Category: Album Review
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Album Review: BIG SPECIAL – NATIONAL AVERAGE
The Midlands duo deliver a solid sophomore effort but rarely reach the heights of their debut BIG SPECIAL felt like they arrived fully formed on last year’s excellent POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES (our top album of 2024). A glorious collection of soulful electro-punk, finding cathartic joy from the bleak mundanities of modern Britain, fronted by the…
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Album Review: Rhys Langston – Pale Black Negative
A boundary blurring opus as Langston’s lyrical flair is met with an emotive immediacy, amidst inventive, convention-defying compositions Pale Black Negative is ostensibly an underground hip-hop record. But it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to call it a jazz or an R&B album. It’s also kind of art rock, and pop, and experimental . . .…
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Album Review: Bon Iver – SABLE, fABLE
Justin Vernon leans into the mythology of Bon Iver, while delivering his most straightforward songwriting yet on a trip through his darkest lows and brightest highs Justin Vernon’s latest had been framed in some quarters as ‘Bon Iver gone sexy’. Whether that was the intention or not, it never quite achieves it; but it no…
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Album Review: Hamilton Leithauser – This Side of the Island
A review of the latest solo effort from The Walkmen frontman.
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Album Review: Moonchild Sanelly – Full Moon
A review of the latest from South African star, Moonchild Sanelly. An album full of heart, humour, and horniness.
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Album Review: Self Esteem – A Complicated Woman
There’s hints of pop greatnesss as Self Esteem makes her stadium-sized ambitions clear, but it slips into a caricature version of her best work. After the success of 2021’s Prioritise Pleasure, Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem found herself as something close to a bonafide popstar (albeit one that’ll still get pigeonholed as ‘alt-pop’, largely…
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Album Review: Fatboi Sharif & Driveby – Let Me Out
The New Jersey experimental hip-hop duo deliver more disturbing dispatches from the dark depths of the human psyche You’re probably not gonna hear the music of Fatboi Sharif on a major editorial playlist or going viral on TikTok. Nonetheless, it feels like he’s built a reputation as an in-demand star over the past few years.…
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Album Review: Perfect Chicken – Pecking Order
A review of the rapid-fire, chaotic punk absurdity from up-and-coming Teeside trio, Perfect Chicken.
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Album Review: Big Cheeko – Coulrophobia
The Atlanta emcee delivers a soul-infused slow-burner of thoughtful street rap
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Album Review: Benjamin Booker – LOWER
A review of the excellent third album from Benjamin Booker – “Contrasting harsh industrial rock and hip-hop with ethereal pop beauty, Booker delivers a experimental masterclass filled with bleakly beautiful songwriting”.
No Frills Reviews 