Your Custom Text Here
War Child: HELP(2) follows 1995’s first compilation with another impressive range of music and artists
New album: Not only a timely and topical milestone charity record following the first in 1995 to help bring aid and wide variety of support to children in war zones around he world, but an impressive double-LP array of stellar British and international talent and powerful, poignant 23 songs from Arctic Monkeys to Young Fathers
Read more
Altin Gün: Garip
New album: The Grammy-nominated Turkish psych-groove quintet from Amsterdam return with a stylish and expansive sixth LP — a heartfelt tribute to the work of the legendary Turkish folk bard Neşet Ertaş (1938–2012), a legend of Anatolian music
Read more
Hen Ogledd: DISCOMBOBULATED
New album: Wonderfully colourful, mystical and socio-political, the British psychedelic-folk-rock quartet return with their special brand of eccentric, oddball originality, here including Welsh poems, ‘bard rap’ and an a protest manifesto for social change and mental wellbeing in a world gone mad
Read more
Kula Shaker: Wormslayer
New album: Following 2024’s Natural Magick, the British rock band fronted by Crispian Mills continue their late-career purple patch with their third album in just four years and eighth across their three decades with a kaleidoscopic, unabashed high-octane dive into 60s-style psychedelia
Read more
Ulrika Spacek: EXPO
New album: Arresting, intelligent art rock and electronica, krautrock and psychedelia and a marriage of the analogue and electronic, all intermingle wonderfully different and intelligent new LP by the London band fronted by Rhys Edwards
Read more
Mandy, Indiana: URGH
New album: An extraordinary second album by the Manchester experimental noise and electronica quartet of the visceral and playful, protest and cartharsis, in a fierce, throbbing, shape-shifting, genre-bursting tour de force that’s responds to very challenging times
Read more
Geologist: Can I Get A Pack Of Camel Lights?
New album: The hurdy-gurdy never quite sounded like this before. Animal Collective multi-instrumentalist Brian Weitz is the final member of that experimental collective to release a solo album, and it’s a bizarre journey of oddball sounds and instruments looped through guitar pedal effects krautrock repetitive, meditational exploratory spirit, inhaled through the titular reference to his past as a smoker
Read more
Plantoid: FLARE
New album: The nimbly inventive, experimental prog trio from Brighton return following their debut LP Terrapath, with an evolved, often catchier style of oddball riffs, licks, clever tempo changes, unusual rhythms, and unconventional chord progressions with a stirring of jazz inflections, dream pop, psych rock and shoegaze
Read more
Clothesline From Hell: Slather On The Honey
New album: His moniker mischievously named after a wrestling move, a highly impressive, independently-created experimental, psychedelic rock debut the the Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Adam LaFramboise
Read more
Dead Dads Club
New album: Dynamic, passionate, heart-stirring indie rock in this project fronted by Chilli Jesson (formerly bassist of Palma Violets) with songs spurred by the trauma of losing his father 20 years ago, retelling a defiant and difficult aftermath, with sound boosted by producer Carlos O’Connell of Fontaines D.C.
Read more
Imarhan: Essam
New album: A mesmeric fourth LP in a decade by the band from Tamanrasset, Algeria, whose name means ‘the ones I care about’, their Tuareg music mixing guitar riffs, pop melodies and African rhythms, but this time also evolves slightly away from the desert blues rocky, bluesy influence of contemporaries Tinariwen with electronic elements
Read more
Part Two favourite albums of 2025 collage
Welcome to the second part of Song Bar favourite albums of 2025. There is also a first part and a third part this week. There is no countdown nor describing these necessarily as “best” albums of the year, but they are chosen by their quality, originality and reader popularity
Read more
First selection of 25 favourite albums in no particular order …
Welcome to the first part of Song Bar favourite albums of 2025. There will also be a second and third part this week. There is no countdown nor describing these necessarily as “best” albums of the year, but they are chosen by their quality, originality and reader popularity
Read more
Melody's Echo Chamber: Unclouded
New album: A fourth album, here full of delicious uplifting, dreamily chic, psychedelic soul pop by the French musician Melody Prochet, with bright, upbeat, optimistic numbers and a title lifted from a quote by the acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, about achieving equilibrium
Read more
Tortoise: Touch
New album: A welcome return with a cinematic and mesmeric groove-filled first studio LP in nine years, and the eighth over all by the eclectic Chicago post-rock/jazz/krautrock multi-instrumentalists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker
Read more
Picture Parlour: The Parlour
New album: Following last year’s EP Face in the Picture, a fabulously stylish, smart, swaggering glam-rock-pop debut LP by the Manchester-formed, London-based band fronted by the impressively raspy, gritty, vibratro delivery of Liverpudlian vocalist and guitarist Katherine Parlour and distinctive riffs from North Yorkshire-born guitar Ella Risi
Read more
Midlake: A Bridge To Far
New album: The Denton, Texas band make a welcome return with their distinctively warm, rich, psychedelic folk-rock, marked by close vocal harmonies, acoustic and pedal steel, keyboards and flute, this sixth studio album themed around hope, humility and perseverance, all as a human necessity
Read more
Sorry: COSPLAY
New album: Consistently excellent singles before and heralding this brilliantly odd, clever third album by the London indie band all cement their reputation for a truly original sound filled with a variety of styles, captured in the experimental title of their third LP following 2022’s Anywhere But Here
Read more
The Charlatans: We Are Love
New album: Returning with a first first studio LP since 2017's Different Days, and their 14th overall across 35 years, veterans Tim Burgess, Martin Blunt and co’s latest has that signature sound with Hammond organ, euphoric, engaging melodies, indie syncopations and co-production by Dev Hynes, Fred Macpherson and Stephen Street
Read more
Twen: Fate Euphoric
New album: Vibrant, sparkling, cleverly conceived catchy indie-rock-psychedelia with glittering guitar playing in this third LP by the Nashville duo, timing today’s release for the astrological super moon and themed all around fate, in a release that thematically and philosophically spins through the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness in a techno-cratic world
Read more