Reviews

“I’m really quiet tonight, I think I have stage fright,” Celeste murmurs midway through her second of five nights at London’s Union Chapel. “But it’s really nice to sing for other people and not just for myself in my...
“Are you from London? … Y'all eat crumpets and stuff?” The queen, bad teeth, rain: British collective Sault have fun playing with the capital’s tropes on fifth album ‘Nine’ – but only after painting a starker truth about the...
Breaking up by email is never an okay thing to do. In 2017, British singer Laura Mvula found herself on the receiving end of such an unwelcome missive – not from a cowardly ex-lover, but from her record label....
BIG RED MACHINE – ‘RENEGADE (FEAT. TAYLOR SWIFT)’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_wr-9X47ao In the three days since Big Red Machine – aka The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon – announced their second album, they’ve already shared three songs from it. All are, of...
“That caterpillar went to cocoon, do you get me?” Tyler, the Creator says of his 23-year-old self, on ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’, the album he’s just released at 30. “Thoughts change so rapid, turn into a butterfly.” And...
In some ways, the space-age concept of Doja Cat’s third album makes total sense. Like an adventurous space traveller hopping between planets, the Californian rapper and singer never lingers too long on a genre or song. Her tracks possess...
Near-chaos, violence covered in sugar and candy. That’s how Bruce Springsteen once described Wall of Sound records, and on ‘Death Of A Cheerleader’, Pom Pom Squad pursue that description to its extreme. “It hits me and it feels like...
Diligent diarists have a secret weapon: an exclusive spyhole to the past, the view relatively unobscured. 26-year-old Lucy Dacus typed up thirteen of her teenage diaries, deploying their contents with unflinching vigour on her third album, ‘Home Video’. That Dacus...
Joy Crookes – ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLFCcnYSCyE Don’t be fooled by the Wall of Sound and the throwback soulful feel: ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ is a track that drips with irony, skewering performative activism – “Put my name...
Mykki Blanco once read somewhere that humans experience 256 variations of emotions in one day. One day? Blanco only needs 27 minutes and 28 seconds. Their new mini-album ‘Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep’ runs the gamut from grief to...