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The American Negro by Adrian Younge
Album review: Weighty but vital, the composer’s spoken-word and soulful album of 26 tracks about the history of racism in America is profound, passionate, powerful and current, as well as harking back to the spirit of Gil Scott-Heron and Marvin Gaye
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William The Conqueror’s Maverick Thinker, their third album
Album review: The third album by the trio fronted by the Edinburgh-born singer-songwriter Ruarri Joseph is clever, catchy, bluesy, rocking and wry, filled with wistful lines, dry wit and great riffs
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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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As Days Get Dark, Arab Strap’s seventh album, and their first for 16 years
Album review: Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton’s first album together since 2005 is as brilliant as ever – a mischievous, brooding, blackly humorous, whisperingly sinister and sweary exploration of love, sex, addiction, exploitation and death wrapped in beautiful, poetic music
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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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Smerz’s album Believer
Album review: From stark and abstract, to serene, ambient and dancefloor, the debut LP from the Norwegian duo Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg is an experimental adventure taking in everything from classical to techno
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Katy Kirby’s Cool Dry Place
Album review: Beautiful debut of low-key acoustic simplicity by the singer-songwriter from Texas who is now based in Nashville, with a soft, quiet voice that resonates with understated profundity
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Julien Baker: ‘There’s no glory in love, only the gore of our hearts’
Album review: The Tennessee indie artist’s third LP is an impassioned, raw emotion narrative of life falling apart in lockdown, her at times fractured voice and powerful instrumentation capturing a self-excoriating autobiography, stormy chaotic emotions, observations and experiences
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In Quiet Moments
Album review: Partly released in December, now in full, this is a supreme soul and jazz crossover double album with a stellar cast of guest vocalists, by Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde and former Jesus & Mary Chain drummer Richie Thomas
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Nick Cave and Warren Ellis: symbiotic
Album review: "A brutal but very beautiful record nested in a communal catastrophe” is how Nick Cave describes this Covid-19 lockdown-inspired release with his longtime Bad Seed collaborator, and so it is
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Self-division: Ghetts
Album review: The British grime artist from Plaistow Justin Clarke’s third LP and first on a major label steps up to a franker, more nuanced style and includes a range of high-profile guests, including Stormzy, Emeli Sande, Dave, Hamzaa, Pa Salieu and Skepta.
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The Hold Steady have an Open Door Policy
Album review: Brooklyn’s natural lovechild band of Bruce Springsteen and Randy Newman return with their eighth studio album, full of polished, clever lyrics and energy, and if not quite up to 2008’s Stay Positive, deliver everything a fan would hope for
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Casandra Jenkins’s second album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
Album review: The New York singer-songwriter’s second album is short, but serenely superb – with a soft sheen sound produced by Josh Kaufman, it’s perfectly composed with intelligent lyrics, and profound insights beautifully voiced
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Lael Neale’s Acquainted With Night
Album review: The folk-pop singer’s charming, melancholy LP has a rather beautiful ghostly, disembodied quality, lacking only old ‘78 vinyl crackles, but delicately gorgeous with her clear, distinctive voice, guitar and Omnichord accompaniment
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High time for some the days of disco … SG Lewis
Album review: Aiming to capture a full-on mainstream club and disco feel, the British producer’s new LP mixes light funk and soul flavours that very much borrow from the Daft Punk and Chic cookbook
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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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Mush’s second album Lines Redacted
Album review: The second album by the Leeds-based band extends their distinctive, sonically idiosyncratic style of excellent angular art-rock with mind-bendingly alternative guitar riffs and scales, sharp lyrics and the oddly likeable nasal delivery of songwriter Dan Hyndman
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