Back in stock: Indie/Alternative

Review: It's 1990 and Depeche Mode couldn't really be riding much higher in the global music stakes. Having just released Violator, the band had finally debuted an album inside the Billboard Top 10 for the first time in their almost-decade-long history, and pretty much anyone who came into contact with the record was very quickly captivated by its sound. While definitely not a curveball, it marked an expansion of the group's existing style. Some have described it as synth-pop, others alternative rock. In many ways, it's a dance floor album, one that embraces goth and coldwave at its very core. Captured during their tour at that time, Set In Stone features landmark singles from the LP - 'Personal Jesus', of course, and 'World In My Eyes' - it also proves beyond any doubt that a Depeche Mode show is about more than simply playing the hits.

Review: You should never assume too much when it comes to Eartheater. Powders on Mad Decent and finds the maverick modernist at her most vulnerable and exposed. Where she's so often warped and manipulated her voice as part of her hyper pop experimentation, here she comes through in strikingly direct terms whether soaring over elegant threads of synthesis (on gorgeous opener 'Sugarcane Switch') or covering System of a Down's 'Chop Suey' in fragile, acoustic fashion. Even after so many albums, it feels like we're still in the process of understanding the many dimensions of the Eartheater creative universe, and here is but one new galaxy to explore.

Review: Already on their seventh studio album, synth-pop kings Everything Everything return to the fore with Mountainhead, a concept album critiquing modern-day zealotry, economic warfare, and narcissism, centring on the idea of mirrors at the top and snakes at the bottom. A primeval analogy for the modern psychic climate in fourteen-track form, the topic at hand certainly sounds ominous; but the music is nonetheless always as enjoyable as EE's music usually permits. In contrast to prior albums Man Alive and Raw Data Feel, both of which made rigorous use of Artificial Intelligence to generate and effect sound, Mountainhead is deliberately processing-shy, with the band publicly avowing their not using any plugins and effects. Whether this represents an appeal by the band for their audience to downshift and embrace a less future-obsessive life, you be the judge. A powerful metaphor for the economic warfare of everyday life, Mountainhead is an urgent message wrapped in a chart-topper.

Review: It's been more than 10 years since Foals first ignited indie spirits with their Antidotes LP and following Total Life Forever and Holy Fire, the Oxford-founded group have held firm in purporting their fully fledged sound. The band's aesthetic has grown in size and stature over the years with this LP looking at what seems to be the large scale arena. The lighter, melancholic and finger picking techniques of their surf rock and synth subtleties appear nonchalantly in tracks "On The Luna" and "Exits" - with 80s UK synth and George Michael-styled vocals to boot - while its stadium ecstasy for the chorus humming "Sunday".

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Review: Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, MJ Lenderman can be found playing guitar in Wednesday when he's not working on his own solo material. Following 2017's Him and a small clutch of self-released items, Boat Songs represents the most polished and developed set of songs from Lenderman to date. There's a country twang in the Southern stylings of his guitar tone, but overall this is classic US indie song craft which isn't afraid to be catchy and upbeat as well as resolutely rocking. If you like Guided By Voices, there's a good chance you'll be into the feel good dose of Boat Songs.

Review: Just as indie bands today tend to juggle membership of multiple outfits, shoegaze bands in the '90s were on the just the same wavelength. Luna, for example, received most of its initial attention thanks to Dean Wareham of Galaxie 500's involvement - now backed by new friends Stanley Demeski and Justin Harwood. But music always defies the static expectations of the press. Lunapark, first released in 1992, is a happy opiate of an LP, contrasting to Galaxie's moody, unfiltered aesthetic. With its sound palette largely immaculate, and its crunching guitar chord progressions influenced by blues and Americana - this album could be said to be an ode to overcoming, and/or basking in, addiction.

Review: Morrissey is arguably the most divisive British pop artist working today. Some loathe him, others stand by amid countless controversial statements. Few would deny his place in the pantheons of music, though, even if you feel it's really about The Smiths, creating an unusual quandary for the listener - dividing their own opinion, not just separating that from others who don't think the same way. In many ways 'I Am Not A Dog On A Chain' is the album he needed to make, revealing an artist known for egotism as finally accepting some limitations and realities. 'My Hurling Days Are Done' and 'The Secret Of Music' both lament the passing of time, for example. But then in many ways, musically speaking, what's here is his most bold and striking album in decades. A real testament to the broad understanding of what makes a powerful track powerful, to say the least.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


As part of a new looking back on German art rocker Nico's esteemed career by the indie label Domino, Desertshore chronologically follows The Marble Index, and is her third album, following the prior project's establishing her as an avant-garde artist with one foot in the mainstream, in stark defiance of the the prejudiced poo-poohs that followed her first (baroque pop) album, Chelsea Girl. Desertshore is more of a reconciliation of her prior two projects, bringing back the initial western pop sensibility while now firmly basking in a newfound weirdness-and-she-knows-it. From the opening dark waves of 'Janitor Of Lunacy' to the piano-balladic injection of sadness that is 'Afraid', this is another avant-garde masterpiece by the musician, never justifiably passed over.

Review: Jessica Pratt's third solo album is a blessing from the start, with opener, "Opening Night", setting the album's tone as a sojourn through a fresh but solemn memory, like strolling through a mist swept pasture. With Pratt's unique vocal ranging tied up in a mix of space, crackle and forgotten reverie, her vocals at times sounding as if they're lost somewhere in a wireless ether. With softly played chords and delicate strumming sitting in tune with dreamy interludes and folky motifs, City Slang have arguably dropped their best record for 2019 first.

Review: Jupiter were kings of the middle of the road indie sound that dominated back at the turn of the millennium. If you don't remember the name you will remember the music as they topped charts and got heavy TV play, not least for most notable single 'I Wish You Would'. All in all this is an album of heartwarming and emotional indie pop niceness you're likely to fall head over heels for again, hence the fact it has been covered by innumerable stars since its initial release. In many ways, once you know the story the track takes on a very different form - far less amorous and much more about longing and lamentation. This latest reissue comes in red and black marble vinyl.

Review: The Vanishing Twins first surfaced in 2016 with their Choose Your Own Adventure LP before taking some years away to magically re-appear like ghosts can do with The Age Of Immunology. The album brings together space pop with African spoken word and poetry, odd-ball percussion and strangely inspired UK synth pop made to fit a world of other exotic musical styles. There's no denying the unique sound that the band have conjured and it's something for those Broadcast, Pram and Stereolab fans out there in need of new, inspired material. At 10 tracks long it's a magical carpet ride for the ears and you'll never know what part of the world you'll end up.

Review: The skittering drums, sweet nihilistic croons and chiming melodies of Dublin three-piece Villagers make it six albums in eight years. It clearly remains, then, that they are sweethearts of the label, and they squeeze everyone's most trusted vital organ once more by romancing our chest plates with numbers like "Again" and "Fool". There are more experimental dream sequences to be heard in tracks like "Love Came With All That It Brings" though, but back on track you'll find the more feel good in "Real Go-Getter" and "Ada". But really it's about the gnarly synth jam that is this album's title track.

Review: Waxahatchee, the solo project of Alabama-born and Kansas City-based Katie Crutchfield, returns with her most confident and resilient album to date. Boosted by lead single '365', shortly followed by 'Right Back To It' and 'Bored', Tigers Blood follows an avowed 'hot hand spell' experienced by the artist while on tour at the end of 2022. But despite the enjoyment, Tigers Blood emotes in many different directions, dealing in every theme from codependency to ennui - that is, between the cracks of joy. A contemporary alt-country rock delight, Tigers Blood hears Waxahatchee do pop music right.