Pixie Geldof: I’m Yours review – subtly poignant orchestral pop

Related: Pixie Geldof: ‘I needed to learn how to breathe’ | Eva Wiseman At first listen, Pixie Geldof’s debut album seems an unremarkable affair. Recorded with producer Tony Hoffer and backed by David “Beck’s dad” Campbell on strings, it’s a … Continue reading →

Lambchop: Flotus review – Kurt Wagner’s skilful swerve into electronics

Related: Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner: ‘I wanted to make a record my wife would like’ As bullish statements of hope-you-like-our-new-direction intent go, the first track released from Lambchop’s 12th album took some beating. Kurt Wagner’s Nashville collective have long been more … Continue reading →

PJ Harvey review – protest songs unleash magnetic, righteous drama

The musician brings her Hope Six Demolition Project on tour to rail against social ills, and confirm her status as a forceful commentator

Daughter review – how to hit the sweet spot

The London trio take a now all-too-familiar indie sound… but wring startling depths of emotion from it

Toy: Clear Shot review – flashes of intrigue amid the jamming

(Heavenly Recordings)

Savoy Motel: Savoy Motel review – garage punks turn to funk with dwindling returns

Savoy Motel – four alumni of the Nashville garage punk scene – have been generating extraordinary buzz for their debut album, with the parallel emergence of the Lemon Twigs leading to suggestions that guitar music has gone all 1972. Savoy … Continue reading →

Empire of the Sun: Two Vines review – slick and synth-heavy but sumptuous

Empire of the Sun are not a band eager to shake off those Fleetwood Mac comparisons: their third album even features Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham on its closing track, To Her Door. Neither his evocative guitar work, nor the contribution … Continue reading →

Toy: Clear Shot review – Brighton indie-psych quartet get darker and stranger

Toy’s 2012 eponymous debut and 2014 follow-up, Join the Dots, found them thrillingly aligning the motorik tug of krautrock to post-punk and psychedelia. Here, the primary sources are late-1960s lysergic pop and the swoonsome, shoegazing melodies of Chapterhouse and Ride, as the Brighton … Continue reading →

Pumarosa review – short, sweet and deliciously bleak

Former dancer and theatre designer Isabel Munoz-Newsome proves herself a captivating frontwoman for these hotly tipped rockers

Angel Olsen review – hear her roar

The spectral-voiced ‘queen of sad’ challanges her fans to keep up with a groove-laden assault on folksy cliche

Joan As Policewoman & Benjamin Lazar Davis: Let It Be You review – alt-pop experiment goes off script

Ten years on from her acclaimed debut, Real Life, Joan Wasser isn’t afraid to go off script; 2010’s Cover saw the Brooklyn singer-songwriter mold her rich, distinctive vocals to songs including T.I.’s Whatever You Like, while on 2014’s The Classic … Continue reading →

American Football: American Football review – a twinkling trip into emo’s past

Related: Emo, no longer rock music’s dirtiest word Few bar a gaggle of devoted diehards noticed when American Football split up shortly after releasing their self-titled debut in 1999. In the years since, though, the album has proved a canonical … Continue reading →

The Lemon Twigs: Do Hollywood review – like a missing Todd Rundgren album from 1972

Related: New band of the week: The Lemon Twigs (No 112) – glam baroque starts here Anyone curious about how two teenage former child actors from Long Island came up with the idea of sounding just like Todd Rundgren in … Continue reading →

C Duncan: The Midnight Sun review – a soothing aural tonic

It’s an album that barely raises its head from its surreal slumber, but there’s not a second of its 43 minutes in which the soundscape created by C Duncan feels sluggish. The Glaswegian composer, multi-instrumentalist and graduate of the Royal … Continue reading →

Arab Strap review – songs of drugs, jealousy, mirth and heartbreak

The Cluny, Newcastle upon TyneAidan Moffatt and Malcolm Middleton revive tales of chaotic lifestyles for Brexit Britain, with music that ricochets between folk, pop and intense dance