In Restriction, Archive have created an album that does a fine job of representing their eclectic ethos, but this eclecticism also leads the album to occasionally touch on the edge of incoherence.

Tobacco has done a fine job of crafting tracks which are different enough so as to not all blend together.

CSNY 1974 does an unerring job at capturing a must-capture moment in music history, it’s just the moment acquits itself as more a valiant effort than a resounding success.

The record does get a little samey in parts, and at times feels like a soundtrack for another Juno or Away We Go. But the album fits a very particular aesthetic.

There are a few tracks that are decent rather than great, and the 36-minute runtime leaves it feeling a little too brief. That being said, it’s always a good thing to leave your audience wanting more, and Baby Keem certainly does that.

Taken on its own merits, Walking Like We Do is an unmitigated success, and a timely reminder of the simplicity of youth.

Pizzorno produces an album that is filled with surprises. Some pleasant, some just plain out-there, it is an album that is certain of its direction and doesn’t navigate too far from it. It's a convincing enough plea that Pizzorno is not just an indie rock mastermind - he's capable of much more besides.

Ultimately needing her record to be “Cinematic and dreamy”, Nash utilises her boundless creativity to deliver layered soundscapes and intricate narratives in arguably, her most honest and personal project.

It's All Smiles is an experience that can be appreciated all the more on an end-to-end listening.

Callahan is particularly unsentimental. His lyrics often bring to mind lab or field notes. His signature deadpan delivery is consistently elusive. The instrumentation sounds unscripted, largely improvised. In this way, 58 captures Callahan at his most unguarded and unrehearsed.

The tempos are brisk, the mood is chirpy. No, make that chirpy chirpy cheek cheek. Keep it at, though, and much, much more compelling depths soon emerge.

Access All Areas is a place where retro influences merge with contemporary thematics, additionally bestriding the border between nostalgia-evoking sampling and entirely fresh production techniques. From top to bottom, this record exhibits toned melodies, striking harmonies, and impressive vocal chemistry.

As a whole, Anti might not be as provocative of a statement as Rihanna hopes for it to be, but it’s still fascinating to see an artist in the midst of a metamorphosis.

Toujours reminisces to an age of simple love songs, and Sabina encapsulates a more elegant, Breton-wearing, subtle popstar in the milieu of Serge Gainsbourg’s Paris.

Fratti’s voice is honest, almost deadpan, in its delivery of plain and modest phrases – and scoops up to notes like she’s a radio starlet. But that familiarity is constantly unsettled by its instrumental landscape, where scratching strings recall the compositions of Tony Conrad, and song structure is thoroughly disjointed and unpredictable, recalling the arrangements of Marina Herlop and Meredith Monk.

This is a wonderfully assured comeback record, but it’s also precisely more of the same.

The album does well as a high-octane rock record, so much so it makes you wonder why some tracks feel ever so slightly diluted.

Hardly earth-shifting, there’s little to scoff at on Different Days but, most importantly, plenty to smile about.

It’s a little difficult to get a handle on his subject matter, although there’s an engaging quality to his delivery that makes him worth sticking with. The rest of the band work more cohesively, applying mob shouts and sunny pop ‘oohs’ to the ADD-riddled backing.

This is another lo-fi gem, and most encouraging is the fact that there’s apparently plenty more he can wring out of this particular sonic platform; he might not need slick studio production to genuinely capitalise on his potential.

At times, it can feel slightly rushed - with the band seeming understandably eager to quickly follow-up on early hype. ... At it’s best, however, Growing Up is a fantastically multi-dimensional record that presents a shining showcase of four preternaturally talented stars.

The popsmith has never seemed to win over hearts in a big way, for whatever reason. It's A Pleasure is unlikely to change that, sadly. However, those that have stumbled across his ma-a-assive talent will fall deeper in love.

It’s by no means perfect, but that’s not what the Rolling Stones are about. These troubadour, raconteurs set the blueprint and this is them laminating it for good measure, refusing to ever let the moss grow fat.

SABLE, fABLE’s slog in the middle wouldn’t have been as hollow had that seeped into the central concept more. For now, the record shows signs that Bon Iver’s discography runs in duologies, much like Mitski’s.

In experimenting with various sonic tapestries paired with a conceptual thematic essence, she ends up hitting effective compositions in some moments and awkwardly stumbling on others. It’s a dream that might gradually fade in and out of the mind, but when it does clear out the misty blur, some moments end up potent.

It feels like a debut record in the sense that they’re trying to do so many new things without 100% confidence, but also like a good debut record, it makes you massively excited for the future.

A Common Turn serves as an excellent commentary on modern life, with some intensely personal struggles that others might be wary of sharing, lined up and forensically examined.

Nubiyan Twist and their cast of collaborators are so adept at what they do. Bouncing off each other, and melding genres while still always feeling like a Nubiyan Twist record. Creating an album that’s satisfying in it’s playful and oh so funky breadth, if not it’s depth.

The ambition is staggering and for Fatima Al Qadiri to have made Asiatisch both a coherent listen and a sensible comment on western perception it means we’ve not only got a talented musician on our hands but also an extremely wise cultural commentator.

There’s no denying the technical ability and songcraft is there, and unpicking the layers is the most enjoyable part of listening, but it’s emotional tugging ultimately strikes as hollow, not through insincerity but in being too obfuscated or overbearing for me to really love these songs.

This time round, despite still being pretty transparent with their influences, they are not totally overcome by them, and it results in The Voyeurs making a collection of songs more than worthy of a surreptitious peek.

Everything explores anguish from loss but consequently finds gaiety within it. One thing that’s certain about Bnny’s progressive project is that its one to balance a surge of emotions,

A welcome comeback.

If there’s a critique, it’d be on density, the album feels super compressed with a hectoring pressure that barely lets up despite some smart sequencing choices chopping up the pacing as well as it can to ride the turbulence. More moments of atmospheric space could have given the emotional catharsis room to breathe.

Colourgrade can be something of a challenge, and certainly an intentional one. Tirzah seems to wonder just how far we’re willing to follow her into the maw. There’s nothing else quite like this available, yet this doesn’t make it a particularly pleasant listen.

Crooked Calypso never sounds outdated or like a couple of crooners growing old, but it certainly sounds graceful.

It’s a throwback to 90s aesthetics, but it’s equally a modern dance pop record, almost a reclamation moment like New Order’s late-career return to form, Music Complete. Saint Etienne similarly tap into everything they do best, but it’s by no means groundbreaking.

Where Domestica broke your heart, Vitriola only manages to get you half riled at the world around you. Kasher and co. continue to produce records that hit the nail on the head in terms of topic. This time, however, the hammer blows aren’t what they’ve been before.

Dormarion is a record that fits the Telekinesis mould whilst taking major strides towards breaking it; it’s uneven, sure, but it’s also pretty exciting.

Talkin’ To The Trees is no major return to form: there is too much letting go of unfinished things on view here for that. However, in its commitment to keeping things simple and looking inwards for inspiration, it resembles 2000’s underrated Silver & Gold, which alongside Toast (recorded in 2001 but not released until 2022) featured the last evidence of Young’s 1990s creative comeback: not a bad result for a 2025 model Neil Young album.

The female/male synth fused with rock duo is a saturated market but on Unity The KVB showcase why they’re worthy of attention.

Beautiful in places, but falling flat on an emotional level elsewhere, there is an air of duality in Lo-Fang’s work as light and dark elements intertwine and clash with each other. For someone who has done so much travelling, it is clear that Lo-Fang is still finding his feet.

This time out, they do a far better job injecting their own original spirit into their stirring music and impassioned songs, while taking these familiar musical sounds and styles of the past in a modern new direction.

Returning to the attic in which they wrote and recorded Broom, the three-piece have suitably streamlined their sound to accommodate the lesser manpower and what’s more, it works.

Whilst he floods creativity into the engine of his tracks to generate a powerful sound basis, it becomes apparent that sometimes Alfie needs to be refuelled in the lyric department. ... Mellow Moon acts as Alfie Templeman’s experimental wonderland that shows there is nothing that will halt his creative output.

Overall, this is a much better album from the now quartet from the North-East. While it is still a long way from achieving the status of A Certain Trigger, Risk To Exist reveals Maxïmo Park in a new light and is certainly a step in the right direction.

Dalliance is a brief half an hour expression of energy, without too much angst. It will never be considered a highly innovative venture, but the five-piece do manage to include some interesting twists on an old formula.

All in all, Glacier appears to constitute a bid to be taken seriously.

An electronically based album rich in its own distinctive character.

While so much EDM sounds the same right now, his tracks are thankfully hard to pigeonhole--as they weave industrial, deep house, dubstep, minimal and hip hop influences into a cohesive whole that’s both danceable and perfect for sofa listening too.

While the latter half of the record isn’t as engrossing as the first half, it still concludes with a solid trio of tunes.

It’s tempting to think of Brightly Painted One as a “grower” of an album, and much of that depends on where you stand on the music/lyrics side of things. The problem is, for all of its evident beauty, it’s difficult to get inside – frustratingly so.

The result is another record that provides ample room for the elaborate unfurling of Stelmanis’ talents as a vocalist, her altitudinous range the billowing banner of a call to arms.

While the album is surely born of a specific shared experience, Sun June creates enough space to leave that jaguar’s identity up to interpretation for the listener.

Furman’s upfront picture of Goodbye Small Head is perhaps clouded by jest: “orchestral emo prog-rock record sprinkled with samples,” she writes. Yet, it’s a continued display of her marked empathy as a songwriter, trying to seize control against a rhetoric centred on exclusion. Her observational musings are even more: a sign to band together now more than ever.

Sometimes you can lose yourself, in the twists and turns, but ultimately, this is unashamedly fun music from two of the most interesting musicians around, and being brought along for the ride is a worthwhile experience.

Fanfarlo may not be breaking new ground with this, but they’re building on their previous foundations nicely.

His playing may offer fewer surprises than you might expect, but his spirit as a leader is present and the handful of sonic oddities he throws in are a joy to behold.

What remains is a definitively good album, albeit not a great one.

Uncomplicated, doing precisely what it says on the tin, Retrash might not be an album of the year contender or a game-changer; but for pure unadulterated fun Oozing Wound are pretty hard to beat.

Shrink Dust is still very much a CVG record, just one that you can cozy up with a little easier.

Bereft of any shine or polish, Aromanticism is a piercing debut collection of songs of remarkable intensity.

Quantum Baby is relaxed and a little uncomplicated but continues her dependable streak as an athlete, sex icon, visionary, and artist rolled into one. The best part is she’s never satisfied staying still.

Perhaps what’s most striking about Birding is how cohesive it is for a debut, every swell is intentional and carefully placed without ever feeling clinical. There’s warmth and space while including all the finely crafted minutia needed to give songs genuine depth and the band have resisted the urge to overcomplicate things.

Although he doesn’t offer the genre anything noticeably new, he’s more than capable to keep the momentum going over a long player.

While the peaks on +- are cloud-scraping highs, there are lows to temper the bliss.

This is everything you could want in a debut record, a distillation of a confident and coherent sound with plenty of room to develop, and plenty of time in which to do so.

It’s the subtle touches that create an overwhelming sense of unity on Goodnight.

Whilst being worlds away from debut Sometimes I Sit And Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, Barnett’s latest sonic venture marks a new era for the Aussie musician, and one we’re all the better for.

he record staggers on into “Fishtail,” a dull trap ballad, and hits a dead-end with “Peppers,” an excursion into rap which is an absolute mess; so incoherent that it's excruciating. Moments like these are baffling because, without them, Did You Know… would compete among Lana’s very best. In fact, in certain gorgeous moments – like during the strange haziness of “Fingertips” or the ecstatic climax of “The Grants” – this is a beautiful album.

Just like her songwriting, her singing has developed and matured and with Slow Phaser Nicole Atkins has produced a record of much deeper confidence, one that will surely exist way beyond any of those physical losses she experienced at the hands of Hurricane Sandy. ​

It doesn’t give away much more of the bigger picture, and it’s not quite clear yet how it will interact with it, but daine builds new dimensions with every move.

Theft World spotlights them trusting themselves and their process – that whatever they’re doing will land as it’s supposed to land and reach the people it’s supposed to reach.

Metalhorse largely succeeds in conveying the pushing and pulling through life.

This isn’t quite that fantastic album we wanted and we know--at least hope we know--Brock and company have in them; however, it’s enough to prompt the hope that the axles are greased well enough now to deliver it next time around.

Bigger. Messier. does drag a little towards the end – particularly when Elfman’s collaborators show too much respect for the original tracks. (Stu Brooks’ remix of “True” is an example of this: the bassist played with Danny Elfman at Coachella, and you get a sense that he’s a little too close to this music as a result.) But then the album closes out with an absolutely bonkers remix of “Happy” by Little Snake, who somehow manages both to deconstruct the track into smithereens and to enhance its gothic, trippy essence.

The sparser the group go, the more space they have to fill and the more it sometimes feels like they’re straining. There’s beauty here, no doubt, and they’ve lost none of their technical skill. The move to Danish also brings an exciting new element. But, after years away working together on other projects, one suspects there's room for more inspiration here.

Bad Boy Chiller Crew have taken inspiration from music that was around when times were a bit simpler and having a good time became a whole culture in itself.

There's nothing particularly wrong with Clear Shot. It's a perfectly acceptable album, only it sounds like they're holding back a little.

Condition often has a slight avant-garde feel to it, but it's ultimately an album full of songs that sound like they've been raised with the sole intent of wanting to jump out of the speakers.

Welcome Break is an album that asks listeners not to scour for small faults, but to devote themselves fully to the ambiance of this simultaneously retro-sounding, yet forward-looking album.

While nothing on the album differs dramatically from previous entries to the Half Japanese canon, Perfect offers a solid addition, thirteen new songs to shuffle into a deck that is already rife with heartbreak and ardor.

Reset is an enjoyable 42 minutes of dystopian aphorism and boasts more dense textures and a keener ear for juxtaposition than its predecessor. It's a definite progression; just don't expect it to tear down the firewalls of GCHQ any time soon.

An admirably well-balanced attempt by Drew to really strike out on his own.

The glue holding Martyn’s third LP together is his immaculately-produced tone rather than succinct emotional movement through the album. The individual tracks don’t suffer from it, but it makes sitting down and listening all the way through The Air Between Words a less attractive prospect than doing the same for Immunity. That being said, there’s plenty to take away from Martyn’s third LP.

While there’s a bit of a formula to be spotted, it’s one that works for them--given that it’s new to us, it’s easy to appreciate and doesn’t wear too thin over Weird Sister's duration.

Location Lost is what I imagine floating endlessly through space feels like, rotating as the natural force of casting yourself away with the intention of relinquishing all grounding takes hold as reverb disappears into the unknown horizon. The buffering and battering of space debris through the majesty, akin to the twists and turns each track takes, add to the momentum.

It emits a level of depth that leaves you sometimes not really able to pinpoint what’s what, and other times feeling yourself being drawn in.

There is palpable pleasure--for both McCallum and her listeners--as she shrugs off her old identity and, in losing her voice, goes in search of herself.

Sometimes the electricity is there, and when it is it connects deeply, but when it doesn't it's hard to see past the banality of its structure.

A return in form for a beautiful promise of future.

In the end, Ununiform has it's peaks and valleys.

The overall resilience also feels like 86TVs represents a brand new day rather than solely an echo of their former selves, even if some musical references from the album’s latter half draw from already dry wells.

This isn’t a bad album by any means, and so surely deserves recognition as the work of a completely separate entity to Real Estate. Yet, too often, Ducktails actually sound like a side-project.

Despite being as zesty as it is entertaining, Feed The Beast feels compromised as it shoots for the stars.

While some of the record seems monotonous or lays flat while the track brings up certain elements, it’s a stew of comforting sounds and the songs which hold their own are a far cry from boring.

It glistens like a pop album should, shimmering like a blue lagoon under midday sun..

Essentially, this is sugar-rush, hyperactive pop music for people with the attention span of a gnat.