Editors' Picks

In one of the cleanest-sounding metal track that’s been released in a long time, Halestorm releases the anthem of the year with their newest single, ‘The Steeple’.

Jung Kook, most notably known from his role in the worldwide sensation BTS, manages to find his footing in his own solo single, ‘Stay Alive’, with the help of ‘SUGA’ producing the track.

Anomalie, like a true magician, blended all rules of jazz, pop, and dance music to make one of the most intriguing tracks of the year, titled ‘Come Running to Me’.

Mixing modern pop elements with rock songwriting and instrumentation, bülow crafts the perfect brew with her newest single ‘Don’t Break His Heart’.

Last year, in November, John Williams himself held a concert in Berlin, orchestrating the Berliner Philharmoniker, giving a new life to his greatest work. That concert was luckily recorded, giving new life to the songs that we all know and love, such as this newest release, ‘Yoda’s Theme’.

The modern king of traditional pop, the man who’s almost single-handedly kept vocal jazz alive in the last fifteen years, has released a new single, titled ‘I’ll Never Not Love You’, to promote his upcoming album, ‘Higher’ (due this year), and it’s the oh-so-familiar chocolaty-smooth music Michael Bublé is so well known for, with a modern twist.

Bill Charlap will serenade casual listeners all the while blowing the minds of those fascinated by jazz music with the first single from his newest album with his trio, titled ‘The Duke’.

The final season of Attack on Titan is upon us – a world manga fans have delved into for over a decade, and anime fans almost just as long. The last opening of the series is upon us, ‘The Rumbling’ by Japanese metal group SiM, and the song is worthy of praise far beyond being the most intense Attack of Titan opening.

MESSAGE FROM THE CLERGY – A new Papa has arisen amongst the ranks, and with it not only are the fans of Swedish rockers Ghost expecting a new album, but the band released a single to build hype, and give the world a preview of what’s ahead for the group, titled ‘Call Me Little Sunshine’.

The heavily-teased single (seriously, it was previewed over a year ago…) ‘Light Switch’ by Charlie Puth has finally been released. So, the question that everyone who both waited in anticipation for all that time and those who stumbled upon the song; does the song meet its expectations?

Raveena blesses our ears once again with her newest single, ‘Rush’, truly embracing Indian percussion in a soothing R&B anthem.

It’s the year for Lizzy McAlpine – with a new album underway and an upcoming performance on the Ellen DeGeneres show. On top of all that, the artist released a brand-new single in anticipation for the aforementioned album, ‘Five Seconds Flat’, titled ‘All My Ghosts’.

Is there such a thing as ethereal folk? If there isn’t, then AURORA can be given all the credit for creating the genre, especially with her newest single ‘A Dangerous Thing’.

There’s both a thousand ways to describe ‘Sent From Above’, Rivi Tiber’s newest single, and no way; it’s a true work of art that takes many liberties with very few components while also being packed with some of the most exciting song writing written in a long time, akin to legends such as Cody Fry, Jacob Collier, and Daniel Ceaesar.

Continuing with the momentum the band built up from their latest 80’s pop inspired 2018’s ‘Simulation Theory’, Muse takes a look back and dials the volume to eleven with possibly one of their heaviest singles in the band’s career, ‘Won’t Stand Down’.

Electronic musician, producer and DJ Simon Green has been creating music under his ‘Bonobo’ moniker for more than two decades now, and in that time has built up a cult following, swapping his native Brighton for LA along the way. Fragments is his seventh studio album in that time and follows on from his last effort Migration, and as is explained on his official website, it is an album “born first out of fragments of ideas and experimentation”. 

Since indie rockers The Maccabees disbanded five or so years ago, former frontman Orlando Weeks has been through some big life changes, and not just of the lockdown variety. In 2018, Weeks and his partner welcomed their first child, a landmark event for anyone. Weeks, though, took this colossal life event one step further, infusing his debut solo album The Quickening with his thoughts, feelings and anxieties about impending fatherhood.

“I belong with you / you belong with me / you’re my sweetheart” went ‘Ho Hey’ by indie folk duo The Lumineers in what was one of the most infectious pop songs of the last decade. The only possible reason for having not heard it would be that you’ve been living in a cave in some remote mountain range since 2012, completely cut off from civilization. But even then, I’d have my doubts. 

Very few artists specialise in the cover version as emphatically as Chan Marshall, otherwise known as Cat Power, the soulful singer songwriter whose first covers record, released in 2000, was about as perfect as a covers collection can be. That record included interpretations of tracks by artists including The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, Moby Grape and Bob Dylan, among others. It was an almost uniquely rich dive into the meaning these songs carry, and a quite stunning set of sparse musical arrangements that linger long in the memory.

Liverpool trio The Wombats are a staggeringly impressive success story. From their founding in the early noughties after meeting while studying at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts to the Spotify-conquering, hard-touring outfit that has shifted more than one million albums worldwide, their journey has been an incredible if curiously unrecognised one, thanks in part to their curious status as somehow the ‘uncool’ indie kids on the block.

“Just got to keep your head up / And the lights on / That’s all you can do”, coos Twin Atlantic’s lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Sam McTrusty on ‘Keep Your Head Up’, the opening track to the Scottish indie rock duo’s fifth album Transparency. It feels like the mantra we’ve all lived by over the last couple of years, and for an album that had its own troubled genesis, it’s also perhaps been something of a rallying cry for McTrusty and bassist Ross McNae, the only remaining members of the band after the departure of drummer Craig Kneale last year.

In the career of Green Day, there are many defining moments, a roll call of defining tracks, events and breakthroughs that propelled them on their way to becoming the stadium-conquering global behemoth they are today. If you were forced to narrow this list down to just a singular point though, to settle on ‘the’ Big Bang moment that transformed them forever and irreversibly from California punk upstarts to A-list stars, it would have to be the release of American Idiot in 2004. Nimrod nearly did it, Warning couldn’t, but American Idiot nailed it.

FKA twigs is back from her opus ‘Magdalene’ with the powerhouse that is ‘The Weeknd’, fresh from his own opus ‘After Hours’, with the trap banger ‘Tears in the Club’.

Lights has returned with her newest single, Real Thing, which is a fun play on slow R&B jams with a mix of 80s instrumentation.

Sometimes, a cup of coffee just isn’t enough. You need that boost of energy that caffeine just can’t achieve, which is where Bloc Party comes into play. ‘Traps’, the band’s newest single, is all the energy you need for that picker-upper.

Babe Rainbow, through the newest single, ‘Smash the Machine’, reminded the world once again of an era of music long lost but never forgotten.

Embracing R&B and Jazz roots, Areej delivers a beautiful slow-jam ‘Bloodshed’ filled with ambitious instrumentation and raw delivery.

There’s nothing quite as warm as hanging around a group of talented musicians jamming together, playing in blissful harmony. Benee encapsulates that feeling beautifully with her newest single, ‘Doesn’t Matter’.

Enveloping the listener in an esoteric aura of calm in an almost chaotic way, the seven-piece group consisting of Greg Spero, Joel Ross, Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, Irvin Pierce, Jeff Parker and Darryl Jones show an underappreciated portion of jazz done in a both traditional and modern style in their new single, ‘Cloud Jam’.

It’s that time of the year again, and everyone is feeling jolly. What better way to help those who need a hand in joining the others in this festive mood than with a slow Christmas song, such as ‘It’s Christmas’, by ‘Katie Garibaldi and Joseph Metcalfe.

Protest songs aren’t uncommon by any means, but a protest song against music is, well, quite daring. That’s what One Cure for Man, a musical project made by James Parkinson, very successfully did with his newest single ‘Too Many Songs’.

The vibes are always immaculate whenever a Moonchild song comes on, and such as is the case, with the help of Alex Isley, with their newest single ‘You Got One’.

For a while there, it seemed like Kentucky rockers My Morning Jacket might well have called it quits, so focused were all their respective components on their own side projects and other pursuits. Even when new My Morning Jacket material appeared, as with last year’s The Waterfall II (the followup to 2015’s The Waterfall), it was composed of recordings from sessions made in 2013 that also yielded its predecessor. 

It’s hard to convincingly blend styles together in music without sounding either tacky or forced, but Kali Uchis and Ozuna do a wonderful job in their newest single ‘Another Day in America’ doing just that.

In an interesting play on musical contrasts, Alice Glass’ newest single, ‘FAIR GAME’, finds a way to both soothe and hype the listener all at the same time.