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Just Mustard: We Were Just Here
New album: Very expansive, dynamic, experimental noise rock and dreamy shoegaze abounds in this third LP by the Irish band from Dundalk with howling distorted guitars, clattering echoes and ethereal explosiveness helped by the skilled mixing hands and ears of David Wrench
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Meric Long: Kablooey
New album: Pulsating, highly percussive, catchy, thrumming DIY indie rock by one half of the San Francisco Bay Area duo The Dodos, in an album mostly created on his own along with some vocal contributions from Spacemoth’s Maryam Qudus, and saxophonist Forrest Day
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Brògeal: Tuesday Paper Club
New album: Raw yet refined, raucous yet emotional, following two EPs, a stirring, boisterous melodic debut LP by the Falkirk band, who bring a strong, Scottish flavour to the folk-punk style and energy reminiscent of the Pogues, but also sounds reminiscent of the indie jangled guitars of Teenage Fanclub, Stone Roses and The Smiths
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They Are Gutting A Body Of Water: LOTTO
New album: Experimental, strange, shoegazey, disturbingly dark, atmospheric post-rock from the Philadelphia fronted by songwriter and guitarist Douglas Dulgarian, with some echoes of My Bloody Valentine, also with vivid spoken word and evocative, and differently visceral, haunting, heavy guitar-textures
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New album: Named after Billy Wilder’s 1959 hit comedy film, which is also centred around three musicians and lead characters (two male, one female) the London indie-rock trio return, gig-hardened from extensive touring, with a stylish, dynamic release filled with tales of strange romance, lust, identity, self-destruction, emotional vulnerability and modern-life mayhem
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The Last Dinner Party: From The Pyre
New album: This fairly speedy follow-up to the London quintet’s Mercury-nominated debut album Prelude to Ecstasy of flamboyant, theatrical, baroque and art-rock-pop, continues in a similar rich, elaborate vein, with another strong set of swaggering numbers with influences from Abba to Kate Bush, Sparks, Lee Hazlewood to Leonard Cohen, with a sprinkling of darker undercurrents and deathly themes
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Tame Impala: Deadbeat
New album: This fifth LP and first in five years by the Australian multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker sees him go down a more a more dance-electronica route, mixing psych, techno, reggaeton, and the heavy drum kicks of the western Australia’s “bush doof” rave scene, but as ever with the distinctive yearning of his falsetto voice
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Other Lives: Volume V
New album: A fifth LP, but also the first in a decade by the band from Stillwater, Oklahoma, of multi-instrumentalists Jesse Tabish, Jonathon Mooney and Josh Onstott and co, with impressive, stirring, grandiose, cinematic, dynamic, orchestra-layered indie rock
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The Antlers: Blight
New album: New York singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Peter Silberman, joined by drummer Michael Lerner, returns with a supremely stripped back, soothingly soft sounding, minimalist release of quietly sung numbers, but with a hard-hitting subject – contemplating our passively destructive tendencies of absent-minded pollution, unwitting wastefulness, and the inadvertent devastation of the natural world
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Jay Som: Belong
New album: Los Angeles artist Melina Duterte returns with a first LP for six years, an absorbing fusion of indie, electronica, shoegaze and multi-textured dream pop, all about self-healing and truth-facing, expanding from a past DIY methodology to collaboration with various with guests including Jimmy Eat World's Jim Adkins and Paramore’s Hayley Williams
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Ash: Ad Astra
New album: Punchy, hooky, catchy indie-power-pop and rock by the Northern Ireland veteran trio, following 2023’s Race The Night, returning for their ninth album with Blur’s Graham Coxon joining them on a couple of tracks in an album rich in rock guitar licks and big choruses
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Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound
New album: Strap yourselves in, but not merely for sheer cacophonous volume, but also surprises. The self-described Los Angeles “ecstatic black metal” band’s second album certainly brings a devilishly voluminous noise, but also huge dynamism with some surprisingly gentler moments
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Idlewild: Idlewild
New album: Thirty years in since their first, and this tenth LP with 10 tracks by the Edinburgh indie quintet of Roddy Woomble, Rod Jones and co feels like a classic Idlewild release, and, self-titled and full of strong, simple emotive melodies, a fitting milestone summary of their career, a fan-pleaser, an old-friend
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Upchuck: I'm Nice Now
New album: A blistering new release of razor-sharp rage fuelled by social injustice by the punk and psychedelic rockers from Atlanta, Georgia, spearheaded by the charismatic vocalist KT, with thunderous drums and scalding guitars, and recorded at Sonic Ranch Studio in Texas with producer Ty Segall with a pacy, raw, rasping sound
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Jeff Tweedy: Twilight Override
New album: The Wilco frontman’s fifth solo album is a treasure trove of lo-fi, beautiful, warm, intimate, sensitive, bittersweet songwriting – gently profound, reflective and catchily tuneful, a 30-track triple LP opus recorded and self-produced himself at his Chicago studio, The Loft, with a general theme of slow, autumnal fade and mortality but also life affirmation
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SPRINTS: All That Is Over
New album: Following last year’s blistering debut, Letter To Self, this follow-up by the Dublin post-punk quartet comes with title to to reflect dysfunctional, uncertain times, and an expanded musical dynamic, and fierce and reflective songs ranging from politics to philosopher to the personal
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Olivia Dean: The Art of Loving
New album: Mainstream but perfectly composed and polished pop and soul with a 70s retro style by the London singer-songwriter, this new LP is an unquestionably classy affair with her smooth, golden voice, gliding effortlessly through a series of songs about love, friendship, change and heartbreak
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Poptones: Pure
New album: Dynamic, mysterious, dark, stormy, whispered and explosive, a truly striking, mercurial, rich sonic soundscape of the angular, beautiful and dissonant and thematic perceptions of reality distorted by the experimental rock band from Copenhagen
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Geese: Getting Killed
New album: Dramatic and swaggeringly different - a crazed cauldron of anger, tenderness, the strangely eccentric, surreal and psychedelic, the Brooklyn band’s latest is an experimental odyssey of garage riffs to Ukrainian choir samples, frenzied drumming and prog riffing, with lullabies to explosive mayhem topped by wonderfully weird, wailing and yearning vocals of Cameron Winter
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Wednesday: Bleeds
New album: Quintessential, classy southern creek rock and shoegaze sound by the band from Asheville, North Carolina, fronted by singer and lyricist Karly Hartzman, in this sixth and possibly best yet LP packed with rich, meaty grungy guitar tones, and sharp, highly detailed, emotionally potent, narrative lyrics
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