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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
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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
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Richard Dawson: End of the Middle
New album: Extraordinary songs about ordinary lives by the wonderful Newcastle alternative folk singer-songwriter – poetic, strikingly detailed, touching, warm, gently humorous, melancholy, original and gorgeously profound, bringing beauty to banality, private tragedies and small joys
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Another selection of favourite LPs for 2022. See the lists below to go from top row, left to right
Further favourite albums of 2022: Welcome to the second part of a selection for this year, many of which continue to come to terms with pandemic, climate change and other current issues but also show how music can continue to innovate, surprise and entertain
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Richard Dawson’s The Ruby Cord
New album: Poetic, vivid, and original, the third in an great trilogy after the medieval-themed Peasant (2017), and 2019’s state-of-nation first-person narrative 2020, the remarkable Newcastle experimental folk artist’s newest LP is set in the post-human future
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Richard Dawson and Circle’s collaborative album Henki
New album: An entrancing, uplifting, brilliantly crafted and epic-feel mix of folk, prog and krautrock through tales of seeds, botany, history and myth by the Newcastle artist in collaboration with the Finnish metal band in a fabulous album unlike any other in 2021
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Nine more albums of note
Album reviews roundup: Hip hop comes up strong this week with Black Thought and a recent Public Enemy release with heavyweight guests, but there’s not shortage of other highly original artists from Future Islands to Sylvan Esso
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Aldous Harding wins the prize for most unusual moves for her song, The Barrel
The first part of our selection of the pick of albums from 2019 by Song Bar readers and the Landlord editor, in alphabetical order by title, not a ‘best of’ or countdown. The second part is here.
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RIchard Dawson
Another roundup of releases includes angry work – raw emotions from Elbow, wonderful perspectives of British pathos from Richard Dawson, and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon sneering superbly in her first solo album
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Gazelle Twin - aka Elizabeth Bernholz, pushing the musical boundaries on Brexit Britain, past and present, with her extraordinary album Pastoral
The second part of our roundup of outstanding albums of 2018, in alphabetical order by title, marked by a number of great debuts from young bands, as well as more established artists releasing their best work to date
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Images Father John Misty's Pure Comedy
Father John Misty to Randy Newman, Thundercat to Sleaford Mods, Richard Dawson to DUDS, Björk to Lorde – who is on the first part of this week's reader-voted list, and what is the running theme?
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