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Matt Berry’s latest LP. If Francis Bacon had painted the Elephant Man.
Album review: Like a boy in a music shop let loose with all the toys, a thoroughly enjoyable and musically impressive psych-prog journey full of sonic humour and riffing adventure in this latest LP by the popular British comic actor
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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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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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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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Greta Van Fleet
Album review: This second LP by the quartet from Michigan will again raise Led Zeppelin comparisons, but the derivative 70s rock influence on the Kiszka brothers and drummer Danny Wagner also has vocal echoes of Rush, and especially Slade
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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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Caoilfhionn Rose
Album review: Sounding like a sunlit landscape of whispering grasslands, this beautiful mix of folk, jazz, ambient electronica and gentle psychedelia comes with the pure, soft, soaring voice of the Manchester singer-songwriter
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La Femme’s third LP
Album review: The French band’s third album is an attractive, energetic mix of classic vintage sounds from 60s candy floss pop to 80s synth new wave, instrumentals that could TV themes, whispery and sensual hip hop, disco and dash of rave
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Ideas constantly sprouting: Chad VanGaalen’s latest album
Album review: An inventively eclectic homegrown release of tasty psychedelia, krautrock and folk by the Calgary songwriter and eccentric animator who uses a huge variety of instruments including his own invented lithophone
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Sunburned Hand Of The Man’s latest album
Album review: An eclectic and fascinating album of newly edited tracks by the prolific Boston Massachusetts collective, covering everything from gentle acoustic to thrash metal, indie, psych, electronica, krautrock and everything in between
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Israel Nash
Album review: The Texas singer-songwriter’s latest LP indeed is a gem – infused with slow country, prog rock, southern gospel-soul, the folk and ‘70s psych-rock, with more than a dash of Neil Young, slide guitar and geographical reference
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Jane Weaver’s 11th album, Flock
Album review: The Liverpool and Widnes-raised artist returns with a mesmeric and uplifting 11th album that takes a variety of elements - electronica, psychedelia and acid folk morphing into fabulous alternative pop record that really takes flight
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Yol, meaning road, is Altin Gün’s third album
Album review: Wonderful third album by the Amsterdam-based Turkish, Dutch, Indonesian and British band who infuse traditional Turkish songbook material with elecro-pop, funk and disco sounds in a way that feels authentic and uplifting
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As The Love Continues, Mogwai’s 10th album
Album review: The Glasgow band’s 10th album in a 25-year career is full of their usual dynamic contrasts and soaring cinematic, experimental passages, but strip back to older styles on which they build newer sounds
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Virginia Wing’s fourth album Private Life
Album review: Offbeat, eclectic, meandering electronica with oodles of oddball sax and percussion mark this absorbing and original fourth album by the Manchester trio with commentary addressing issues from consumer capitalism to social media and misogyny
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Shopping dilemma: from the video for Free From Gravity
Album review: This fourth LP by the Edinburgh-formed, London-based art-rock quartet contains many of their signature sounds but also contains space-travelling new textures, such as breathy guest vocals by Charlotte Gainsbourg
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Rats on Rafts
Album review: This third album by the alternative post-punk band from Rotterdam is a conceptual journey into the id punctuated with rhythmic kabuki modal mood swings, thunderstorms, digital beeps, traffic noise echoing The Fall and Snapped Ankles
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Stormy power: the cover of The Besnard Lakes new album
Album review: Elemental, stormy, epic in its scope, the new indie-prog LP from Montreal with soaring guitar textures, falsetto, and strong falling bass lines has echoes of Mogwai and Sigur Rós, and is perfect to take on a winter walk or for a profound fireside evening
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A catchy oddball odyssey: SkyWay Man’s new album
Album review: The second full-length project from American rock/cosmic country/psychedelic folk singer, songwriter and producer James Wallace is a catchy, but very easy listen oddball odyssey, a cinematic psych folk opera
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Great albums of 2020: clockwise from top: Agnes Obel, Phoebe Bridgers, Bob Dylan and Sault’s Untitled (Rise)
Albums of 2020 roundup: Out of crisis comes great art. A year of lockdowns, no gigs, alternative sounds, experimentation and surprises. This is the second half of our roundup of favourite albums of 2020. Part 1 was here
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