R.E.M. is one of the most revered bands to emerge from the American underground. Singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry helped originate college rock during the post-punk scene of the 80s, with their idiosyncratic blend of brash tunefulness, poetic lyrics, chiming guitars and evocative vocals.
“Out of Time” was the album that catapulted R.E.M. from an indie favourite to one of the biggest bands in the world. Topping charts in the US, UK and beyond, this three-time Grammy Award-winning album remains an iconic title in modern rock history, with hits like “Losing My Religion” and “Shiny Happy People”.
Ranked #3 in Melody Maker’s list of “Top 30 Albums of 1991” – “…A merry breakdown and a mighty breakthrough…”, Included in Rolling Stone’s “Essential Recordings of the 90’s. Peter Buck claimed he was still teaching himself when he stumbled upon the riff for ‘Losing My Religion.’ The single remains the most perfect pop song R.E.M. ever crafted,
R.E.M. came back after a period of self-imposed reinvention, and “Out Of Time” is easily their most eclectic and wildly inspired album yet, although it is still very identifiably REM
R.E.M. has done it again: defied and fulfilled the conflicting expectations of a broad, mainstream audience and a smaller, more demanding, and possessive, cult….This may well be America’s best rock & roll band….surely, America’s most resourceful rock & roll band…” Spin (3/91) – “…More textured, lighter, brighter, and poppier than 1988’s “Green”….This album will nail it once and for all: They’re no longer innovative, original, or particularly exciting in the way they used to be–but they are writing more consistently excellent songs…”, “There is something extremely reassuring about the volatility of this album, its out-of-time-ness, which suggests that the music isn’t simply confined to the past but thrives in the present.”
The Bug Club are back, again, for their annual appointment at the garage rock makers’ market, where they’re flogging yet another pedigree record. LP number four, ‘Very Human Features’, arrives hot on the heels of the band’s first Sub Pop release, 2024’s ‘On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System’. That record saw the band continue their love affair with BBC Radio 6, start up a new one with KEXP thanks to a session with them, and crop up in the pages of the NME
So with LP number four, “Very Human Features”, released June 13th, Anything else from the bucket list? Oh yeah, festival slots including packing home ground Green Man’s Walled Garden to its non-existent rafters. Then shows across the US in those venues us Brits tend to hear about and that’s as far as we get. This record gives the band an excuse to continue their never-ending tour and feed their baying fans, engorged and expectant thanks to this band’s relentless record-releasing hot streak, a new batch of typically playful, riff-laden, smart Bug Club Tunes.
But first, a standalone single, because that’s how things are done here. “Have you ever been to Wales?”, asks the band in “Have U Ever Been 2 Wales.” It’s good. A new, discordant national anthem, if they didn’t already have a decent harmonious one. Oh, to be from a country where national pride is something other than the mark of a tosser. Starting as a classic, chugging chanta-long, it’s interrupted by what sounds like an alien choir before they let rip. Think Dinosaur Jr. with a job at the tourist board. And Welsh.
Personally, I hate it when an unnecessary personal opinion is inserted where it’s not needed – band bios, for example – in order to offload an uninteresting individual hot take. Maybe that’s why this stuff works: thankfully, on “Very Human Features” The Bug Club have continued in their habit of presenting as a collective mind. Two-in-one. Rarely do you find a band with two creative forces that have such a singular, shared perspective, sense of humour and knack for a pop melody. In “Beep Boop Computers” vocalists Sam (also on guitar) and Tilly (on bass) swap between “I”s, “my”s and “we”s as if there isn’t any difference between the lot, all the while skewering interpersonal relationships and experiences in a glorious, glam rock dismantling of the human aspects the album’s title references. Staying on topic, “How to Be a Confidante” does that-thing-The Bug Club-really-know-how-to-do where they, again speaking as two voices from the same mind, pluck out common aspects of how we all live and make them sound ridiculous. The surreal is in the familiar, not in ignoring the familiar – The Bug Club know this and that understanding joins an unrelenting bassline in forming the backbone of this garage-infused belter.
It’s no surprise that, in poking fun at the familiar, the humour is by track two turned inwards and it’s The Bug Club themselves in their own firing line. In “Twirling in the Middle,” after taking a detour to insult both airport-littering spy-fiction writer Andy McNab and the collective authors of the Bible, Sam and Tilly sing, “did you think this was over, cos we’re just getting started.” A reference to their prolific output perhaps – this is the fourth LP since 2022, not to mention all the EPs and standalone odds and ends, after all. Then they twist the knife further, hari-kari style, when they raise eyebrows at their own tempo change (“are we doing the rocksteady?”) and then add “just when you’re ready for this to be over, we’ll start playing solos” before doing exactly that. And it’s a proper solo too – they always are. It’s a rollercoaster unpicking of whatever-it-is The Bug Club do, while at the same time building on the work done in previous albums and presenting us with layers of creativity piled up atop one another.
Sam and Tilly, combined. But the multi-dimensional nature to The Bug Club is what makes “Very Human Features” just as re-listenable as their previous work. “Jealous Boy,” “Appropriate Emotions” and “Muck (Very Human Features)” all lend the LP a more poignant tone.
Initially comprising the songwriting core of Sam Willmett (vocals/guitar) and Tilly Harris (vocals/bass) with Dan Matthew (drums), The Bug Club started plying their trade in 2016. They were signed by UK label Bingo Records in Autumn 2020 and first single “We Don’t Need Room For Lovin’” was released in February 2021, followed by the EP Launching “Moondream One2. It quickly established The Bug Club as the tongue-in-cheek and live-focused antidote to the previous year’s penned-in pandemic drudgery.
Pile have undergone a pretty sprawling musical journey as a band, from solo project to hard-driving post-hardcore group to more atmospheric art-rock group on their 2023 album “All Fiction”. Their latest single, “Uneasy,” finds them remaining in that atmospheric space, but with an immediacy and a driving pulse that makes its more ambient, electronic elements all the more accessible. Drummer Kris Kuss is the secret weapon here, providing a muscular performance that reminds us how much this band rocks, even when they’re not really rocking—not exactly anyway. But the whole thing could explode at any minute, and it’s that kind of suspense that makes it exciting.
A Sisyphean fable concerned with labor and living. “Sunshine and Balance Beams” is the bands 9th Studio Album from Pile.
“A million sweaty punks can’t be wrong”, SPIN MAGAZINE “They’ve spent the past 16 years refining what a modern-day rock band could be… a surprisingly detailed and evocative world, just beyond the limits of rock” PITCHFORK “he cult around the Boston-based post-hardcore band Pile has grown feverishly… and has since blossomed into a hard-to-pigeonhole but instantly identifiable force in underground music” BANDCAMP
“Pile is one of the strangest bands in rock music, and one of the best” AV CLUB, “Rock ‘n’ roll can be a lot of things — dangerous, sexy, stupid — but Pile’s rock ‘n’ roll is deranged” NPR, “best known as THE Boston Rock Band” STEREOGUM
“Pile cemented their status as one [of] the loudest, most quietly influential DIY rock bands” PITCHFORK
From the album “Sunshine and Balance Beams” (Out 15th August, Sooper Records).
Sharp Pins’ “Radio DDR” showed up on our list of great albums from late 2024 you might have missed. But given the lateness of the hour and a proper physical release this year,
Release dates are trivia, but Sharp Pins’ purely joyful and impeccably crafted lo-fi power pop is essentially timeless on arrival. Reminiscent of prime Guided by Voices, Big Star, Cleaners from Venus—pick whichever analog-recorded janglers show up on your radar “Radio DDR” is pop perfection by any other name. The project of Lifeguard’s Kai Slater , Sharp Pins capture a certain kind of vintage that sounds great no matter how or when it graces your headphones: 2024, 2025, 1974, 1993, it’s all good stuff.
Sharp Pins is the super solid lo-fi noise pop project of talented Chicago musician Kai Slater of the band Lifeguard and Dwaal Troupe. “Radio DDR” was originally released as a Hallogallo tape.
Let the old folks fight it out. Sharp Pins are too busy staying up late watching vampire movies. Fathers and Children of the Revolution. Sharp Pins are known for their pop guitar minuets that splay the ballet; they are the cosmos. Word on the street is Sharp Pins will touring the U.S.A. with the Hard Quartet, March, April, May, 2025.
Japanese Breakfast, the captivating musical project of Michelle Zauner, is set to enchant UK audiences once again in 2025! Known for shimmering tracks like “Be Sweet” and “Everybody Wants to Love You,” as well as their Grammy-nominated album “Jubilee” (2021), the band’s spellbinding blend of indie-pop and shoegaze promises an unforgettable live experience.
Having wowed fans with performances at Glastonbury and All Points East, and sharing stages with Florence + The Machine and Belle and Sebastian, Japanese Breakfast’s UK return will showcase their dynamic energy, lush production, and heartfelt storytelling.
The Indie pop band Japanese Breakfast return in 2025 with their fourth album, titled “For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)”, In the first week of this year, the band released lead single “Orlando in Love”, and confirmed UK shows in London and Manchester this summer as part of the Melancholy Tour across the world.
More than three years since their previous album “Jubilee” was released, this new record is set to be darker, gloomier and, as per its title, melancholic. Produced by Blake Mills, best known for his works with Bob Dylan and Fiona Apple, “For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)” is set to be one of the most exciting releases of this year.
“Orlando in Love” by Japanese Breakfast from ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’, out March 21st on Dead Oceans.
“Lonely People With Power” is the metal band’s follow-up to 2021’s “Infinite Granite”, with Justin Meldal-Johnsen returning as producer. “Lonely People With Power” is out March 28th. It’s Deafheaven’s first album for Roadrunner Records; their previous albums arrived via Deathwish, Anti-, and Sargent House. Since their 2011 debut, “Roads to Judah”, Deafheaven have embraced an aesthetic palette that transcended heavy music itself, but black metal firmly remained the core of their sound. With 2021’s “Infinite Granite”, the band brought that idea into question for the first time, mostly casting aside the scream and scorch in favour of dreamier shoegaze textures.
Four years later, “Lonely People With Power” offers not just the reassurance that black metal remains essential to who Deafheaven are and what they do, but genuinely rivals any of their prior releases as their best. Still swirling in elements of dream pop, post-punk, noise rock and other sounds, Deafheaven sharpen their focus and go for the throat on more concise, finely honed rippers like “Magnolia” and “Doberman” while stretching their limits even further on versatile standouts such as “Heathen” and “Body Behaviour.”
“Lonely People With Power” captures Deafheaven at their most beautiful and brutal, and an astonishing spectrum in between.
The band—featuring vocalist George Clarke, guitarists Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra, bassist ChristopherJohnson, and drummer Daniel Tracy—invited Interpol’s Paul Banks and Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews to guest on the new album.
Psychedelic electronic duo Darkside returned after an extended hiatus back in 2021 with the release of “Spiral”, and since then, Dave Harrington and Nicolas Jaar have not only remained active, but expanded the group to a trio. With the addition of drummer Tlacael Esparza, Darkside are prepping the release of their third album, “Nothing”, which suggests an even groovier new direction for the band. The first two singles released thus far, “Graucha Max” and “S.N.C” both of which we named Essential Tracks to hear, showcase more influence from the funkier end of Can’s pioneering krautrock as well as early ‘80s mutant. Nothing is the third album from Darkside nine transmissions of negative space, telepathic seance, and spectral improvisation.
The group fill in the open spaces in their music with dirtier, nastier grooves, playing up the more physical aspects of their music rather than follow a more ethereal muse. Moments like highlight “Graucha Max” showcase Darkside at their most manic, where something like “American References” turn up the heat, pushing its humid grooves to where you can almost the beads of sweat trickle down the back of your neck. There remain sinister underpinnings to Darkside’s songs, but their method of navigation winds through much more hedonistic trails.
Release date February 28th released on MatadorRecords
This Cloakroom’s fourth album is bookended by the kind of dense, widescreen shoegaze that’s become their signature over the past decade. But in between those two endpoints is an even more vast spectrum of sound and image, more intimate stories and character sketches depicted through more immediate surges of power pop (“Cloverlooper”), new wave (“Unbelonging”), even dreamy, vintage surf-pop (“Bad Larry”). “Last Leg of the Human Table” is solid in its foundation, the kind of record where if you stripped away all the effects, you’d still have a spectacular set of songs. But when they do fire up the engines again on a song like “Story of the Egg,” it’s a blast to just watch them go.
Some of their heaviest riffage yet: the opener’s totally crushing. There are also lighter moments, such as “Bad Larry”, which sounds like a cosmic country Mexican surf track! It’s all underpinned with lots of sonic experimentation and lo-fi textures.
Bambara‘s brooding latest album “Birthmarks” is out on Bella Union It’s a thrilling, fever dream of a record with Reid, Blaze and William really upping the ante so buckle up for this one and listen loud
Since we last heard from cinematic Brooklyn post-punks Bambara (2022’s “Love on My Mind” mini-LP), they signed to Simon Raymonde’s Bella Union label in the UK and, most significantly, have undergone a noticeable sonic overhaul. The bones are still the same — smouldering, high-drama rock that owes a lot to Johnny Cash, Nick Cave and Ennio Morricone, with Blaze Bateh’s thunderous drumming powering things and brother Reid Bateh’s smokey swagger in the spotlight — but this time it’s delivered with sleek synthesizers and layers of atmospheric sound design. The album was produced by Graham Sutton of British post-rock greats Bark Psychosis and he feels like a fourth member of the band alongside founding bassist William Brookshire.
Would they have put the ’80s-style orchestra hit samples on ripper “Letters to Sing Sing” without him? Maybe, but it feels new and exciting in this context, a fist pumping moment that is both a little humorous and exactly right. Then there’s “Face of Love,” the album’s best and most surprising song, that is part Cocteau Twins and part Massive Attack, with cascades of ethereal guitar wash, crashing slow funk drums, proggy keyboard arpeggiations, heavenly guest vocals from Madeline Johnston (Midwife) and Emma Acs (Crack Cloud), and Reid in growling sprechgesang mode that leans toward rapping.
Despite those two band reference points in the last overlong sentence, “Face of Love” does not sound like “Teardrop,” but it is pure Bambara. Whoever is responsible for this sonic renovation, huzzah, because “Birthmarks” sounds like a million bucks in all the right ways and the band’s essential Bambara-ness never gets lost in the gloss.
Fusing goth, post-punk, and Morricone with a spine-shattering sneer, “Birthmarks” showcases Bambara at the height of their powers. Their fifth album overflows with thick layers of hooks even as dense clouds of synth haze swirl around the mix. It’s equal parts moody malice, gloomy grit, and somber storytelling—but instead of being a dour downer, standout songs like “Hiss,” “Letters from Sing Sing,” “Face of Love,” and “Dive Shrine” burst at the seams with barely controlled fury. Driven by snarling guitars, brash drumming, and Reid Bateh’s brooding baritone, this album absolutely rips.
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts are Spooner Oldham (Farfisa organ), Micah Nelson (guitar and vocal), Corey McCormick (bass and vocal), and Anthony LoGerfo (drums). Young shared another new song. “Talkin’ To The Trees” marks Neil Young’s first studio recording with his new band, the Chrome Hearts . This record moves fluidly between intimate acoustic reflections and fervent rockers. Opening with the warm, personal ballad “Family Life” and the gritty garage-blues stomp of “Dark Mirage,” it then alternates heartfelt tunes like “First Fire of Winter” and ode-like “Silver Eagle” with the politically charged “Big Change” and the rally-cry of “Let’s Roll Again”.
At once a reflective, tender work and a pointed protest album, it finds Young as impassioned and vital as ever, with a message that leaves no doubt where Neil Young stands in these challenging times.
Never one to waste previously used lyrics or old-guy activist sentiments, Young and his clanking, grungy new ensemble with guitarist Micah Nelson borrows the fervour that filled his post-9/11 track “Let’s Roll” and revisioned it for a new battle cry—one geared to take down Tesla owner Elon Musk while prodding American auto manufacturers to make safer electric vehicles.
Best lyric: “Don’t want no loud sounds coming from the back, spewing macho poison / It’s not a race track.”
All songs were written by Neil Young, co-produced by Young and Lou Adler and recorded at Rick Rubin‘s Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, Calif.
The Fat Angel Sings 