• The first stage of the forum upgrades has now been completed but they remain in a degraded state with some features missing, normal posting/reading should now be possible.
    Please read this thread for more details.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.
    Some other features of the forum are also currently disabled.

New Music Releases Thread

A quieter week this week. My breif reviews:

The Soft Pink Truth: one half of Matmos does slightly more mainstream electronic psychedelia. Quite chilled out and pretty good.
Dry Cleaning: I'm enjoying it. Musically, they've diversified a bit from the post-punk of album 1. Vocally, still stream of consciousness part sung part spoken.
Goat: pretty much Goat as you'd expect. Psychedelic with chanted vocals, very good but no great leap from previous albums.
Archers of Loaf: the Pavementisms of their albums first time round are replaced by a more muscular power-pop sound. Early impressions are that it's very good. Their first in 20 years or so.
Arctic Monkeys: their most croonery album thus far. Songs are good but not sure where I'd place it in my big list of best Arctic Monkeys albums.
Souad Massi: the ALgerian singer returns with an album mixing western styles with more traditional stuff. It's very good.
Lucretia Dalt: Latin influenced electronic music. Quite abstract at times.
Eins und Zwei und Drei und Vier vol 2: a compilation of late 70s to early 80s German synthpop and post-punk (primarily the former). Interesting and mostly fun.
Witch Fever: hard rocking women. It's good but not sure it's quite as good as their earlier mini-album.
Frankie Cosmos: indiepop. Pretty good without making me think it's the greatest thing ever.
Taylor Swift: a move back, a bit, toward a more poppy sound. Enjoyable.
Julian Cope: more politically charged weirdness. Porbably not his best work, if I'm honest, but kind of fun.

Album of the week: probably Archers of Loaf, although Souad Massi runs them close. Not a great week, compared to the last two or three.

I got through half of the AM album, I can't get on board with that middle of the road 'croonery' as you rightly call it. I suspect that they'll be headlining Glastonbury so I'll be interested to hear how it sounds in a live environment
 

I got through half of the AM album, I can't get on board with that middle of the road 'croonery' as you rightly call it. I suspect that they'll be headlining Glastonbury so I'll be interested to hear how it sounds in a live environment

Yeah, I've given it a couple of further listens and it isn't doing too much for me. There's a Later special with them on bonfire night, which may give an indication as to how it sounds. There was a single song preview for it on last Saturday's show.

They are a fair bet for Glastonbury.
 
There are new albums this week from Babyface, Benjamin Clementine, Blessed, Dan Mangan, Dead Cross, Devin Towbsend, Dragonette, Drugdealer, Junior Boys, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Show Me The Body, One Leg One Eye, Skinshape, The Leaf Library, Abraxas, Aoife Nessa Frances, Martha, Wand (a live album), Sylvie, Luke Haines & Peter Buck and Diamanda Galas.
A bit sparse. Probably try Mangan (I recall quite liking an album of his a long time ago) and Haines/Buck.

Where did you find Cope? Isn't on Spotify here and I couldn't see anything new on his website when I looked at the w/e.
 
A bit sparse. Probably try Mangan (I recall quite liking an album of his a long time ago) and Haines/Buck.

Where did you find Cope? Isn't on Spotify here and I couldn't see anything new on his website when I looked at the w/e.

It's on his Head Heritage site:



May have been on there for a while. I think the release date I had was for the physical version.
 
It's on his Head Heritage site:



May have been on there for a while. I think the release date I had was for the physical version.
Ah, ok, yes you're probably right. I saw that one, but I knew the title was the one that Music Man said was from the summer.
 
I'd assumed that Julian Cope album was out when it appeared on Head Heritage. Not bought it yet so didn't realise it's only just been released.
Bis have a new album out today.
 
Plenty of other publications gave it 4 or 5 stars, what’s your point? It’s one persons opinion. Form your own.
I've only heard it once, but it's not pulling me back. I'd be surprised to see it ranked high in many album of the year lists.
 
Last edited:
4 stars out of 5, you say?
It got rave reviews…

I personally think the new AM album is excellent. Not quite sure it deserves the hate it’s getting. I think Mirrorball is probably going to be my song of the year followed closely by a K-Pop song I was introduced to by my partner called WA DA DA by Kep1er for anyone who wants to start their weekend with a loud bang…
 
Back
Top