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Saint Etienne: International
New album: Catchy retro, singalong electro-pop, soft, bouncy beats, simple melodies and a big dose of nostalgia? If this 13th really is the British trio’s final album across 35 years, it's a decent sign-off by Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs since that breakthrough LP Foxbase Alpha in 1991
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Junior Brother: The End
New album: Superbly strange, spectral, unearthly, raw, and striking, using traditional Irish instruments with twist, and a vocal delivery that’s idiosyncratic, passionate and primal, the County Kerry singer-songwriter Ronan Kealy’s new boundary-pushing alternative folk release distils the ancient and eerie folklore through a modern mangle
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Curtis Harding - Departures & Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt
New album: The Michigan-born, Atlanta-based golden-voiced artist returns with uplifting, classy retro-soul funk, rock and pop with an extra layer of takeoff - he plays the cinematic thematic role of a space travelling astronaut expressing how much he misses his true love on Earth
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Sabrina Carpenter: Man's Best Friend
New album: Mischievous, provocative, satirical, saucy, sexy, intimate, explicit, shiny, cleverly catchy relationship songs, packed with naughty whip-smart wordplay pop, musical echoes of 80s and Madonna, to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, all by the US singer-songwriter, and expertly produced across a range of funky to country styles by Jack Antonoff
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Suede: Antidepressants
New album: Their tenth album over all and fifth since the 2013 reformation, is classic Suede with a post-punk feel by the British rock band, with searing, strong, raw Magazine- and Cure-style guitar riffs by Richard Oakes and dark yet energised and emotive, declamatory lyrics by Brett Anderson
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Big Thief: Double Infinity
New album: Brooklyn’s Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia return with a beautiful sixth album, joined by guest musicians including Laraaji on zither and percussion, with nine poetic, profound and elevating folk-rock numbers, all with exquisite, bustling, interwoven elegance
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David Byrne: Who Is The Sky?
New album: With his first since 2018’s acclaimed American Utopia and its performance film, the ex-Talking Heads frontman’s new LP is an antidote to dark times - brilliantly joyous, optimistic, catchy, variously eccentric and profound, accompanied by Brooklyn’s Ghost Train Orchestra and guests including St Vincent, Paramore’s Hayley Williams and The Smile drummer Tom Skinner
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Guedra Guedra: MUTANT
New album: A fabulous fusion of the traditional with the modern, a brilliantly infectious, mesmeric, polyrhythmic melange, created by the Moroccan producer Abdellah M. Hassak, who blends analogue synths, drum machines, and field recordings from Morocco, Tanzania, Guinea and more, exploring themes of themes of identity, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, and decolonisation
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Nova Twins: Parasites & Butterflies
New album: Following 2022’s acclaimed Supernova album, south-east London’s Amy Love and Georgia South return with a third LP of banging boundary-pushing hybrid goth-rock-nu-metal-punk-hip-hop with feisty punch-the-air anthems as well as themes addressing mental health, confidence, negativity and the music industry
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Modern Nature: The Heat Warps
New album: Following 2023’s No Fixed Point In Space, Jack Cooper and his Cambridge-based lo-fi indie-folk band return with another insightful, poetic album, here with glimmers of gentle, offbeat hope as well as melancholy, exploring themes of collectivism, our relationship with the natural world and the weight of consciousness - but with greater directness and purpose
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The Hives Forever Forever The Hives!
New album: Subtlety, for some, is overrated. With another shamelessly, if also ironically self-aggrandising hyperbolic title, the Swedish band return with their classic, full-on, full-fat-fun, witty, explosive, screamingly entertaining catchy, punk and garage rock packed with shouty bangers
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The Beths: Straight Line Was A Lie
New album: The New Zealand quartet fronted by singer-songwriter Elizabeth Stokes return with a fourth LP of particularly strong, warm, cleverly nuanced, poignant indie numbers spanning contradictory pulls of emotion and expanded sounds and production
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Jehnny Beth: You Heartbreaker, You
New album: A superbly scorching, viscerally intense, emotionally arresting new release by the French actor and ex-Savages frontwoman Camille Berthomier, joined by longtime collaborator Johnny Hostile (Nicolas Congé) in a follow-up to her 2020 solo debut, To Love Is to Live
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CMAT: EURO-COUNTRY
New album: “I waited for love with a cricket bat …” Packed with witty, offbeat and super-sharp, candidly personal lyrics, soaring, gorgeous vocals and melodies, all with an eccentric turns, the charismatic Dublin country-pop star and songwriter Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson brings home her third, and best LP yet
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Hand Habits: Blue Reminder
New album: Passionate yet controlled, powerful yet quiet, introspective yet expressive, walking a tightrope between hope and a kind of quiet anxiety, New York-born, LA-based Meg Duffy returns with their distinctive, intimate experimental folk-rock-indie, with 12 circumspect, insecure yet intense love songs
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Pino Palladino and Blake Mills: That Wasn't A Dream
New album: Following 2021’s Notes With Attachments, the acclaimed veteran Welsh session bass player and American producer-singer-songwriter again join forces to make with an intriguingly original, eclectic, experimental collection of offbeat jazz instrumentals
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Mac DeMarco: Guitar
New album: Relaxing, smooth, warm, and all at a uniform strolling pace, a soporific, less-is-more lo-fi approach of stripped back guitar, intimate vocals and minimal backing on this sixth LP, all recorded at home by the California-based Canadian songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer
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Adrian Sherwood: The Collapse of Everything
New album: A title with themes for our scary times, a refined dub-rich but also eclectic release by the legendary veteran producer and label founder on a collection of eclectic, cinematic, instrumental tracks with collaborators including Brian Eno and Doug Wimbish
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Wolf Alice: The Clearing
New album: Still riding high on awards and big sales, the London rock band’s fourth LP, following 2021’s Blue Weekend, explores a wider breadth of styles into more piano-based pop and 70s rock, with songs broadly about self-acceptance, wellbeing, contemplating identity and some stylistic echoes of Fleetwood Mac and ELO
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Laufey: A Matter of Time
New album: Witty, classy, and with oodles of charm, humour and her exquisitely pure delivery with sublime vocal control, the Icelandic-Chinese singer-songwriter Lín Bing Jónsdóttir turns back the clock with timeless, gorgeous brand new numbers that capture a bygone era of smooth sophisticated jazz, and sumptuously scored musicals all about matters of the heart
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