ALBUM REVIEW – GRACIE ABRAMS: DAUGHTER FROM HELL

Gracie Abrams has become one of modern pop’s defining voices, celebrated for her intimate songwriting and emotionally honest lyricism. Beginning to write songs at just eight years old, Abrams draws inspiration from artists including Joni Mitchell, Elliott Smith, Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift, shaping her reflective and diaristic approach to music. Since releasing […]
Pop punk and progressive metal should, in theory, never be mixed. Some bands form to change things though, and that is exactly the case with Protest The Hero. This Canadian band has never shone away from pushing musical boundaries, and on Within, their first fully independent release, this could not be more obvious. Most importantly, […]

ALBUM REVIEW – PROTEST THE HERO: WITHIN

ALBUM REVIEW – NAO YOSHIOKA: SELF

It’s not often that a name and description catch your eye that you can’t help but delve into and immerse yourself and that exactly what happened once I saw Nao Yoshioka. Japanese born and raised Nao Yoshioka embodies what soul is not being held back by expectations and labels. Traditional and contemporary are blended to […]
Yard Act             You’re Gonna Need A Little Music       Weirdly, for a band so associated with incendiary live shows and constant touring, their third LP marks the first time that the quartet have ever made an album together, as a live band in the same room. Tricky                  Different When It’s Silent         Across fourteen tracks, Tricky […]

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 17 JULY 2026

ALBUM REVIEW – TRICKY: DIFFERENT WHEN IT’S SILENT

It is 31 years since the release of ‘Maxinquaye’, Tricky’s debut album. Although it was bunched as part of the trip-hop wave, there was something more elemental, almost brutal about the record that made it distinct. ‘Different When It’s Silent’ is his first solo album in six years, although in the intervening years he has […]
Like many others, my introduction to Cinder Well came courtesy of the soundtrack and theme tune to this year’s best television series so far, Small Prophets. In common with Mackenzie Crook’s previous gem, Detectorists, which had musical decoration from The Unthanks and Johnny Flynn, the programme continues his signature of using eery, folk-leaning music to […]

ALBUM REVIEW – CINDER WELL: A BLOOMING BODY

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 10 JULY 2026

Tengger              Sky        Blurring the lines between psychedelic, New Age, and drone, guided as much by intuition and ritual as by composition. Fabienne Delsol            Indigo Red        Artist who has been finessing her unique blend of neo- and classic psych, ye-ye, and ‘60s beat inspired pop since releasing her debut solo album No Time For Sorrows in […]
It sounds like something out of a romantic novel. Ray Sonder and Saxon Gable were brought up in sleepy Australian beach towns to parents who were hippies and rockers. Spoon fed Nirvana and The Beatles on the car stereo, they both became self-taught musicians. They moved separately to Berlin within two weeks of each other, […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BABY SMITH: LATELY, LOVE IS DEAD

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 3 JULY 2026

The Heavenly Bodes    Green Hills       Recorded on reel-to-reel in a friend’s living room between trips to the beach, it features a collection of lo-fi garage-psych numbers that vary in feel – sometimes twisting and erratic, sometimes sedated and meandering – but all drenched in tape hiss and left out on the pebbles to dry. Sailing […]
Music is and always will be subjective. That is why it is so unique and we all adore it. Sometimes, despite this subjectivity, there will be an artist who comes along and revolutionises the craft of songwriting, and that is exactly where the Norwegian dungeon synth, and former black metal legend Mortiis comes in. After […]

ALBUM REVIEW – MORTIIS: GHOSTS OF EUROPA