Foxygen: Hang review – all kinds of ridiculous, with full orchestra

Foxygen’s new album is barely over half an hour long, but it still manages to be all kinds of ridiculous within that timeframe. The Californian duo’s psych tendencies have blossomed here into wild glam Bowie pastiches, camp vaudeville turns and … Continue reading →

Sundara Karma: Youth Is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect review – chugging indie inevitability

While other genres shape-shift with the zeitgeist, each year brings one anointed guitar group – a gang of young blokes in leather jackets intent on dragging mid-noughties NME cover stars into the present day. Following Catfish and the Bottlemen and … Continue reading →

Martha review – blistering guitar squalls and passionate politics

Amid political gloom, these anarchist outsiders delivered a fizzing, joyous and ecstatic gig for the people

Ultimate Painting review – music for a campfire cook-out

The intimate setting suits the band’s two-part harmonies and pastoral ballads in a strike to give folk and alt-country a millennial update

Rebel Kind: Just for Fools review – endearingly shambolic songcraft

(Urinal Cake)

Fews: Means review – angular urban psychedelia

Fews wear their influences on their sleeves. The piercing, angular guitar lines suggest they’ve been listening to early Interpol. The stark textures and angsty vocals recall The Back Room-period Editors, who in turn had been listening to Joy Division and … Continue reading →

Arborist: Home Burial review – acoustic warmth and world-weary depths

It says something about the quality of the debut album by Belfast-based Arborist that Kim Deal’s appearance on Twisted Arrow is merely one of many high points. Still, getting Deal to sing a duet on the album was a coup, … Continue reading →

Francis and the Lights: Farewell, Starlite! review – fleet-footed modern pop

As well as having a quite ridiculous name, Francis Farewell Starlite has one of the juiciest phonebooks in pop: he’s produced Drake, Frank Ocean and Chance the Rapper (who declared him “the new Prince”), and this album’s lead single, Friends, … Continue reading →

Moonface and Siinai: My Best Human Face review – strangeness and charm

Take one admired Canadian rock auteur, add a Finnish Krautrock band and the result is an inventive blend of supercharged songs

The Coral review – psych pop’s sullen cowboys are stuck in the past

The Liverpool band, back from a five-year live hiatus, delivered half-written psych-by-numbers songs in a lacklustre performance

Ultrasound: Real Britannia review – 90s indie crew with intriguing stylistic range

“I’m Don Quixote in a fetching onesie,” sings Andrew “Tiny” Wood on God’s Gift. It’s one of many lyrical zingers on Real Britannia, Ultrasound’s third album and the second since they reformed in 2010 after an 11-year absence. The crashing … Continue reading →