Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl (Album Review)

Photo: TAS Rights Management What you see isn’t always what you get, and ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ is no exception. Despite its extravagant, cinematic artwork raising hopes for a continuation of the meta commentary delivered on tracks such as I Can Do It With A Broken Heart from 2024’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, on her 12th album Taylor Swift has opted to retrace well-worn paths from a new perspective.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Thursday, 09 October 2025

AFI - Silver Bleeds The Black Sun... (Album Review)

Photo: Lexie Alley With ‘Silver Bleeds The Black Sun…’, AFI have delivered their most focused statement in a decade. Their 12th album clocks in at just 33 minutes — their shortest LP since 1997’s hardcore charge ‘Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes' — and this discipline proves transformative. By cutting the fat that has occasionally weighed down their 2010s output, the Californian quartet have uncovered the urgency that made them essential.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Wednesday, 08 October 2025

Upchuck - I'm Nice Now (Album Review)

Photo: Michael Tyrone Delaney Whoever’s working on the soundtrack for a new Tony Hawk game should give Upchuck a call. On ‘I’m Nice Now’ the Atlanta five piece come out swinging with a ferocious punk sound, their fuzzy guitars and crashing drums underpinning a meat and two veg approach that’s perfectly suited for pixellated half pipes. It’s fun at times, but not much more than that.

Written by: James Palaczky | Date: Monday, 06 October 2025

Cate Le Bon - Michelangelo Dying (Album Review)

Photo: H. Hawkline Cate Le Bon’s ‘Michelangelo Dying’ is, at its core, a breakup record, though one only she could make. Emerging from the wreckage of a long-term relationship and relocations from Joshua Tree, California back to Cardiff, her seventh LP offers heartache rendered as shimmering atmosphere.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Friday, 03 October 2025

Robert Plant - Saving Grace (Album Review)

Photo: Tom Oldham While he remains best known as Led Zeppelin’s frontman, Robert Plant’s solo career is a fascinating journey spanning country, folk, blues and Americana. He returns with his latest solo project, ‘Saving Grace’, another late career highlight and eclectic blend of covers, showing that even at 77 he’s continuing to push forward.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Friday, 03 October 2025

Geese - Getting Killed (Album Review)

Photo: Mark Sommerfield While their breakthrough album ‘3D Country’ was an unhinged, chaotic out of control rodeo, on its follow-up ‘Getting Killed’ Geese have tamed the bull. It’s left to us to decide whether that’s a good thing, and there’s a coin flip in it.

Written by: James Palaczky | Date: Thursday, 02 October 2025

Mariah Carey - Here For It All (Album Review)

Photo: Dennis Leupold The lead single from Mariah Carey’s ‘Here For It All’ opened the summer with a bang. A sleek slice of R&B, with Carey’s wit and confidence front and centre, Type Dangerous reminded listeners that while she hasn’t released a full album of new music since 2018’s ‘Caution’, she’s lost none of her sparkle or relevance. It set the tone for an album that embraces her strengths rather than chasing trends.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 01 October 2025

Zara Larsson - Midnight Sun (Album Review)

Photo: Charlotte Rutherford After 2023’s unfocused ‘Venus’ failed to scale the heights of her early chart successes, Zara Larsson delivers a more cohesive statement with ‘Midnight Sun’. This 10 track collection represents a significant improvement in terms of quality control, even if it doesn’t entirely succeed in updating her sound.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Wednesday, 01 October 2025

Biffy Clyro - Futique (Album Review)

Photo: Eva Pentel There is no straight line for a frenetic mathcore-tinged rabble to follow in becoming arena staples but, somehow, Biffy Clyro have managed exactly that. The Scottish trio’s early work displayed great technical prowess, along with a penchant for left-field heaviness and nonsensical lyrics, that they then managed to marry with mass-appeal rock in a quite remarkable crossover success story.

Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Sprints - All That Is Over (Album Review)

Photo: Emilia Spitale Some might say that to be truly great, an album should resonate on first listen. It’s true that there’s a certain magic to those records that instantly light a fire inside you, but there’s also something to be said for those with a more gradual impact. 

Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Doja Cat - Vie (Album Review)

Photo: Greg Swales Doja Cat has made a career of swinging between sugary pop and acidic rap, often with whiplash-inducing severity. But where her last two albums have neatly represented these swings between extremes, on ‘Vie’ it seems like she’s finally found a happy medium between her two sides, showing that the two can coexist by blending sugary sounds with fiery, sometimes playful, bars.

Written by: Will Marshall | Date: Monday, 29 September 2025

Jeff Tweedy - Twilight Override (Album Review)

Photo: Shervin Lainez History has not been kind to the triple album, but Jeff Tweedy doesn’t care. At 30 tracks and nearly two hours, ‘Twilight Override’ is less a record than an environment; an overflowing dispatch from a songwriter who has spent four decades offloading his heart in increasingly sprawling formats. If his band Wilco once made masterpieces of concision (‘Summerteeth’, ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’) then this feels like a kind-of end point: the maximalist, everything-must-go splurge.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Monday, 29 September 2025

Olivia Dean - The Art of Loving (Album Review)

Photo: Aliyah Otchere After steadily building hype for a few years, Olivia Dean made a name for herself with her 2023 debut ‘Messy’. Nominated for the Mercury Prize, it blended neo-soul, jazz and more into an infectious cocktail that her second album ‘The Art of Loving’ develops further, adding pop flourishes while telling a cohesive story.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Monday, 29 September 2025

Joy Crookes - Juniper (Album Review)

Photo: Ewen Spencer Joy Crookes’ ‘Juniper’ offers a particularly potent pleasure: letting time melt away while succumbing to her hypnotic voice. It’s a feeling that persists throughout a record that has a noticeably nostalgic pull, reminiscent of the British soul and R&B scenes that produced Amy Winehouse, Duffy and Adele in short order. 

Written by: James Palaczky | Date: Friday, 26 September 2025

NewDad - Altar (Album Review)

Photo: Peter Eason Daniels Galway’s NewDad launched themselves onto the scene at the start of 2024 with ‘Madra’, a debut that displayed an infectious blend of shoegaze, indie-pop and indie rock. They now return barely 18 months later with their sophomore record, ‘Altar’, which underlines their status as one of Ireland’s fastest-rising bands and shows real progression from their debut. 

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Friday, 26 September 2025

Wednesday - Bleeds (Album Review)

Photo: Graham Tolbert Wednesday’s sixth studio album announces them as creative alchemists, transforming the emotional wreckage of relentless touring throughout 2024 and the dissolution of vocalist Karly Hartzman and guitarist MJ Lenderman’s romantic relationship into their best work yet. Lenderman’s presence looms large across these 12 tracks, many written before the split but prescient in capturing the entropy of romance.

Written by: Jack Press | Date: Thursday, 25 September 2025

Nation of Language - Dance Called Memory (Album Review)

With a sound that incorporates elements of pop, post-punk and heavy synths, Nation of Language’s sound is eclectic and inviting, with their fourth LP ‘Dance Called Memory’ suggesting once again that they should be on more people’s radars.

Written by: Chris Connor | Date: Thursday, 25 September 2025

KennyHoopla - conditions of an orphan// (Album Review)

Photo: Brittany Young When you hit shuffle on KennyHoopla’s discography you’re met with a whiplash-inducing mix of sounds. Across the past few years, the Wisconsin-born musician has gleefully hopped between genres, from pop-punk and emo revival to indie-pop and new wave-tinged alt-rock. The 28-year-old has zig-zagged between sounds at an impressive rate, but on his latest EP conditions of an orphan//’ he plants his feet firmly in the jagged, sweat-soaked world of mid-2000s dance-punk.

Written by: Maddy Howell | Date: Wednesday, 24 September 2025

Baxter Dury - Allbarone (Album Review)

Photo: Tom Beard On his ninth studio album, Baxter Dury is still dabbling in dry wit and observational storytelling, elevated by electro-pop and dance beats. It’s a tried and tested formula that has garnered him critical acclaim but, while there are moments of brilliance on ‘Allbarone’, at times it feels like he is trying to be a bit too clever.

Written by: Sarah Taylor | Date: Tuesday, 23 September 2025

Ho99o9 - Tomorrow We Escape (Album Review)

Photo: Nick Fancher Ho99o9 have always been tough to define. Punk-rap, hardcore hip-hop, horrorcore, noise-punk — all of these labels and more have been affixed to the New Jersey duo’s music, which is a chaotic blend of electronics and rock instrumentation, poetic lyrics and anarchic yells. Within this context, the band’s third album flips expectations in a wholly new way.

Written by: Jack Butler-Terry | Date: Monday, 22 September 2025