Life are making a welcome return with ‘ABSTRACT/NATURAL’. The Hull band’s fourth album, it started life in a poetry book that frontman Mez had been writing while exploring the great outdoors. These musings on nature, landscapes, love and acceptance found Mez transforming hills, ridges and landmarks into incredible characters in what he playfully described as…
Embrace return with ‘Avalanche’, the Yorkshire band’s ninth studio album. Released via Cooking Vinyl, Danny McNamara says the song is one that looks for joy in the simple moments: ‘Real, deep, honest-to-God joy doesn’t live in the big, dramatic moments we’re all taught to chase. It doesn’t live in huge, unattainable goals or impressive, life-changing…
Emo revival legends Seahaven have returned with a new self-titled album, and it’s one that finds vocalist and guitarist Kyle Soto examining a tumultuous time in his personal life, taking in the power and pain of memories, the grief of loss and the fragile nature of life itself. ‘Godsend’ opens the record in typically atmospheric…
‘I Built You a Tower’, Death Cab for Cutie’s eleventh studio album (and first on the independent ANTI- Records) found the band going back to basics and working together on the songs – in person – in the studio. The album finds Ben Gibbard trying to find a way forward following the breakdown of his…
”Tell Me It’s A Dream’ is about being ambitious and seeing enhanced beauty in the world’ Rosa Walton (one half of Let’s Eat Grandma) says of her debut solo album. ‘It’s about striving for ultimate freedom. A lot of the attitude in these songs is about following your dreams – and that’s exactly what I…
Basement return with ‘Wired’, the Ipswich five-piece’s first new album in over eight years. Released via their original label, Run For Cover Records, the record is the result of all the band members collaborating during the songwriting process and working with producer John Congleton (Sharon Van Etten, Death Cab for Cutie, St. Vincent). The atmospheric…
Drawing on the political landscape and her personal experiences, Jesca Hoop’s seventh album ‘Long Wave Home’ finds the California-born. Manchester-based songwriter examining the value of relationships, community and the strength of solidarity. Album opener ‘Adam’ is a restrained affair with Jesca pleasing to stay together with the subject of the song (‘Only the wrong clothes,…
Ben Auld’s second album ‘Loserdom’ is named after a term said by Walter Becker in a Steely Dan documentary and finds the Norwich-based singer-songwriter celebrating the relief that comes when you accept your losses and start to move on in life. The appropriately titled ‘Opening’ starts the record with gentle guitar strums and then later…
False Advertising’s ‘The Sorry Window’ is the Manchester band’s first full-length release in six years. It explores the tension between ambition and self-doubt with searing honesty… The fractured indie-pop of ‘Narrow’ kicks off the album with Jen’s voice front and centre: ‘Now it breaks and it takes my breath right from my lungs’. It finishes…
Recorded between the Albion Rooms in Margate and Jelly Studios in Ramsgate, spiritual five-piece Pigeon’s debut album ‘OUTTANATIONAL’ tackles subjects including belonging, migration and identity with a joyous enthusiasm. There’s an afrobeat intro on album opener ‘NRG’, a song that demands you give it its titles while Falle Nioke wards off evil spirits over a…
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