Back catalogue: Indie/Alternative

Review: Hull and Leeds-based band bdrmm finally follow up their acclaimed debut album Bedroom - which was instantly passed as a modern day shoegaze classic - with a new EP. It features the recent single 'Port' as well as fresh remixes by the ever more essential Daniel Avery, plus Working Men's Club, A Place To Bury Strangers and others. That single, 'Port,' took the band in a new direction with a darker sound fun of distorted drones and beats, with howls of anguish and manic guitar frenzies. That is carried over into the rest of the EP next to some radical reworks.

Review: Indie darling Beck has been 'Thinking About You' on what is his first new music in some time since he dropped his GRAMMY-winning Hyperspace album. This single gets pressed up to a limited edition golden-brown 7" to mark the much-loved artist's birthday and it is a sublime bit of prime and emotional Beck as his heart-tugging best. The ballad has some sombre harmonica, acoustic guitar lushness and was recorded in the same room as his classic 'Sea Change'. On the flip side is his GRAMMY-nominated cover of Neil Young's 'Old Man' which is a wistful sound with rich tones.

Review: This is a special and unique coming together that sees Turnstile join forces with the brilliant Toronto jazz ensemble and production team BADBADNOTGOOD. They have worked on reimagining songs from the former's well-received 2021 album Glow On and the results bring all new perspectives and dynamics to tunes like 'Mystery', 'Alien love Call' featuring Blood Orange and 'Underwater Boi.' Both Turnstile and BADBADNOTGOOD are untouchable in their fields right now with rave reviews for their records as well as their live shows. This is another standout project.

Review: California-born singer-songwriter BANKS, aka Jillian Rose Banks, creates moody, alternative pop with hints of contemporary r&b adding extra depths. After emerging in the early 2010s, she gained a cross-genre following with her downtempo, alt-r&b style and her debut album, Goddess, earned critical acclaim and gold certification with hits like 'Before I Ever Met You' and 'Warm Water.' BANKS followed three more albums and now drops her fifth which is another subversive blend of all sound that have gone before with an evolved attitude and still a great number of hooky groves.

Review: The new Bauhaus BBC Sessions release hears British goth pioneers Bauhaus at their most vital, documenting the three-year period that they swept the airwaves like vampire bats with a hearse's worth of recordings made for UK radio. Spanning early post-punk urgencies to the relatively more textured darkness of their later work, these sessions were recorded for shows hosted by John Peel and David Jensen, flapping through alternate takes of 'Double Dare', 'In the Flat Field', and 'Third Uncle'. Together with a recent vinyl reissue of a 1983 performance at the Old Vic in London, which snapped a shot of Bauhaus at the peak of their dramaturgic snarks, both releases provide a compelling, rough-edged, bouffant counterpart to their studio albums, before goth went bird's nest: Bauhaus live and direct, with all the mood, menace and momentum fully intact.

Review: Captured in San Francisco in December of 1982, only over six months before their original dissolution in July of the following year, this live performance from gloom maestro goth rock pioneers Bauhaus leans heavily on material from their (at the time) two-month old third full-length The Sky's Gone Out including their opening cover of Brian Eno's 'Third Uncle' and 'Silent Hedges', as well as 1981's career height sophomore classic Mask, with cuts such as 'In Fear Of Fear', 'Kick In The Eye', and 'Hollow Hills' making appearances. Some love is shown to their debut In The Flat Field with the inclusion of 'Spy In The Cab', but most noteworthy is that the set features an early live unveiling of 'She's In Parties', which wouldn't see release for another four months with the band breaking up just a week before the single's adjacent album Burning From The Inside would drop.

Review: In honour of Record Store Day 2025, Canadian-American alt-rockers Big Wreck have decided to reissue one of their most popular albums, 2012's The Albatross. Available in limited numbers (only 1,000 of this CD version was pressed), it not only includes the freshly remastered original album in full, but also three alternate versions, rare bonus cut 'Fade Away', and a raucous live recording of title track 'Albatross'. The original album remains a timeless alt-rock classic where raw guitar riffs, bluesy solos and Ian Thurnley's distinctive lead vocals wrap around thickset bass and punchy drums. For proof, check standouts 'Wolves', 'Glass Room' and the rowdy 'The Rest of the World'.

Review: Social Registry brings you Blood On The Wall's new album 'Liferz'. Having gone from hometown heroes to national fan favourites and critical darlings, the band has earned its reputation as top of the rock heap.
Putting out raucously fun records, this is a portrait of a band at the top of their game - somehow they have managed to get even more awesome.

Review: It's funny to think about the Blur v Oasis contest that defined British music in the mid-1990s. Then bright young things looking to shake things up after years of electronic rave dominance, the fact so much emphasis was placed on these two bands makes for an incomplete story of those times, while their individual output was not quite polar but certainly harder to compare than headlines suggested. Skip forward a few decades and differences are now pronounced. The Gallagher Brothers have pursued relatively familiar sounds in the 21st Century. Blur, or at least Damon Albarn, created a 3D animated virtual band while overseeing the first few editions of the globally acclaimed Manchester International Festival. Now, 33 years after the debut single, Blur return with studio LP number nine, and it's a stunner. Not so much growing old gracefully as tackling challenges that come with it, it's though proving, poignant and grittily woozy.

Review: The end of the initial, near decade-long Buzzcocks hiatus that occurred in the mid-nineties, has been captured and immortalised on 'French'; a live album recorded in France (shock horror) at L'Arapho Club in Paris on April 12, 1995. Featuring a career-spanning set, the band exude invigorated energy as they rip through the likes of 'Ever Fallen In Love...', 'What Do I Get?', and even dust off the impassioned, 'I Believe', for a thunderous rendition. Hearing the pristine line-up under the microscope of a bygone era is truly an audible feast for casual and major fans alike.

Review: Rainn Byrns looks so fresh faced and young that one suspects his parents don't remember the 1960s, let alone him. Nevertheless, the decade has clearly a big influence on this Texas-born, Swindon-bred South Londoner's music, although within that there still remains quite a lot of scope for variety. 'I'm Her Man' echoes the battered but innocent psyche of Syd-era Floyd, 'Never Ending Story' the strut and swagger of The Doors and then the approachable weirdness of late Beatles, and everything from The Byrds to Simon & Garfunkel crops up elsewhere. There's nothing cynical or engineered about that though, it seems entirely natural and Byrns proves himself both capable of penning a memorable melody but also delivering it in an endearingly stoned Southern drawl. 'Tailspin', which reminds us of The LAs at their jangly finest, was our favourite entry point, but there are loads here and lots to like.