Latest Reviews

Yorkshire-based indie psychedelia outfit Van Houten formed in 2017 out of Leeds College of Music and describe themselves in their Spotify bio (where they’ve already amassed well over 1,000 monthly listeners) as “slacker pop with a cherry on top”. They dropped their self-titled debut album through Clue Records last year and turned a lot of heads with their single Better Than This, an intoxicating and spacey affair that had something of a Pavement vibe to it.

Brooklyn-based indie outfit The Antlers continued their triumphant return this week with new song It Is What It Is. It’s their second new release in just a few weeks too, following hot on the heels of Wheels Roll Home, the first new material the band had put out since 2014’s Familiars, their fifth studio album.

It’s been a heck of a year for American country singer-songwriter Thomas Rhett. In February, Rhett and his wife welcomed their third daughter into the world, and then in September, he shared the prestigious ‘Entertainer of the Year’ award with Carrie Underwood at the 55th Academy of Country Music Awards. While I’m sure Rhett hasn’t been immune to the pain and difficulties caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, he’s still had plenty to celebrate in both his personal and professional life over the last twelve months, and good for him.

American singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton seemingly came out of nowhere with his smash hit debut album Traveller, which was nominated for the Grammy for Album of the Year and won the Grammy for Best Country Album at the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016. It was also named Album of the Year at the 2015 Country Music Association Awards and has been certified quadruple platinum, shifting well over 2.5 million copies since its release. Not bad for a debut from a previously unknown performer, eh?

Some people cynically claim that music as it used to be, full of soul, passion, and love, is gone. Well, if that’s the case, that’s because Cory Henry stole all of that for his own compositions.

Born in London, and now living in Copenhagen, twenty-year-old Mina Okabe dropped her debut single I’m Done this week and it is, like its singer and creator herself, a worldly and captivating affair. Okabe, who is Danish-Japanese, has already spent time living in New York and Manila, as well as her homeland, and there is an assured and wise feeling to the song that perhaps comes from her considerable life experience, despite her young age.

Composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Ólafur Arnalds started his career in music as a drummer with a series of metal bands in his native Iceland before transitioning into the ethereal soundscapes for which he has made his name. His work mixes together classical elements with flourishes of pop, rock and electronica to create music that transcends any single genre and delivers a fairly unique listening experience.

There’s a wide range of styles and influences at play on Lilly Ahlberg’ debut EP Call Me. Perhaps that’s not surprising given the young singer-songwriter’s nomadic life: she was born in Italy but also spent time living in the UK and Australia, though spent a good chunk of her young life in Sweden, growing up in the small town of Älmhult, the place that gave the world the flat-pack furniture behemoth IKEA.

You probably know Chilean-Norwegian singer-songwriter Nicolas Muñoz – otherwise known as Boy Pablo – from his 2017 single Everytime, the video for which went viral on YouTube, racking up millions of views within just weeks of being uploaded to the site thanks, in part, to a quirk of the website’s algorithm. Until that song dropped, Muñoz had enjoyed a growth in popularity in his homeland of Norway, gigging around his Bergen hometown and playing the Bergenfest festival. But Everytime sent Muñoz and his music global, and he’s building on that momentum with the release of his debut album Wachito Rico.

April Lawlor – known creatively just as April – began writing songs when she was only ten years old. By last year, she’d started posting her bedroom creations onto Soundcloud, and she quickly started winning fans. An early supporter was American indie-pop musician Alec Benjamin who invited her as support on to this European tour last year, leading to April playing a string of shows across the continent.