The Band CAMINO – NeverAlways (Atlantic) (13th Floor Album Review)
American rock band The Band CAMINO has released their third album this week, NeverAlways. Following their highly successful second album The Dark, NeverAlways is an evolution – both in sound and songwriting abilities. While they do revisit the spirit of some of their earlier work, NeverAlways feels like a fresher, more mature perspective.
Cory Hanson – I Love People (Drag City) (13th Floor Album Review)
On I Love People, his fifth solo album, Cory Hanson offers a warm, sun-drenched, and slightly subversive take on the 1970s American songbook.
Folk Bitch Trio – Now Would Be A Good Time (Jagjaguwar)
The name Folk Bitch Trio is punky, provocative, even a little tongue-in-cheek, but the music on their debut album Now Would Be A Good Time is quietly radical in a different way.
Billie Marten – Dog Eared (Fiction) (13th Floor Album Review)
British singer Billie Marten has just released her new album Dog Eared, a jazz-folk record reminiscent of softness and a departure from her previous styles. Across the album’s tracklist, Marten traverses major themes while effortlessly mixing intense production with contemplative lyricism.
Soft Bait – Life Advice (Flying Nun) (13th Floor Album Review)
Formed in 2020 in Tāmaki Makaurau, Soft Bait are a band that took shape before they ever took the stage. Their debut, Plot Points, written and recorded before playing a single gig, was literary, brooding post-punk built on relentless rhythm and tight, coiled tension.
The Warratahs – Burning Daylight (Southbound) (13th Floor Album Review)
Barry Saunders and The Warratahs have just released their new album, Burning Daylight, one that has The 13th Floor’s Robin Kearns thinking…here are his thoughts.
Sadsmiles – Eyes Over There (Songbroker) (13th Floor Album Review)
On their quietly assured debut album Eyes Over There, Sadsmiles, the collaborative project of Mahoney Harris and Wayne Bell, offer a collection of songs that reward stillness and attentiveness. With Harris on lead vocals and Bell playing every instrument, the album is a notebook of understatement: poetic, emotionally intelligent, and beautifully unhurried.
Lachie Hayes – Subsatellite (Massav) (13th Floor Album Review)
Southland’s own Lachie Hayes returns with his long-awaited sophomore album Subsatellite, released today—and it’s clear from the first track that the alt-country-blues troubadour has leveled up: in storytelling, in sound, and in soul.
Awning – Awning (13th Floor Album Review)
Awning is Christian Dimick, originally based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, where Dimick was, not only making music, but also working part-time making coffee, toasting sandwiches, and studying Fine Art. All the while releasing songs on Bandcamp since 2023, before moving to Tamaki Makaurau and releasing the magnificent Gold Star EP in 2024.
Story The Crow Told Me – Ketch Secor (Equal Housing Records)
This is no ordinary country album. But we should expect nothing less from Ketch Secor: writer, archivist, public speaker, multi-instrumentalist and founder of Old Crow Medicine Show.
Mark Stewart – The Fateful Symmetry (Mute) (13th Floor Album Review)
Mark Stewart was a giant of an artist (stature as well) vocalist for agit-pop anarchists The Pop Group, an English group that in four short years (1977-1981) traversed punk with dub, jazz and funk creating a sound that impressed Nick Cave, Mike Watt (Minuteman) and gained fans afar a field as Matt Groening (the creator of […]
My Baby – Echo (So Recordings) (13thFloor Album Review)
Echo is the latest and 8th release from My Baby, the blended trio made up of Dutch siblings Cato and Joost van Dijk with Kiwi-born Daniel “DaFreez” Johnston, playing their distinct sound of what they describe as “Blues Rave-up”.
Tami Neilson – Neon Cowgirl (Neilson Records)
Tami Neilson proves that blood, sweat, tears, talent and tenacity pay off as she releases an album that makes her troubled trip worthwhile and sets a new standard along the way.
Wet Leg – moisturizer (Domino) (13th Floor Album Review)
On their 2022 debut, Wet Leg made a splash with slacker wit, post-punk cool, and a deadpan sense of fun. With moisturizer, Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers return, but this time, the songs are about love, and Wet Leg now sound like a tight, fully formed band.
Bloodbags – Bloodbags (Kato) (13th Floor Album Review)
Makin’ dirty mischief since at least 2012, releasing dirty records since 2016, Bloodbags the scion of past outfits Bloody Souls and The Dirtbags, after releasing wha 7”s and a split LP with US band Brain Bagz have finally released their debut album – Bloodbags.
Shedheads – Big Milk (13th Floor Album Review)
Nelson trio Shedheads introduce themselves with Big Milk, a debut album that barrels out of the gate with intent, throwing funk, rock, and noise into a blender. Across ten tracks they make noise, play fast, and say a lot. Whether every moment lands is debatable, but there is no doubting their skills, ambition, or energy.
Freya – Of Water (13th Floor Album Review)
Freya (Alice Freya Delargey Jones), an Auckland singer-songwriter, delivers an assured debut album with Of Water, a seven-track collection of sparse, slow-burning folktronica.
The Reds, Pinks and Purples – The Past Is a Garden I Never Fed (Fire)
There’s a special kind of romance in Glenn Donaldson’s work that explores the understated ache that sits between moments. This might be in the quiet indignities of creative life, the drift of friendships, or the daily performance of holding yourself together. Under his long-running project The Reds, Pinks and Purples, Donaldson has, over the last half-decade, […]
Kesha – . (Period): (Kesha Records) 13th Floor Album Review
Famously versatile singer Kesha is soon to release her newest album, . (Period) – the first under her independently owned Kesha Records since her departure from RCA and Kemosabe Records in 2023. It’s both an exclamation and a reclamation of her art – on her terms.
Lorde – Virgin (Universal) (13th Floor Album Review)
Lorde’s fourth album, Virgin, marks a daring and deeply personal evolution that both builds on and breaks away from her earlier work. On her last album, Solar Power, Lorde drifted into moments of detachment and sun-bleached aloofness. Virgin returns to the visceral.