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The Nightingales: The Awful Truth
New album: With sharp turns of phrase and pace, the legendary Birmingham post-punk band fronted by Robert Lloyd return with meatily rich riffs and rhythms, and a collection of wittily ironic songs on social injustice and current affairs like a musical news broadcast
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Bria Salmena: Big Dog
New album: A striking, stylish debut by the Toronto artist, also co-written and co-produced with Duncan Hay Jennings, the frontwoman of Canadian post-punk outfit FRIGS delivers a mix of dark, deep, smoky-voiced pop, crafted krautrock, shimmery shoegaze, and goth-electronica
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Jeffrey Lewis: The EVEN MORE Freewheelin' Jeffrey Lewis
New album: One of the great independent singer-songwriters around, the prolific New Yorker and cartoonist returns with his clever, witty, alternative indie-folk, here with an amusing visual play on that famous Bob Dylan album for this brand new LP recorded with his band in just four days at Haptown Studios, Nashville
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Hamilton Leithauser: This Side Of The Island
New album: Having experimented with different styles his solo albums The Walkman frontman rekindles passionate, raw intensity and pent-up energy alongside introspection in latest LP in part produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner.
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YHWH Nailgun: 45 Pounds
New album: A rite of passage to the senses, this short, sharp, experimental debut noise rock LP by the New York quartet feels like being dropped into a growling, stop-start pinball machine, but the experience is weirdly rewarding
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The Tubs: Cotton Crown
New album: With a Sonic Youth-referencing title, the London-based Welsh indie quartet’s second LP, following 2023’s Dead Meat, is a short, sharp, punchy release of nine jangly, Johnny Marr-influenced guitar tracks, reflecting on love but also with a gut-wrenching, tragic finale
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Throwing Muses: Moonlight Concessions
New album: The veteran Rhode Island alternative rock and post-punk band fronted by Kristin Hersh return with an 11th studio album with a strikingly different sound - a stripped back, almost-unplugged acoustic release of restrained but haunting powe
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Melin Melyn: Mill On The Hill
New album: Enormously entertaining, witty, catchy, folk-country-psych-rock by the Cardiff-London band, with clear, upbeat comparisons to Gruff Rhys and Super Furry Animals as well as other original twists in this warm, vintage-feel new release
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HotWax: Hot Shock
New album: One of the hottest young bands around, a blisteringly entertaining debut by the Hastings rock/punk trio, with snarling vocals, stormy guitars, bass and explosive drumming by Tallulah Sim-Savage, Lola Sam and Alfie Sayers
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Divorce: Drive To Goldenhammer
New album: With a warm, engaging sound, and beautifully crafted, intelligent songs, this excellent debut by the Nottingham indie quartet transcends genres from pop to country, Americana folk to rock with enduring passion and quality
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da Googie + Cary Tivey: The Golden Thread
New album: A mesmeric, cutting-edge, experimental tapestry of dark, magical, musical textures and songs by an English duo of seasoned, innovative collaborators – My Bloody Valentine bass player Deb Googe, and pianist and composer Cara Tivey in a superb debut LP together
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SASAMI: Blood On The Silver Screen
New album: Following 2022’s excellent alchemic metal and more Squeeze LP, the LA-based classically trained French horn player, singer and composer Sasami Ashworth returns with a cinematic, stylish adventure in well-crafted, mainstream-style pop, aided by producers Jenn Decilveo and Rostam
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Doves: Constellations For The Lonely
New album: A glorious sixth LP by the Manchester indie band, weathering many ups and downs, including ongoing mental health issues for lead vocalist and bass player Jimi Goodwin who is unable to tour, but despite that, summoning a powerful, dynamic, passionate work of darkness and light, and one of the best in the 25 years since their debut, Lost Souls
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Sam Fender: People Watching
New album: The likeable, powerful tenor-voiced, 30-year-old singer-songwriter from North Shields has hit mainstream success, especially with his last LP, Seventeen Going Under (2021), and while this continues with a sometimes Springsteen-like style, there’s a lyrical melancholy colouring this third LP, on trappings of fame, music industry, and tales of tragedy within his northern working-class roots
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The Murder Capital: Blindness
New album: A stormy, passionate, viscerally powerful and intense by the indie-rock Dublin band of James McGovern, Damien Tuit, Cathal Roper, Gabriel Paschal Blake, Diarmuid Brennan fired up by personal and political issues, created with renewed focus, and produced by John Congleton
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Bartees Strange: Horror
New album: A diversely eclectic, genre-hopping, powerfully emotional LP of soul, funk, hip-hop, rock, indie, country, house and pop by the Washington DC-based artist, produced by Jack Antonoff, with songs facing fears as a young young, queer, black person in rural America, and inspired by the likes of Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young
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The Velveteers: A Million Knives
New album: Blistering second album of glamorous rock by the trio from Boulder, Colorado, fronted by singer-songwriter Demi Demitro, and produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, with powerful numbers about heartbreak, but also the volatile truth of being an artist in the music industry while still clinging to the teenage joy of instruments
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Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking
New album: The veteran Welsh rockers’ 15th studio album delivers everything you’d expect - direct lyrics on big social and political themes, huge, surging melodies and powerful choruses, variously wistful, playful, angry, sincere, and even includes a slanted dedication to the Smiths with one of their strongest for years
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Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On
New album: Minimalistic, pithy, nostalgically twangy, wistful, undersyated indie-folk-pop by the Chicago/New York trio of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece in this second LP with a refreshing sound produced by Cate Le Bon
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Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
New album: With a strong, seasoned new band, the acclaimed New Jersey singer-songwriter takes a new direction, from her more recent country and folk output, into an expansive sheen of synth, indie, rock and a hint of goth, and themes of emancipation, letting go, and relationships
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