Release Reviews
Baths - Obsidian
For all the dark, depthless beauty of Baths' immaculately constructed record, its solidity feels too opaque.»
Chapel Club - Good Together
This isn’t a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, it doesn’t have the depth of this year's great pop touchstones, Tegan and Sara’s Hearthrobb or Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City, and like when Christopher Ecclestone regenerated into David Tennant some of the edge, the darkness and the grit has been left behind.»
Camera Obscura - Desire Lines
Along with Let’s Get Out Of This Country and My Maudlin Career, Desire Lines now completes a trilogy of three of the best indie pop records ever.»
Eluvium - Nightmare Ending
You get a lot of Eluvium for your money on Nightmare Ending. However the album does feel somewhat sprawling and disjointed as a result.»
Miles Kane - Don't Forget Who You Are
Miles Kane’s enthusiasm pushes the album along at a relentlessly breathless rate, but enthusiasm can only take you so far and soon tolerance for his vapid and riff-tackular new sound wears thin.»
The Pastels - Slow Summits
First things first: The Pastels have never made a bad record. »
Lescop - Lescop
Undoubtedly this is serious music – you can dance, but Lescop also wants you to think.»
Majical Cloudz - Impersonator
If the easily distracted are at risk of sleeping through Impersonator, fans of emotional tours de force will have a great new addition to their 'best albums of the year' list.»
Magic Arm - Images Rolling
Images Rolling is a definite step up in consistency compared to Magic Arm's debut, and will be well-suited as a soundtrack to the famous Manchester sunshine, whenever it remembers to make an appearance.»
Mount Kimbie - Cold Spring Fault Less Youth
What at first might have appeared as a cynical attempt at increasing their accessibility, has, for these ears anyway, demonstrated the same distinctive originality which won over so many people in the first place.»
Baptist Generals - Jackleg Devotional to the Heart
In a genre stacked with pathological mediocrity, Jackleg Devotional to the Heart is a relatively sure-footed success.»
Tribes - Wish to Scream
If Tribes concentrated on what they’re good at – catchy, no-frills rock – they’d fare much better.»
CocoRosie - Tales of a GrassWidow
No, they're not for everyone. Yes, sometimes it sounds like a circus rave in a toybox, and it's not what you would call relaxing. But it's uplifting, triumphant and inquisitive. And, in the face of frequent critical antipathy and hostility, it's just good to see two strong-minded women paying absolutely no heed and continuing to make the music they feel compelled to make.»
Laurel Halo - Behind the Green Door
Shows that Hyperdub and Laurel Halo can move into new areas.»
Frankie & the Heartstrings - The Days Run Away
This is a collection of elegantly assembled, fat-free pop songs, made from light and air and heart, and great choruses. It's the soul and centre of indie pop and deserves your immediate attention.»
Animal Collective - Monkey Been to Burntown
Monkey Been to Burntown by no means makes for a pleasant listen - messy and dark, it feels like less of a record and more like a statement of their intent to avoid the mainstream like the plague.»
Club 8 - Above the City
Club 8 have created an album that sounds like summer - it sounds like a fucking great summer.»
The Focus Group - The Elektrik Karousel
Want to convince a friend you’ve just spiked them with four tabs of LSD? Lower the lights and discretely press play. They’ll be clucking by track three.»
Wild Nothing - Empty Estate
While this isn't Wild Nothing stalling, Empty Estate never coalesces into anything as confident as his previous releases, leaving the impression that for now he's running on the spot. »
Adult. - The Way Things Fall
The Way Things Fall is nasty as electro can get whilst maintaining a remnant of a reassuring pop edge.»
Thought Forms - Ghost Mountain
No-wave, drone, shoegaze, lo-fi, post-metal - the something-for-everyone Ghost Mountain is difficult not to like. But that’s also the reason it’s difficult to love.»
Splashh - Comfort
A saccharine coated bundle of youthful exuberance wrapped in delicious halos of intoxicating reverb, ear-shredding fuzz and occasionally, pensive melancholia.»
Laura Marling - Once I was an Eagle
definitely something that should be applauded – no matter how old the author is, and who she used to be friends with.»
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
If you fell down the disco rabbit hole into a synth-funk dominated Wonderland.»
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