Mali is back with ‘Saviour Complex’, a wonderfully infectious new single that turns the uncomfortable pressure of being somebody’s hero into one of her most immediate pop moments yet. Drawing directly from her own experiences of not wanting to be the person responsible for saving everything, Mali approaches the subject with anContinue Reading
There’s something immediately striking about ‘Lord Look After Me’: it sounds less like a song seeking salvation than one trying to survive long enough to believe salvation is still possible. Drawing from southern gospel, old hymns and the darker storytelling traditions of artists like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, NoelContinue Reading
No Drinks For Jimmy have always understood that the best modern rock works when melody and impact arrive together, and ‘Broken’ pushes that balance with real conviction. Built around the idea of reaching rock bottom and trying to find a way forward, the single turns emotional collapse into something forcefulContinue Reading
There’s this great line running through This Monologue Conversation. For all its anxiety about conformity, fear and human contradiction, the record itself only exists because three friends refused to let it disappear. It’s an angle that gives I Plead Irony’s third album a satisfying sense of stubbornness. Rauf Jordan, Paul McDonaldContinue Reading
Lawrence Timoni’s ‘Cheap Glass Halo’ is built around the deceptively simple trick to make the music move even as everything inside the song starts to fall apart. The Berlin-based artist begins with claps, snaps and percussion struck directly on an acoustic guitar, giving the track an immediate, tactile pulse. VibesContinue Reading
‘Three Things’ isn’t a track that eases its way into view. Here, Germany’s Cosmic Souls frame the song as a bleak, searching response to a world they see becoming harsher, more conformist and increasingly comfortable with authoritarian impulses. Inspired by a quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and written in the aftermathContinue Reading
Nils Lassen’s Rain Steam Speed is an album in constant motion, but never in a hurry. Across eleven songs, the Danish composer follows the course of a single day, using shifting light, birdsong, rain and beautifully layered arrangements to explore love against the uncertainty of a changing world. The title takes itsContinue Reading
NEEB have always had a knack for making sophistication feel easy. And on their latest offering ‘You Are Not Alone’, the Hartlepool quartet step away from the brighter sheen of ‘Feeling Tonight’ and settle into a gentler, more inward-facing piece that brings out the subtler side of their songwriting. InsteadContinue Reading
Matz Patrick continues an impressive creative ascent with ‘cowboy blues’, a beautifully cinematic new single that pushes his intimate songwriting into increasingly ambitious territory. Following July’s ‘augustine’, the track surrounds the artist’s gentle vocal with rich piano, sweeping strings and luscious harmonies. Intimate verses gradually open into expansive choruses, where huge percussionContinue Reading
Paul Garside’s ‘Mariana Trench’ is built around one of his strongest metaphors yet: the feeling of being so far beneath the surface that light seems almost unreachable, followed by the slow, uncertain journey back towards it. Written about his own experience of depression, the track carries that emotional weight withoutContinue Reading