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L’Rain’s second album - Fatigue
New album: This second album by the Brooklyn-born multi-instrumentalist and singer Taja Cheek is an entrancing mix of keyboards, synths, and haunting vocals, a woozily wonderful and unique style of dream-like delicacy
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John Grant: Boy From Michigan
New album: The American’s newest LP is his most autobiographical to date, filled with trademark electronica sounds, but an overall mellower sound than previous, smoothly produced by Cate Le Bon, coloured by childhood recollections
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Lucy Dacus
New album: Supremely sharp, personal and candid, this third solo album by the Virginia singer-songwriter and Boygenius member is a series of brilliant detailed diary entries with a dark, homicidal twist, and filled with ironic, killer lines
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Francis Lung’s Miracle
New album: A splendid new LP by the Manchester singer-songwriter packed with strong pop, variously with echoes of Elliott Smith in vocal delivery and the Beatles or Jeff Tweedy in classic melody and structure, and wry, humorous lyrics
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Peace or Love is KoC’s first album for 12 years
New album: The Norwegian duo of Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye return with their first LP since 2009, and fourth in 20 years with a collection of beautiful indie acoustic guitar-based folk, perfectly blended voices and barely drumbeat to be heard
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Sleater-Kinney’s surviving members Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein
Album review: This fine 10th studio album by Tucker and Brownstein was recored in Portland the summer of 2020 and rails against a backdrop of social unrest, devastating wildfires, and pandemic with a sound that has echoes of Steely Dan to Talking Heads and B-52s
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Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
Album review: Grasping mainstream pop and rock with cleverly constructed styles and influences, a shrewd, highly polished new LP from the London indie band 2018 Mercury prize winners, jumps from soft, whispery piano ballads to big guitar bangers
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Reason To Live by Lou Barlow
Album review: The veteran singer-songwriter, previously of Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion, returns with a melancholy but still joyously uplifting new solo album of lo-fi indie folk, acoustic guitar, jaunty and poignant numbers
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Bachelor’s debut album Doomin’ Sun
Album review: Melina Duterte of Jay Som and Ellen Kempner of Palehound join forces in an excellent, symbiotic debut album of intelligent lo-fi indie of light and shade, joy and melancholy, dark humour, wiry guitars and lovely melody
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St Vincent: Daddy’s Home now …
Album review: This superb new LP by Annie Clark is inspired by the look, sounds and feel of grimy early 70s New York, creating a work of of sleazy sophistication, the sounds of electric sitar, a Steely Dan, and an edgy joke title referring to the release of her father from prison
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Sophia Kennedy’s Monsters - impossible to control or define
Album review: An unholy, beguiling and at times mischievously brilliant mixture of pop, Tin Pan Alley, vintage showtunes, hip hop, abstract electronica and horror film culture, the Baltimore-born, Hamburg-bred artist is just as impossible to define as to not enjoy
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Squid’s full debut LP Bright Green Field
Album review: A bold, expansive, experimental and exciting full debut by the postpunk Brighton five-piece, with songs full of musical adventure and dynamic changes, combining krautrock, prog and even a dash of jazz
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Epic scale: The Million Masks of God by Manchester Orchestra
Album review: The Atlanta indie-rockers’ latest LP is has an even more expansive, full-bodied sound of vocal harmonies led by frontman Andy Hull that echo Fleet Foxes with strong songwriting, psychedelic parts and a sense of epic scale that would fill large venues or festivals
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Teenage Fanclub’s Endless Arcade
Album review: This first album for five years by Scotland’s indie veterans as ever is wonderfully consistent, here marrying the musically sunny and uplifting with dark, tragic subject matter to reflect recent times
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The Coral’s new double album
Album review: Themed loosely in setting, characters and narrative around a British seaside resort, this new double album by the Liverpool band glitters with beautifully relaxed, timeless tunes that shimmer with a late-60s psychedelia
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Dinosaur Jr return with Sweep It Into Space
Album review: Packed with tender lo-fi to full-on rock numbers, the distinctive voice and playing of J Mascis joined Lou Barlow’s bass and Murph on drum, rolls out in the form of a very fine new LP, their first together for five years
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Album review: Refreshing, full-bodied vocal harmonies and almost messianic, upbeat lyrics make this new indie pop album by the West Country quartet a breath of positivity that also echoes the energy of Arcade Fire and The Polyphonic Spree
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Flat White Moon
Album review: The eighth LP from Sunderland brothers Peter and David Brewis brings together a wealth influences and accessibility, cleverly marrying pop, funk and postpunk with echoes of the Beatles, XTC and Todd Rundgren
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Sharon Van Etten is joined by guests’ new cover version on this special 10-year anniversary double album edition
Album review: A decade after the American singer-songwriter’s acclaimed second album, seven wonderfully written songs are reissued alongside versions by contrasting guests including Fiona Apple, IDLES, and Lucinda Williams
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Silver Synthetic from New Orleans
Album review: This debut album by the New Orleans indie psych rock band is full of bluesy, catchy, snappy tunes and wistful lyrics, shades of 1970s Kinks, Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine, Ultimate Painting, Velvet Underground and Teenage Fanclub
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