Editors' Picks

Norwegian art-rockers Gazpacho are masters when it comes to crafting richly layered cinematic rock music, often built around dark and menacing themes. They’ve experimented with concept albums throughout their long career, most notably on 2011’s Missa Atropo and on their lost album Random Access Memory, but their music is always grounded in the deeply melodic. They are a truly fascinating band with an excellent reputation for their live shows, and have released three live LPs to date.

Canadian singer and songwriter Alex Frew made a lot of people sit up and take note with his debut single Get Out Alive, which was released earlier this year. That track was a smart, slickly produced pop number that framed his rich vocals with a slow beat and warm sound.

Critics of the pop-punk genre often (unfairly) point to the formulaic output of many of the scene’s bands, but that’s a criticism that could never be levelled at Knuckle Puck. The five-piece craft richly complex songs that manage to be at once immensely catchy, but also reward repeated listens by slowly unveiling the components that come together to create their tracks.

Canadian punk rockers PUP only dropped their third album Morbid Stuff last year, but already the frantic four-piece are back with a new single called Rot, taken from their upcoming new six-track EP This Place Sucks Ass, which is due out through Little Dipper/Rise on 23 October.

New York rockers American Authors burst into the mainstream more than half a decade ago with their hit singles Believer and Best Day Of My Life taken from their 2014 debut album Oh, What A Life. By that point though, the band had been together for almost a decade, having met while in college in Boston and played together under the moniker The Blue Pages until they rebranded in 2012. A heavy touring schedule and follow up albums What We Live For in 2016, and last year’s Seasons continued to win the group fans for their eclectic, party-starting anthems.

After dropping her debut album On Hold in 2018, Bristolian singer songwriter Fenne Lily toured Europe and spent time on the festival circuit, before holing up in Berlin to pen a follow up. That new record, Breach, is a deeply personal offering, much like her first, only this time there are a far wider range of elements under the microscope, which isn’t surprising. On Hold was written when Lily was just a teenager, while this record, in her own words, “is proof that I can be emotionally stable, even if right now I feel a little bit up and down”.

Justin Bieber’s latest single ‘Holy’ featuring Chance the Rapper is a sweet, serendipitous exploration of love at its most sacred and innocent.

Ali Gatie’s latest single ‘Welcome Back’ would have been a pleasing, catchy tune on its own but Alessia Cara’s inclusion takes it to the next level.

Astrid S’s new single ‘It’s Ok If You Forget Me’ functions as an adorable nostalgia piece that will transport you straight to the last 1990s.

Kygo once again travels back to the late seventies to seek inspiration for his latest mix ‘Hot Stuff.’

Few bands remain as synonymous with their biggest hit as Semisonic, whose 1998 smash hit Closing Time has become the band’s legacy, the kind of signature track that has far outlasted the group itself. More than that, Closing Time has passed into wider popular culture, appearing in a wide variety of films and TV shows, and will probably remain on karaoke playlists for centuries to come. It’s not ridiculous to speculate that more people know that song than know who wrote it.

Doves were always a tricky band to place precisely within the UK’s early noughties musical landscape: Britpop without the youthful swagger of Oasis or Blur, psychedelic but without the menace of Primal Scream, soulful indie without the pop sensibilities of Embrace. Despite, or perhaps because of, their slightly indefinable qualities, they amassed a loyal following, releasing four studio albums between 2000 and 2009, two of which reached number one in the UK album charts.

Eels, the melodic, low-key indie-pop moniker of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mark Oliver Everett’s band, have released a second new song in as many months with the unexpected arrival of Who You Say You Are.

Swedish rockers Perfect Plan are back with their second album Time For A Miracle, the followup to 2018’s All Rise.

British singer, songwriter and model Foxes has continued her busy year by releasing her third new song of 2020, titled Friends In The Corner.

Hailing from Georgia, USA, Lauren Alaina first appeared in the public eye as a 15-year-old on series ten of American Idol, where she eventually finished as runner-up to Scotty McCreery. Her performances though earned her a record deal and her first album Wildflower followed later that year, debuting at number five in the Billboard 200 chart, and making Alaina the youngest female artist to debut that high since LeAnn Rimes.

Navvy is the stage name of Auckland-born Phoebe Lee Jasper, the latest graduate from Oceania’s apparent fast track development programme for smart, female electro-pop solo artists that launched the careers of household names such as Sia and Lorde (who even comes from the same town as Navvy).

Between You And Me marks eleven years of San Cisco, and the Australian indie-pop group have come a heck of a long way in that time. With three albums, all top 20 hits in their homeland, and a string of EPs and awards and nominations under their belts, they’ve become one of the biggest bands in their field down under, and gained an increasingly strong reputation beyond Aussie shores too.

Brighton quartet The Magic Gang won swathes of music fans over with their self-titled debut album that was about as feel-good a record as the indie scene produces. Packed with harmonious sunshine-tinged carefree tunes, it was a wonderful record and one that marked the band out as ones to watch.

It’s almost twenty years since American rockers Throwing Muses truly felt like part of the contemporary music landscape. After emerging as one of the defining alternative US bands of the late 1980s, they seemingly lost their way – and their interest – in the mid-1990s and the group disbanded, leaving lead singer Kristin Hersh to pursue a solo career.

From the howling vocal ad-libs to the intricate piano interludes with weaving musical arpeggios, this Avant-garde, from the howling vocal ad-libs to the intricate piano interludes with weaving musical arpeggios, this Avant-garde, freak folk style new release is organized chaos in audible form.

Indie pop foursome Fickle Friends emerged from the Brighton music scene in the mid-2010s with an undeniably impressive work ethic. In a bid to land a record deal, the group played 53 festivals in two years before being signed by Polydor Records, who recorded the band’s debut album, 2018’s You Are Someone Else, in Los Angeles with Brit Award-winning producer Mike Crossey. It reached number nine in the UK Album’s Chart and received some excellent reviews.

Welsh electronic musician and producer Kelly Lee Owens took an unusual step with the release of Inner Song, her second album and the follow up to 2017’s self-titled debut album which received widespread critical acclaim. With the Coronavirus pandemic looming large over us all, she chose to delay the release of her new album as a gesture of solidarity with record stores that had been forced to shut their doors.

If nothing else, Rudimental’s ‘Come Over’ presents one of the most inspiring tempos of 2020. As a master producer band, Rudimental know all too well about mixing up the beats and rhythms to develop pieces that are exhilarating, dynamic, and impassioned at the same time. This time around, they’ve listed the talents of fellow British artists Anne Marie and Tion Wayne to help take this feature onto the next level. 

Sasha Sloan’s ‘House With No Mirrors’ exemplifies the beauty of a simple, straightforward melody. At a time when the preferred style for most female artists seems to lean on the side of loud, showy, and explosive, it’s genuinely refreshing to see an artist touch upon her own vulnerabilities.

When two of the biggest names in pop music come together for a collaboration, you know it’s going to be worth a listen. The Weeknd and Calvin Harris’s ‘Over Now’ is a velvety-smooth drive through the nostalgic years of R&B and retro.

This is an easy review to write. With Lie Out Loud London-based four-piece BLOXX have composed an album that is stuffed full of smart, insanely catchy and well crafted indie-pop goodness. And if that’s your cup of tea, and even if it isn’t, you should go and give it a listen right now.

It’s a little bit of a paradox that Conor Oberst has arguably never been more well known than he is right now thanks to a string of solo albums that have made him, if not quite a household name then at least not far from it, but his most well-known moniker – that of Bright Eyes – haven’t released an album in almost a decade.

If you haven’t heard of Jerry Joseph, don’t worry, I’m sure you’re not alone. He’s had the kind of life and career in music that reads like a novel. From incarceration and being sent to boarding school in New Zealand as a child, to founding non-profit the Nomad Music Organization, and touring the world as a solo artist and with his succession of bands, from 1980s rock-reggae outfit Little Women to supergroup Stockholm Syndrome, and plenty more in-between, he’s amassed an enormous back catalogue and plenty of stories along the way.

Now into their fifth decade together, electro synth-pop duo Erasure have seen it all in their glittering career. As one of the pioneering acts of the UK electronica scene, they crossed over into enormous commercial success and became one of the biggest bands of the 1980s and 1990s. Incredibly, between 1986 and 2007, they achieved 24 consecutive Top 40 hits in the UK, and to date, they’ve sold over 25 million records.

Tennessee-born singer, songwriter and actress Mandy Barnett has one eye firmly on the past with her latest release, A Nashville Songbook. Her eighth studio album, released through Place Music / BMG, is a collection of covers of American country classics, taking in a wide range of artists including Kris Kristofferson, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley.

This is a truly 21st-century release, a record for our Coronavirus times. It is, rather wonderfully, a five-track collection of songs written by Snow Patrol in collaboration with their fans – referred to here as The Saturday Songwriters – with the creative process taking place through Instagram Live songwriting sessions hosted by the band’s frontman Gary Lightbody during the lockdown period.

New York rockers The Lemon Twigs have a heck of a backstory. Fronted by brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, who appeared in Broadway shows and in a variety of TV shows and films as children, their last album, 2018’s Go To School, was a concept album about a chimpanzee raised as a human child and forced into education. Yes, really.

Singer and guitarist Brian Sella and drummer Mathew Uychich, known collectively as American lo-fi folk-punk outfit The Front Bottoms, took a sizeable creative risk with their previous album Going Grey, which they uncharacteristically packed with synths. It was a fine album, but their seventh release, In Sickness And In Flames, finds us back in familiar territory.

Comprised of Dale Norton (vocals), Callum Norton (drums), Jamie Darby (guitar), Thomas Ford (bass), and David Hardstone (guitar/keyboard), Broken Hands are an energetic stadium rock band hailing from Kent who have been playing together for well over a decade. Their debut album, Turbulence, was released last year and earned the outfit airplay and press coverage with the likes of Radio`1, The Independent and Clash.