with almost star­tling per­fec­tion, such as on lead track Antarc­ti­ca.
Month: March Label: Grav­i­ty Records

MIEN. MIIEN is the sec­ond album by a col­lab­o­ra­tive project that brings togeth­er musi­cians who might be termed a psych super­group. MIIEN is a loose blend of garage-psych, inter­spers­ing an upbeat, dancey vibe with dark­er and more ambi­ent under­tones. The open­er, Evil Peo­ple, belongs to the for­mer, with a propul­sive, chunky bass and the woozy vocals of Alex Maas of The Black Angels.
Month: April

These New Puri­tans. Crooked Wing A heady, dense work with a rich and unusu­al panoply of instru­men­ta­tion: glock­en­spiel, French horn, piano – and the organ that crops up through­out the work. A Sea­son in Hell presents stac­ca­to drum­ming set against frag­ment­ed vocals. Indus­tri­al Love Song fea­tures Car­o­line Polachek, her vocals used to stun­ning effect. Every­thing seems to work towards the crescen­do of the title track Crooked Wing, a majes­tic work with celes­tial vocals and the rum­ble of the organ.
Month: May Label: Domi­no Records

SINGLE Ani­mal Col­lec­tive. Love on the Big Screen Adept shape-shifters over their long his­to­ry, Ani­mal Col­lec­tive dive head­long into their retro sum­mer mode for this sin­gle, com­plete with wist­ful vocals and a com­pul­sive bass line. It’s an effort­less slice of psych-tinged pop. ALSO Vir­ginia Tech, with Pan­da Bear’s dis­tinct­ly lay­ered vocals, a mes­meris­ing drum line and even a euphor­ic sitar-like wig-out at the end. It’s not all joy – the despair­ing lyrics that beat at the heart of this com­pelling track give the song an edge.
Month: June Label: Domi­no Records

Lael Neale. Alto­geth­er Stranger A cap­ti­vat­ing album, replete with Lael’s unusu­al phras­ing, del­i­cate vocals and soft har­monies. Tracks range from the dreamy coun­try twang of All Good Things will Come to Pass, to haunt­ing Sleep Through The Long Night accom­pa­nied by the calm­ing retro hum of the Omni­chord. The final dit­ty There From Here sees the singer at the air­port, swept into the tide of peo­ple on the move.
Month: May Label: Sub Pop Records

The Gold­en Dregs. God­speed You can bathe in the glo­ri­ous bari­tone of vocal­ist and song­writer (and pro­duc­er) Ben­jamin Woods of the south Lon­don band. This, their lat­est album packs twelve knock­out num­bers. Heron stirs the emo­tions while Big Ideas and Linoleum are par­tic­u­lar­ly catchy – and some are in such a low reg­is­ter they become a whis­per.
Month: May Label: End of the Road Records

Doves Con­stel­la­tions For The Lone­ly This album reflects all the dif­fi­cul­ties the band have been expe­ri­enc­ing over the past few years but is a tri­umph – raw, emo­tion­al and heart­felt. Jimi Good­win’s famil­iar resigned vocals are present on some num­bers: open­ing num­ber Rene­gade reflect­ing its gloomy Man­ches­ter land­scape, to euphor­ic, plain­tive In the But­ter­fly House. The Williams broth­ers take over vocals on sev­er­al tracks, such as the uplift­ing Cold Dream­ing.
Month: July Label: EMI North

Bil­ly Nomates Met­al­horse A strong and defi­ant set of songs from Tor Maries aka Bil­ly Nomates, record­ed after a dif­fi­cult peri­od in her life. She kicks back against her trau­ma to blast us with an absolute banger, with upbeat punky num­bers con­trast­ed against more media­tive ones. I love Bil­ly Nomate’s vocals: punky and defi­ant one minute as on Plans and ooz­ing soul and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty at oth­ers as on Noth­in Worth Win­nin.
Month: May Label: Inva­da Records

Black Mar­ket Kar­ma. Mel­low­mak­er The Dover, Kent-resid­ing band have been togeth­er, pump­ing out records (and tour­ing) since 2011, cer­tain­ly pro­lif­ic. This lat­est album Mel­low­mak­er is a churn­ing mix of retro-psych and pop, record­ed and writ­ten by the band’s pri­ma­ry song­writer and mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist Stan­ley Bel­ton.
Month: May

The Besnard Lakes. The Besnard Lakes are the Last Great Thun­der­storm Warn­ings Mon­tre­al’s finest psych-prog­sters with an uplift­ing, impec­ca­bly pro­duced and rich­ly shoegazey col­lec­tion of scin­til­lat­ing num­bers. Ear­ly sin­gle In Hol­ly­wood was an intrigu­ing out­lier, now joined by sev­en oth­ers, indi­cat­ing that the Besnards are in fine form. There’s a small UK tour in Feb­ru­ary.
Month: Octo­ber Label: Full Time Hobby

War­ring­ton-Run­con New Town Devel­op­ment Plan Pub­lic works and util­i­ties The lat­est slice of elec­tron­i­ca by Gor­don Chap­man-Fox relat­ing the his­to­ry of post-war New Town projects, at the time futur­is­tic, for­ward look­ing and full of opti­mism. Relat­ed some­what to Parasta­t­ic’s Bru­tal­ist-inspired work. There’s an eerie and melan­cholic beau­ty to The Peo­ple Mat­ter, while Water Treat­ment Works is a reminder of just how far we’ve fall­en today.
Month: Octo­ber Label: Cas­tles in Space

Scaler End­less­ly After three years Scaler, for­mer­ly Scalp­ing, have released their sec­ond album. Their famil­iar intense, indus­tri­al sound is still present but the band have widened their scope, col­lab­o­rat­ing with var­i­ous artists on the Bris­tol scene to pro­duce soft­er, more vocal led works. Evolve is a par­tic­u­lar­ly lush and mys­te­ri­ous track with vocals by Tlya X An.
Month: Sep­tem­ber Label: Black Acre

Smote Songs from the Free House The project of New­cas­tle artist Daniel Fog­gin, who played and sang almost every­thing on this record (except for guest appear­ances from Sal­ly Mason on vocals and Ian Lynch from Lankum on Uil­lean pipes). Stat­uesque, drone-sat­u­rat­ed sound harken­ing from a time when the world was new and almost over­whelms. Smote delves into a mys­te­ri­ous and ancient world in which rep­e­ti­tion takes on extra sig­nif­i­cence, and works an intense mag­ic. Music to be utter­ly lost in.
Month: Octo­ber Label: Rock­et Recordings

The Utopia Strong Doperid­er This lat­est album by The Utopia Strong takes you into an inner and med­i­ta­tive space and lets your mind lead you where it will. Harpies is a beau­ti­ful piece, nudg­ing you to the heat of the souk, before some 60s sound­ing Bri­an Auger Trin­i­ty organ sounds remind you that the jour­ney was all in your head.
Month: Octo­ber Label: Rock­et Recordings

Mag­net­ic Skies Frag­ments  The synth band bring in a sharp­er focus and a broad­er sound, push­ing their 80s-inspired dra­ma and atmos­phere to new heights. The Bru­tal­ist build­ing on the album cov­er mir­rors the record’s stark and reflec­tive mood. Open­ing instru­men­tal No End sets a cin­e­mat­ic tone, its doomy synths and sweep­ing ambi­ence inspired by Pol­ish film­mak­er Krzysztof Kieślows­ki. Can You Feel the World? shares that mood with omi­nous per­cus­sion and echo­ing vocals.
Month: Novem­ber Label: Reprint Records