Latest Reviews

Model, actress, and now singer Paris Jackson took many listeners’ hearts with the release of her newest, and first, single: let down. For those who might’ve been keeping tabs on the entertainer, her foray into music might not have seemed like such a surprise, not only considering her background, but also with her current band, the Sound Flowers. However, judging on their music, to say this single was a surprise is a massive understatement.

Let me begin this review with a short story, one that many most likely shared in the last week. Like many others, I launched Spotify to begin a day of work, and was greeted by the cover for a new single titled Can’t Put It In The Hands Of Fate featuring artists like Rapsody, Cordae, Busta Rhymes and… Stevie Wonder? I wiped my eyes, morning coffee still kicking in, and stared blankly at my desktop’s screen.

American west coast singer, songwriter and keyboardist Jarrod Lawson won a whole host of fans with his self-titled debut album back in 2014. That record’s smooth blend of R&B and soul-infused jazz led to sold-out shows at London’s Ronnie Scott’s, gigs in China, Australia and Tokyo, and festival appearances at Rotterdam’s North Sea Jazz, Indonesia’s Java Jazz, and the UK’s Love Supreme events. His follow-up EP Jarrod Lawson at the BBC was recorded at the legendary Maida Vale studio, and he’s taken the title of Soul Artist Of The Year at the Jazz FM Awards.

The ever reclusive Mark Oliver Everett caught everyone slightly off guard this year when he dropped two surprise songs into the world. Baby Let’s Make It Real and Who You Say You Are marked a triumphant return for Everett, who under the Eels band name has released some dark albums charting his own intense personal pain and loss since the group’s superb debut album Beautiful Freak captivated legions of listeners back in the mid-1990s.

Dutch singer-songwriter Romy Dya is perhaps best known on UK shores for providing vocals for the 2019 Martin Garrix and David Guetta track So Far Away. In her homeland though, Dya has carved out a niche for penning tracks for a host of Dutch artists including The Voice of Holland winner of 2016 Maan, Sharon Doorson and Roxeanne Hazes. She’s also worked with the likes of Ghostface Killah and Busta Rhymes.

RuthAnne has had a remarkable career already. At just seventeen years of age, she relocated from Dublin to Los Angeles to chase her dream of a career in music. The very first song she wrote for a major artist was Jojo’s Too Little, Too Late, a top 5 hit in the Billboard Hot 100 back in 2006. She’s also written songs for the likes of Niall Horan and Britney Spears.

My Echo, the eleventh studio album from country legend Laura Veirs, must have been a devastatingly difficult body of work to complete. Her husband, Tucker Martine, produced the album while the couple went through couples therapy, only for their relationship to ultimately end in divorce before the album was released. But while there’s plenty of introspection and even sadness on My Echo, it is far from a bitter breakup record.

In the week in which NASA announced the irrefutable presence of water on the Moon, The Moons showed their own signs of life as they released their fourth studio album Pocket Melodies. Sure, the news that there’s water on the Moon might have the greater implications for space travel, and the human race as a whole, but if psychedelic, sixties-inspired, space-pop indie is your thing, then don’t let the Moon hog The Moons’ limelight.

Arlo Parks, the London-born rising star of indie-pop with the utterly mesmerising voice, is back with her powerful new single Green Eyes, as well as news of her hotly awaited new album which will be out next year and is called Collapsed in Sunbeams.

Since The Vamps scored their first number one album with 2017’s Night & Day, they’ve been on something of a self-imposed hiatus. Their new album, Cherry Blossom, marks their first release in three years, during which time Britain’s biggest pop-rock boy band have, naturally, grown up a little. The four-piece, comprised of Bradley Simpson, James McVey, Connor Ball and Tristan Evans, are not the teenagers they were when the band first came to fame.