Like freeform poetry on a mildly philosophical urban afternoon.

Favourite Song: European Oils

Best: Rubies, Your Blood, Painter In Your Pocket, Looters' Follies, A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point, Watercolours into the Ocean, Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever

Worst: Priest's Knees

White Chalk is kind of a strange departure from Harvey's usual rock adjacent mixes, but it's one that lands in its emotive poetry and subtleness compared to her prior comparatively roaring albums.

Favourite Song: The Piano

Best: The Devil, Grow Grow Grow, When Under Ether, White Chalk, Silence

Wort: Broken Harp

We're getting existential with this one! WHY LAWD?!

I wasn't a huge fan of the first NxWorries project, but I'm so glad to be able to resonate greatly with this one. It's a very bubbly neo-soul effort that pairs Andy's usual cheekiness alongside Knxwledge's excellency in beat curation in a much more cohesive and entertaining way compared to the first time around. Mr Paak simply does not miss, and this is yet ANOTHER iteration of this gospel, as his lyrics and ... read more

Soft and floaty indie pop with a caressing touch.

Favourite Song: Run Your Mouth

Best: Hamptons, Echo, Real Life, Blur, Paranoia, Love You Anyway, Vicious Sensitive Robot

Worst: If Only

It's the usual from KAYTRANADA: bouncy dancefloor anthems, but it's very easy to tell that half of these songs are pretty much the same.

Favourite Song: Do 2 Me

Best: Pressure, Spit It Out, Call U Up, Weird, Feel A Way, Still, Video, Drip Sweat, Witchy, Lover/Friend, Snap My Finger, Stuntin

Worst: Please Babe

More like a glorified tech demo than a cohesive piece of music, but still it has much artistic value within its interesting usages of autotune and electronica.

Favourite Song: The Wilhelm Scream

Best: Unluck, I Never Learnt to Share, Limit To Your Love, Give Me My Mouth

Worst: Lindisfarne I

I still can't believe my first thrash album was Infest the Rats Nest.

Master of Puppets proves to me that thrash metal is a very fun genre, and the eponymous song proves that this band truly deserves their title as the founders for popular metal in the 80's.

Favourite Song: Master of Puppets

Best: Battery, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Disposable Heroes, Orion

Worst: Leper Messiah

Aside from being an absolute eyesore of an album cover (no, I will not hear anyone out), BRAT is an interesting listen, especially now from the perspective of someone who doesn't listen to Charli all too much anymore ever since CRASH's middling status. It's a surprising mix of booty-shaking club anthems, tight knit extremely personal IDM ballads, and some occasional glimpses of pre-CRASH hyper pop adjacent stuff. Sadly I found it to vocally and lyrically be one of her weakest albums to date ... read more

Dry is a little patchier than Harvey's later efforts predominantly of course due to it being her debut, but some brilliant 90's alt rock is still available to the ears. It just lacks a bit of the dare and depth that her career would soon envelop.

Favourite Song: Dress

Best: Oh My Lover, O Stella, Victory, Happy and Bleeding, Sheela-na-gig, Plants and Rags, Water

Worst: Fountain

Metalcore ya :D

Favourite Song: Suffocate

Best: Thirst, Don't Reach For Me, Slaughterhouse 2, Sit & Mourn

Worst: Moss Covers All

Fun but unremarkable American pop punk/power pop.

Favourite Song: Eighteen

Best: Fake I.D., Do You Really Want to Not Get Better?, Last You Heard of Me, Make Me Dumb, Over Before It Began,

Worst: This Song Is a Mess But So Am I

Golden Hour is a crisply produced country pop album, with a fantastic first half and a slightly lacklustre second. I like that it doesn't go fully country mode and remains poppy and accessible, and I like how fluid Kacey generally treats country as a genre, bending it towards more danceable or more intimate acoustic areas whenever she pleases. Putting aside a few weak lyrics here and there, she's an interesting singer for sure and an artist that thrives in her own unique take on country music. ... read more

It's been a good few years since I'd heard an Eilish song before the Barbie one, as I unintentionally skipped all of her last album cycle. When I was a teenager, she had a few good songs which I enjoyed, but to me she was an artist that attempted to walk the fine line between sensual and boring, and sadly fell down either side every time she made a song, all of which seemed to get a little formulaic. I'm glad to hear that now she's diversifying a little on HIT ME HARD AND SOFT with some ... read more

A very strange futuristic odyssey.

Favourite Song: Fight Test

Best: One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1, In the Morning of the Magicians, Are You a Hypnotist??, All We Have Is Now, Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)

Worst: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2

Hmm this new BMTH album is kind of alri - IS THAT SANS UNDERTALE???

After originally founding themselves through metalcore, BMTH have had a very interesting trajectory as a metal band, as with each release they become more and more accessible and 'poppy' - which is by no means a bad thing, as the band's more successful efforts have been the ones which are more melodic and varied. But with the release of POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL HORROR, it was clear that the band wanted to shake things up a bit, ... read more

The usual from Mr Smith, but with the most care put into production yet. I do like the scale of this album compared to his others, and it helps to make it stand out amongst his discography, but there is a weak spot just after the half way point where there's simply just a few weaker songs. Those tracks aside though, it's much more confident and interesting than his self-titled, but lacking a bit more in cohesion and holistic vision compared to Either/Or and Roman Candle.

Favourite Song: ... read more

A mysterious and slightly creepy effort from Harvey, almost like a small collection of stories relating to several women in several different predicaments. I seriously cannot comprehend how Harvey can shapeshift her sound so effortlessly and so passionately from album to album, and her consistent quality across her works is incredibly admirable.

Favourite Song: A Perfect Day Elise

Best: Angelene, The Sky Lit Up, The Wind, My Beautiful Leah, Catherine, Electric Light, The Garden, Joy, The ... read more

Less yee haw's and more haw man's.

Zach Bryan is truly a very talented songwriter. Despite the country genre having its limitations of tropes and similar sounding songs, he manages to inject so much personality and catchiness into everything he does without sacrificing his sense of artistry. When most of modern popular country is so dire and potentially offensive in their values towards how modern society is changing, Bryan makes something that feels modern but still has a classic Americana ... read more

Turning the knowledge of your inevitable death into a destructively passionate yet wrenching art rock album is certainly a very Bowie way to go out.

Blackstar is an exceedingly intricate and really interesting delve into a different side to Bowie. What was once a campy and extravagant mythological figure has suddenly become shockingly human, and this humanity behind the record helps to push it towards strong emotional potencies. I can't believe how well his song writing and producing habits ... read more

Look how they massacred my boy.

Talking Heads: one of the most influential bands ever, and one of the biggest figureheads for post-punk, new-wave music and rock music in general. When this was first announced, I had a lot of fun trying to think of what bands could be involved based off of these genres, including the likes of IDLES, Bloc Party, Alvvays, Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes, etc. The list goes on with how many interesting rock outfits could've done justice to the original Heads tracks ... read more