Pixies – Beneath The Eyrie
With a little over a month until Halloween, the American pioneers return (though without Kim Deal who is busier again with The Breeders alongside her sister) with their third album since reforming, and their seventh overall, but this one concentrates on horror, witchcraft and death. It less recreates their defining, highly influential high-octane grunge sound, instead going in a more goth-rock direction. No bad thing in itself to diversify, but diehards will find this is more of an Anglo-American rock experimental crossover style rather than classic Pixies. If anything it's like The Cramps or The Birthday Party. On Graveyard Hill, for example, is all about a witch creating a curse. A more acoustic Death Horizon gets away from fiction to address the climate crisis, and Silver Bullet is all about deadly duel. Rock solid, vampish, and spooky. Out on BMG/Infectious.
Pixies – On Graveyard Hill
Gruff Rhys – Pang!
Brilliantly eclectic new album by the Welshman and former frontman of the Super Furry Animals. Here he sings almost entirely in original language (with a brief moment of Zulu) and this is more stripped back and acoustic following the bigger orchestration of last year's Babelsberg. There is also a South African sound in here too, influenced by producer and electronica artist Muzi. Climate change and politics interweave in his own idiosyncratic, eccentric, wonderful, with songs variously about wearing sun hats (Eli Haul), or a fog of lies (Niwl O Anwiredd). The inventive Welsh equivalent David Byrne. Fabulous. Out on Rough Trade.
Gruff Rhys – Pang!
Sampa The Great – The Return
Funky, groovy and fulsome, this is hip-hop with a fat slice of 70s about it, filled with gutsy, clever, quick-witted braggadocio from the Zambia-born, Botswana-raised, Australia-based performer who clearly takes no shit. Her staccato delivery here is has a harder, more aggressive edge to her previous, Energy, which echoed early Fugees, and can overdo the nasal style, but songs such as OMG, that African influence comes with inventive, catchily engaging rhythms, while the title track is lush, slow and indulgent. Stylish and charismatic, Sampa Tembo impossible to ignore. Out on Ninja Tune.
Sampa The Great – Final Form
Sam Fender – Hypersonic Missiles
Fender has all the hallmarks of a pretty-boy mainstream rock vocalist, and much of the music follows that, but hailing from North Shields, his singing style feels grittier, more down-to-earth, and genuine rather than following the usual quasi-American delivery. Love songs, such as Will We Talk? mix with politics, as on the title track. Yet the music definitely echoes Springsteen, Tom Petty with a dash of The Strokes. It sounds set for success, but let us hope his songwriting and individuality are allowed to shine through this commercial balancing act of being a straight up Geordie lad, but attempting to be have mass appeal to north America. Out on Polydor.
Sam Fender – Hypersonic Missiles
Metronomy – Metronomy Forever
Welcome return from the London indie-popsters fronted by songwriter Joe Mount, with an album that very much mixes styles, sometimes within the same song. Many of their influences hail from the 80s, whether that be A-Ha! or OMD (Wedding Bells), or Sex Emoji (Prince - Parade-era). Whitsand Bay is lo-fi languorous indie, Insecurity is more rocky, while Salted Caramel Ice Cream is as sweetly catchy as any electro-pop you can imagine. Light, clever, and pleasantly cleansing. Out on Because Music.
Metronomy – Salted Caramel Ice Cream
Charli XCX – Charli
Highly stylised vocoder pop from the British singer Charlotte Emma Aitchison from Cambridge, who after lots of issues and promises to never release another full album, finally does so after a five-year gap at the edge of 27. Nole me tangere seems to be message, but while she says don't touch, please continue to look. Out on Asylum/Atlantic.
Charli XCX – 2099
Jenny Hval – The Practice of Love
After her last album about vampires and menstruation from spare, folk-spoken pop, the Norwegian's seventh album recalls more the Fluffy Clouds of The Orb in the 90s, a ambient floatiness of arpeggiated synths, from the trancey Ashes to Ashes, to Six Red Cannas, a tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe. Accident meanwhile has these elements, in a Jean-Michel Jarre or Vangelis style, with echoes of Sarah Nixey talking and singing with Handsome Boy Model School. Lush, smooth, dreamy pop that oddly covers subjects from humanity as a virus to technology’s role in romance, bereavement, and panic attacks. Out on Sacred Bones.
Jenny Hval – Accident
Jerkcurb – Air Con Eden
Seven years in the making, debut from the south London songwriter and visual artist Jacob Read, this rich, complex double LP is inspired by Victor Gruen, the pioneering designer of shopping malls in the United States and has on fundamental theme - time - in particular the idea of being trapped in an eternity that feels like an endless present tense. This is loungey, offbeat, orchestral otherworldliness wrapped in a dash of Gavin Friday. Out on Handsome Dad.
Jerkcurb – Air Con Eden
Efterklang – Altid Sammen
The Danish electronica trio return with an album title that translates as “always together”. Sparser than previous work, another key difference on this release is that vocalist Casper Clausen sings in Norwegian rather than English. Out on 4AD.
Efterklang - Vi er uendelig
This week's selection is by The Landlord.
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