Queens Of The Stone Age – Villains (Matador)
Queens Of The Stone Age serve up their seventh album with plenty of crunching riffs, but throw a spanner in the works to keep things interesting.
Moon Lander – Moon Lander (Bandcamp)
Wellington singer/songwriter Anthony Lander has found a way to turn a mucus-plagued afternoon into inspiration for a collection of ironic songs that both mock and celebration self-loathing in equal measures.
Taylor Swift – Look What You Made Me Do (Universal)
The 13th Floor’s Kate Powell weighs in on the new Taylor Swift single… With her first solo single since 1989, Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do is the unfortunate result of what happens when bad blood sinks down into the bone marrow.
Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins (RCA)
Grizzly Bear has always been one of those bands that have been recommended to me by friends and that I have listened to intermittently on my generic MP3 player without fully engaging in their musical journey. But in a musical world saturated with disposable pop “talent”, it becomes instantly obvious from opener Aquarian that you […]
Paul Kelly – Life Is Fine (EMI)
Not drowning but waving. The cover of Aussie singer-songwriter Paul Kelly’s new album indicates that he’s back in safer waters with a revisit his 1990s pop repetoire. These are the waters that vividly recall his surging pop-rock fortunes of the Nineties.
UNKLE – The Road Pt.1 (Songs For The Def)
This is a very different UNKLE from the one you met back in 1998. Gone are DJ Shadow, Thom Yorke and the hundreds of samples that comprised Psyence Fiction. Instead, trip-hop pioneer and Mo’ Wax founder James Lavelle joins forces with a whole new team of collaborators to create his latest vision for UNKLE.
David Rawlings – Poor David’s Almanack (Acony Records)
This is David Rawlings’ third album under his own name, or that of The Dave Rawlings Machine. But really, this can easily be considered a Rawlings/Welch album, as Rawlings’ long-time partner Gillian Welch co-writes half five of the album’s ten songs, and sings and plays on all of them.
Herriot Row – Lesser Stars – Southbound
From the first few notes from the debut album of Aucklander Simon Comber (aka Herriot Row) you are instantly transported back to James Taylor’s 1970s. These are songs of place and time, polished carefully like precious, fragile gemstones. They are soft and sensual in their own way, with just a hint of the Kiwi dry […]
Steve Earle – So You Wannabe An Outlaw (Warner Bros)
After a folky duets album with Shawn Colvin and an exercise in the blues…2015’s Terraplane…Steve Earle gets back to the country with his strongest album in years.
Grawlixes – Set Free (Southbound)
Currently Wellington based, the indie folk duo Grawlixes explore romance with a dry wit and a razor-sharp tongue on their debut album, Set Free. Like a hot cuppa-soup laced with arsenic they offer warm comfort and the satisfaction of a slow painful death to all those lovers who dared to spurn us.
Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up (Nonesuch)
After a six-year leave of absence during which time bandleader Robin Pecknold moved to NYC to attend Columbia University, Fleet Foxes have released their third album. But it seems that Pecknold’s studies may have gone to his muse, leaving fans with the sound of one man disappearing up his own liberal arts diploma.
Reb Fountain – Hopeful & Hopeless (Southbound)
As its title suggests, Hopeful/Hopeless is something of a tribute to those we’ve lost and those that remain. ‘Death’ is a common but never mournful theme running through these five beautifully crafted songs. This is also a fitting tribute to one of this country’s most innovative and supportive musicians, Sam Prebble.
Chris Stapleton – From A Room: Volume 1 (Mercury)
Two years after his acclaimed debut solo album, Traveller was released, Nashville maverick Chris Stapleton serves up the first of a two-part follow-up.
Lorde – Melodrama (Universal)
For mainstream music, Lorde’s debut album, Pure Heroine, was a bolt out of the blue. Laced with the precocious ennui that only a 16 year old could possess, it was a cutting critique of pop hedonism. But what made this album truly fascinating was that Pure Heroine was an internationally successful pop album that was purposely […]
Dan Auerbach – Waiting On A Song (Nonesuch)
Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach takes a break from his day job and revels in the musical treasures to be found in his adopted home of Nashville.
Kevin Morby – City Music (Dead Oceans)
Morby follows up last year’s breakthrough album, Singing Saw with a “companion piece”, which can be seen (and heard) as the flip side of the same musical coin.
AJR – The Click (Liberator)
On their new album, The Click, NYC siblings AJR show us what they’ve been up to on those cold winter nights. Stealing from classical, hip-hop, funk and virtually every producer you can name it’s an album of quirky but beautiful instrumentation and charming but bone dry lyrics that subvert modern qualms with the power of […]
The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (2CD Anniversary Edition) (Apple)
50 years after it changed the musical landscape forever, The Beatles’ eighth studio album gets a facelift. But does it need one? And how does it hold up after all these years?
Lord Echo – Harmonies (Soundway)
Mike Fabulous’ new album Harmonies – his third under the Lord Echo moniker and part of a 15 year trilogy (Melodies, Curiosities, Harmonies) since signing to esteemed London label Soundway – has been a true labour of love. And it shows.
The Miltones – The Miltones (The Label)
With an ability to write intelligent lyrics and an alluring stage presence The Miltones have, indisputably, earned their chance to release this debut album. Led by vocalist Milly Tabak and guitarist Liam Pratt, the group released their first single Black Dahlia in 2014. The track introduced the bands alternative yet skilfully unique sound, easily attractive […]