Voom – Something Good Is Happening (Flying Nun) (13th Floor Album review)
It has been nearly two decades since Voom’s last album, but the wait has only deepened the affection for this enigmatic and beloved indie band.
Peter Murphy – Silver Shade (Metropolis Records) (13th Floor Album Review)
While most 67-year-olds are dead-heading roses, improving their golf swing, educating themselves on fine wines or bouncing grandchildren their knee Peter Murphy, the frontman of legendary post-punk pre-goth rock outfit Bauhaus, is still pushing the envelope and recording new music.
Bub – Can’t Even (13th Floor Album Review)
Can’t Even, the debut album from Tāmaki Makaurau’s Bub, stages a whole inner world. Across ten tracks, Priya Sami leads listeners through cycles of love, regret, self-reproach, obsession, and rage, with a voice that is by turns confessional, theatrical, and direct.
Arjuna Oakes – While I’m Distracted (Albert’s Favourites) (13th floor Album Review)
Arjuna Oakes has been described as genre-less in that he’s difficult to pigeonhole. I’d flip that and say he’s genre-ful.
mclusky – The World Is Still Here and So Are We (Ipecac/Mushroom)
Welsh post-hardcore trio mclusky have gone through a lot of bassists, they are on their fourth iteration. And of the original trio, only Andy “Falco” Falkous (vocals, guitar) remains, alongside 2003 inductee drummer Jack Egglestone and 2014 newbie Damien Sayell (vocals/bass).
Justin Devereux – Nickels&Dimes (13th Floor Album review)
On his debut album Nickels&Dimes, Justin Devereux presents a well-produced, musically polished collection of Americana and country influenced songs that showcase both his lyrical sincerity and the talents of a skilled supporting cast.
Greta O’Leary – River Dark (13th Floor Album Review)
Greta O’Leary’s debut album River Dark captures the tension between fragility and resilience, both lyrically and musically. Building on the intimacy of her early EPs, the album introduces a stronger, richer sound, with guitar, drums, bass, synthesisers, and strings subtly woven around her haunting voice.
Chaos In The CBD – A Deeper Life (In Dust We Trust) (13th Floor Album Review)
With a name like Chaos In The CBD, I’d always been under the mistaken impression this group was either angry green-haired punks or an extensively tattooed heavy metal crowd.
Jude Kelly The Seven Spirits Of Her (The Orchard)
Whanganui-born, Dunedin-raised and Auckland-based Jude Kelly releases her debut E.P., seven songs that make up The Seven Spirits Of Her.
Cold Ceiling – I Must Be Closer (Cold Ceiling Records)
Cold Ceiling aren’t new, the group evolved from artful and moody Poneke entity Plaines, who released a nifty self-titled cassette of material back in 2019, Then, being self-aware, changed their name to Cold Ceiling, and in 2022 released a debut extended EP Exsanguinate & Speak in a Dim Cave which kind of sits/sats (think New Orders Movement) as […]
Darren Pickering Small Worlds – Three (Rattle) (13th Floor Album Review)
With Three, Darren Pickering Small Worlds deepen their exploration of texture and mood, delivering their most cohesive and emotionally resonant album to date. Where previous volumes occasionally leaned toward sketchbook experimentation, Three feels more like a complete suite with each track part of a larger conversation about mood, memory, and place.
Lael Neale – Altogether Stranger (Sub Pop) (13th Floor Album Review)
On Altogether Stranger, her third album for Sub Pop, Lael Neale continues to refine a sonic and lyrical aesthetic that is poetic, direct, haunted, and haunting. Once again, she is aided by the intuitive production of Guy Blakeslee, whose analog, cassette-based methods give the songs a sonic immediacy and emotional intimacy.
Will Johnson – Diamond City (Keeled Scales) (13th Floor Album Review)
Will Johnson has long been a quiet cornerstone of American indie rock and alt-country, crafting a rich and varied body of work that spans decades, emotional registers, and genre lines. Emerging in the mid-1990s as the frontman of the beloved Centro-matic, he quickly proved himself a prolific and fearless songwriter, equally adept at ragged rock […]
Melvins – Thunderball (Ipecac Records)
Melvins 1983 refers to a band lineup that includes originator drummer Mike Dillard and King Buzzo (Buzz Osborne); they’ve had a few releases already. But for Thunderball, Osborne brought onboard British, Bristol-based experimental noise merchants Ni Maitres, as well as abstract electronicist Void Manes, who they toured with in 2019, and collaborated with on 2023’s […]
Robin Trower – Come And Find Me (Provogue Records)
Sometimes it’s enough to be delighted to discover that little changes in the standard of a musician’s artistry. Such is the new and unexpected new offering from Robin Trower. “Who’d have thought” was my first reaction on hearing of the release. After all, Trower cancelled a tour last year due to serious ill-health. Then another […]
Taylor Rae – The Void (Missing Piece) (13th Floor Album Review)
Before diving into the introspective themes of her sophomore album The Void, singer-songwriter Taylor Rae had already established herself as a rising force in the Americana scene.
Julien Baker & Torres – Send a Prayer My Way (Matador)
Country music has always been a genre haunted by contradictions: tradition and rebellion, faith and doubt, community and exile. In Send a Prayer My Way, Julien Baker and TORRES (Mackenzie Scott) take those tensions and twist them into something stunningly new.
Valerie June – Owls, Omens and Oracles (Concord)
Valerie June just wants us all to just get along and the music she makes on this, her 8th album, might make that happen.
Bon Iver – Sable fable (Jagjaguwar) 13th Floor Album Review)
Bon Iver’s latest release, Sable, fable, arrives like a whisper in the dark—quiet, rich, and demanding your attention. Sonically, it returns to familiar folk roots while venturing outward, closing one chapter and tentatively opening another.
Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong (Ninja Tune)
British band Black Country, New Road are a fairly recent phenomena, formed in Cambridge by a group of classically trained students in 2019 who released two albums before band leader/frontman and guitarist Isaac Wood abruptly departed four days before the release of their sophomore effort Ants From Up There.