Standards Vol IV will get deserved airplay thanks to its electronic take on classic pop (from Bacharach and The Beach Boys to early Harry Nilsson) but hidden in all that sunshine and heartache is a progression from a sound that once so defined them. Standard? Above standard, more like.

The opening Angel’s cavernous bass is a clarion call for Sisters Of Mercy fans pining new material, yet Sickly Sweet and Dream Of Me are simple, spiky pop made distinctive by Julie Dawson’s slow-build guitars. As singer, Dawson channels a quiet despair in the more vulnerable Nosebleed, but it’s the defiant full-throated charge elsewhere that’s likely to see NewDad emerge as festival favourites.

Holy Island is a magnificent opening statement and the mind boggles as to where they might venture next. [Christmas 2025, p.135]

Adamson's score is suitably eclectic, reflecting both his mastery of film scoring as well as the broad range of content that once thrilled London audiences. [Jan 2026, p.100]

Hardwired is a slightly less gripping version of the same, as is Moth Into Flame. There’s some sweet doom in the form of Dream No More, an obvious Sabbath homage, and a nod to their late mentor Lemmy with Murder One. In between, we’re treated to a lot of mid-tempo plodding.

It’s garage rock by numbers and sounds like it took as long to write as it does to listen to.

Through its folksy acoustic front, Vol 1 brims with passion.

Nobody particularly wants the descriptor "mature" to be slapped on their work, but it applies perfectly here. [Nov 2025, p.102]

So they’re not reinventing the wheel, but Willie and Merle are comfortable in their own company.

A no-frills, 10-track set that’s almost permanently cranked to the max.

This new compilation focuses on projects she released under her own name plus sundry collaborations, remixes and assorted feature spots. Above all else, this 34-track assemblage highlights the fact that Thorn’s trajectory has been an unpredictable and surprising one.

The more you add of yourself, the more of the classic song you risk losing, and this is emphatically homage, not reinvention. Diehard Hitchcock fans – are there any other kind? – will nevertheless devour. [Nov 2024, p.100]

A mixed bag, but when they’re good, they’re great.

Hyped as the final batch of unissued material assembled during his lifetime, like most mythical artefacts, the reality proves a little disappointing. Not that there isn’t decent stuff to enjoy here. The Introduction and the Gary Numan-sampling Trucks are both capable head-nodders while The Ex features prime production work by Pete Rock and a brilliant vocal turn by Bilal.

Rarely breaking into the kind of wryly humourous abandon at which she excels (Twix is the closest anything gets to Music Hole or Ilo Veyou territory), the results are hypnotic, if arguably more short-lived than previous efforts.

The cumulative effect is one of a dizzy America, and one that would make even less sense if ever unpicked. Much like the Americana of McCombs; gloriously messy.

Occasionally you find yourself flinching at how closely Biffy Clyro have adhered to the uplifting radio-rock format.

The rebounding sounds that dominate Undying Color have a cumulative effect, and form a kind of aural mist within which the listener can get lost. Charming.

If Everything Now’s readings of media-age malaise leant towards the grindingly obvious, WE is a partial improvement, give or take singer Win Butler’s occasional clunking takes on modern-life exhaustion.

You’d be hard pushed to find a more beguiling soundtrack for late summer evenings.

Way more folk-ridden than Orc’s hysterical prog racket, this one’s soaked in acoustic guitars, lush strings, early-Bowie eccentricity and singing saws.

Thirty years on from its relief, in seeking a wider truth for contemporary times, NMA plumb paganism and tribalism with a powerful resonance.

All in all, a stellar mix of tracks, performed exquisitely and, in light of their split in 2011, now with added poignancy.

There are gloriously sunny melodies (Cali is a breezy masterpiece), near ambient drones (Integration Tape) and even a touch of politics on Home Is A Feeling. But it’s 100% a Ride record, and neither time nor current fashions can alter that. And nor should it.

Frontman Ellery Roberts remains elliptical of word and gravelly of voice, and even if their clear shot for profundity is not always matched by their sound - Letting Go sounds like a hipster take on Joshua Tree-era U2 - there is no doubt this is once again powerful, arresting stuff. [Jun 2026, p.103]

Not since The Smiths or Pulp had an indie band so keenly evoked and vivisected the spectacle of lubricious, learned masculinity at large. On this final hurrah, they sound like the last of a dying breed.

No one’s taking anything too seriously, but if this were a DVD it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Ry flashing the biggest grin in the room.

Producer Youth has described the record as Wobble’s “Miles Davis opus” and while that’s maybe a mite fanciful, it’s certainly a courageous contemporary fusion of afro-beat, jazz and polyrhythmic funk.

While heavier moments such as the scuzzy, stoner-grunge Heaven's Breath and the Nick Cave-esque gothic folk epic The Ox Driver's Song shine, the more straightforward folk/country tunes are pleasant but not distinctive enough to be memorable. [Christmas 2025, p.132]

The Canadian musician's addiction to discovering the new and unusual remains nothing less than compelling, although sometimes this results in truly great music (here that means Volume's dreamy house reinterpretation of MARRS' 1987 rave classic Pump Up The Volume, the albums standout) and other times the expansive sense of ambition doesn't achieve lift-off (such as Campfire's nebulous and hard to grasp electro-folk). [Dec 2024, p.106]

Presley is a powerhouse, prolific and ever changing. But as with all churn, sometimes unwanted bodies float to the surface. The Wink does not suffer from such issues, and with Le Bon’s help, Presley’s created something magically timeless.

Singer Julia Cummings’ saccharine vocals overpower as they search for meaning and purpose. Sadly, they end up being somewhat more tepid and irritating.

Producer Glyn Johns captures a laconic, organic vibe throughout, aided by such top-notch players as Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, on an album that oozes good taste and effortless class.

Some flattening elements that are hard to put your finger on lurk deep in the mix, below the whumping bass and the bewitching sax riffs. These perhaps include the aforementioned vocal treatments or the occasional use of other obviously studio-born effects.

One Day All Of This Won’t Matter Anymore is the perfect example of a band still moving forward, without losing themselves in the process.

Keery frequently channels synth-rockers The Cars (Link finds Keery doing his best Ben Orr impression, while Delete Ya is reminiscent of Ric Ocasek); ELO's crisp pop (Charlie's Garden); and Cake-meets-OK Go jauntiness (standout Basic Being Basic). [May 2025, p.103]

La Di Da Di comes across a tad too studied, never lifting out of the complex math of the group’s music.

Arguably, the album lacks a stand-out killer to take to radio but, by the same token, there’s hardly anything that could be described as filler; it’s a solid and confident collection from a veteran songstress who still has a lot to offer.

With the forensic detail one would expect from the Elvis reissue programme, Way Down In The Jungle Room is the most complete and comprehensive collection of Presley’s final studio recordings ever assembled in one anthology; and very necessary it is too.

Occasional MOR slumps aside, most of Resistance comes sharpened by the Manics’ innate extremes of intelligence and instinct, populist extroversion and prickly introspection, melody and over-stretched meter.

It’s her inability to comfortably fit into those convenient boxes that makes her so great.

Melancholy levels are high--but that’s a distraction, as beneath this motif is a wealth of songwriting nous that continues to set Mercer apart from his peers.

The collection is likely to be remembered as a curious transitional chapter rather than placed on a pedestal alongside 2006’s meisterwerk Drum’s Not Dead. Even at its patchiest though, the sound of Andrew re-finding his feet offers greater rewards than most groups’ fully realised records of derivative blues-rock mating calls.

10,000 Maniacs fans may yearn for the simpler music of old but, sad to say, given the effort involved, uncommitted listeners will simply shrug their shoulders.

Sébastien Tellier appears to have got his mojo back on his eighth studio album. [Feb 2026, p.103]

Despite its sheen and icy edge, the album proves that Dan Sartain is one of music’s great personalities; a little unhinged maybe, talented definitely, but never dull and never treading water.

Raw and unfiltered, Invitation oozes with the exuberant energy of an 18 year-old, but shines with their collective experience, delivering heavy strikes to both the head and heart in the process.

Half Japanese albums are like the proverbial buses, and this is their third album in as many years, after nothing for the previous decade-plus. Jad Fair’s art-punk outsider unit return with an album that reflects their early days while taking the Half Japanese story into a new chapter.

Harmonics is another bold step in the world of the grown-up youth club. [Aug 2024, p.104]

Perhaps a little inconsistent, Habibi Funk packs a lot of charisma, and on balance delivers the goods.

The supergroup does actually sound like something from the late 60s Swedish “progg” scene complete with flute toots and floaty vocals.

Minor Victories have torn apart their debut to uncover something more considered underneath. But apart from that, it’s a brilliant listen.

It’s warm, rewarding and a very, very comfortable listen. And therefore definitely not pysch.

The album certainly wears its influences on its (parka) sleeve but does so while maintaining a freshness and uplifting charm that carries the songs as they zip along. Putting the somewhat clichéd lyrics aside – although it’s not as though listeners generally flock to Liam Gallagher for Significant Meaning – there is plenty to savour.

New versions of Wichita Lineman and Gentle On My Mind are sparser than the originals, if no less affecting, but pale in comparison to the impossibly tender reading of By The Time I Get To Phoenix.

With a warmth uncommonly found in Weber’s work, Elements Of Light emerges as a real triumph.

Confident, confessional pop from masters of the craft. [Jan 2026, p.103]

Filled to the brim with explicit language and sexual overtones and charged with throbbing beats, it would be right at home in any queer club in Amsterdam. [Mar 2026, p.105]

Musically, the Virginians deliver a thrash/groove metal brew broadly similar to that of their previous albums, but that’s not to say there isn’t a wide range of textures, from all-out blasts to subtle acoustic tones.

As If You're Here has a sunny, surging drive-time glint to it too, but a little too much of Romanticize... is all clinical chill and no thrill. [May 2026, p.103]

The Tale Of The Altered Beast: Part 1. A New World could have easily sat on Blake’s New Jerusalem before the guys drag it into highspeed psychedelic punk insanity.

Tortoise may have become a little less cutting-edge in their old age, but within an area of the musical landscape which owes much to their enduring influence, they remain perennially relevant.

One hates to say it of a pleasant record, but much of it seems like background music for shiny-looking bars, where people pose around before the action starts.

An intriguing but ultimately underwhelming record. [Christmas 2024, p.131]

What they do well, they do here in spades, and the new experiments come off as more than memorable.

Nine-minute meanders and sub-standard I Am The Walrus clones aside, Third World Pyramid furthers and spreads out the BJM sound.

A fourth album full of vibrant, varied takes on pop interspersed with some more downbeat, sensitive ruminations. [May 2026, p.103]

EL VY provide a more synthetic, but strangely more earworm-riddled, sound that’s great for casual fans, but less emotionally demanding for hardcore Nationalists.

The influences are certainly varied, and harsher critics might suggest a lack of editorial control--a perfect example being Blood Red Balloon, which manages to recall both Grizzly Bear and Toto. Only Saturnine manages to resist the temptation to explode, and is the freshest track as a result (albeit with a guitar break that evokes Brian May). Regardless of such artistic concerns, it sounds like it may be the album to propel Mystery Jets to commercial success.

Electric Trim is a missed opportunity. The emphasis on meandering acoustic balladry is a real shame.

Some of the music is at the most extreme end of Jenkinson’s output, yet remains zanily accessible.

Fun, typically subversive and largely memorable, Copeland’s latest work could be one of his most enduring, whether we were meant to hear it or not. Makes you wonder what else he’s got up his sleeve.

Prolific in output, both together and in their separate projects, Sorcerer reflects a relentless drive to create something that’s restless and demanding in its realisation.

Papa M is back. His best album? No. A self-proclaimed “weird ass record” of diary sketches and fragments that beam with refound passion and optimism? Hell yeah.

It’s not the second coming of Ironman, but tracks such as Love Don’t Live Here No More, Emergency Procedure, Homicide and Blood On The Streets make this one of the best Wu-related releases of recent years, confirming Ghostface as its most consistently engaging member.

Haynes’ mellifluous voice hits home throughout, particularly effective on slower burners such as Tide and Keep Me, invoking a deeper hoodoo on Kingdom Come and Don’t Need It.

Earle’s slurring nonchalance and Colvin’s precise delivery are a joy as they weave around each other amid squealing harmonica and distorted, rocking guitars. The result is very much a band (rather than acoustic) album.

This time, with another dance music stalwart in Fuck Buttons’ Andrew Hung on producing duties, Orton shows no fear in heading into the electronic void, with some of her most eclectic and exciting tracks to date.

American Utopia is not quite as good as we’d all really love it to be. However, its quality of thought, emotional intelligence and sense of fun is remarkable.

This is Banhart’s best work because it functions as a unit.

This is sweetly strange and often emotional music--an album of disquieting tone poems and outlandish lullabies.

Dear River finds the Australian and her all-female band flexing bigger muscles, producing a much fuller sound that’s closer to the powerful noise they make on stage.

Reader’s own explanatory notes enrich these universal songs with a personal edge, completing a particularly satisfying package.

A triumphant return for one of pop’s most charismatic figures, who has lost none of his ability to make us dance and smile.

For the most part, though, Bette breezes through the 60s.

It’s competent, and some of the songs are good, but it’s just so much old hat.

It certainly sounds like an album collaged over five years in various places around the world. But there are no contemporaries for this sound, and they hit their mark often, that moment where all the dried pasta shapes, buttons and string turn into a surprisingly lucid portrait of a band happy to try everything at once.

Neptune may be swampier, but as side projects go, this is hardly an excuse for a great departure, more of an exercise in indulgence.

Loose but not chaotic, Set Fire To The Stars has a poetic grace more than worthy of its subject.

It’s a pleasingly consistent collection of songs, but special mention goes to the raunchy Relevant (complete with solos for Reinhardt-like guitar and swaggering piano) and May You Never Fall In Love’s wordly advice. All said, it’s a good look on him.

It’s a shame that they can’t quite reach that level consistently throughout the entire record, but those glimmers of greatness nevertheless establish The Wharves as charmingly talented songwriters worthy of investigation, especially if you have a penchant for the faded but still-beautiful glories of decades past.

In the best possible way, their songs feel like being trapped for over a quarter of an hour within the mind of the person whose bathroom is the filthiest you’ve ever seen, but if you want a better picture you should attend one of their gigs gigs gigs gigs gigs gigs gigs.

These floaty psych-funk grooves are more fun than a barrel of chimps, even if the lyrics fret about global warming, nuclear fusion and other harbingers of doom.

Fujiya & Miyagi is the sound of a band no longer press darlings (see 2006’s Transparent Things), but not old enough for local festivals just yet. And it’s that tension that gives us the band’s most confident LP for ages.

Without anything to rein them in, these pieces have a tendency to drift, suggesting that a tighter remit, or more judicious editing, might have had more gravitational pull.

It’s a refined downer, enriched by self-lacerating wit (I Only Smoke When I Drink), indie-boy piss-takes (Sleeperbloke), story-song skills (unwanted-pregnancy tale Johnny (Have You Come Lately)) and briefly off-guard touches of synth-pop wistfulness (Big Blue Moon).

A very welcome return.

The poignant This Nearly Was Mine from South Pacific (“now, I’m alone, still dreaming of paradise”) and I Who Have Nothing, are both imbued with equal measures of yearning and malice. It’s almost as if In Translation has tied up all the strange, raw emotions of the past year and made some sense of them.