The first album in 17 years from Belgian alternative rock stalwarts Ghinzu can be a cause for celebration. W.O.W.A and its driving initial salvo of the groove-laden “When Other Worlds Await,” “Snow White,” and “Out of Control” explodes out of the speakers as an enigmatic and propulsive take on the early 2000s indie rock.
Think Interpol if they played their songs faster and took in elements of the atmosphere The Strokes sought to create at their peak. Three songs in and you’re hooked. W.O.W.A feels like a debut album and, given the gap in releases for the band in a sense it is something of a rebirth, but to find that this is merely the latest stop in an increasingly creative and robust discography is all the more satisfying.
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Confined to his home after a pulmonary embolism and two heart attacks, 
Carrying the torch of great artists and bands is not as easy as some listeners might think. That torch could be damn heavy if you haven’t picked up all the right cues and if you didn’t add at least a modicum of something that turns out to be your own.
The San Diego via Boston alt trio’s complete original studio recordings, remastered, restored, and compiled into one lavish box set. ‘Wait a Lifetime’ gathers the band’s peerless albums ‘Junk’ and ‘This Afternoon Malady’, plus ‘R.I.P.’, expanded to include their unfinished 3rd album, singles, splits, and comp tracks.
Modernism functions as both a companion piece to Chris Stamey’s 2025 LP 
Belladonna Nocturne is intended as a thematic sequel to Belladonna, Daniel Lanois’ moody, evocative album of ambient and dub instrumentals from 2005. While it maintains a similar feel and features some of the same personnel, it sounds like a venture into new terrain right from the start. “Cap Negre” is a short intro piece containing sporadic rhythms and heavily detailed yet spacious mixing, leading into the jazzy abstract drift of “At the Foot of the Skyway Bridge.” Slightly haunting yet cool-headed and relaxed, the music paints an intoxicating nighttime scene. “Inside the Walls of Puebla” is more rustic, with sturdy, knocking drums and a Latin flair to the layered acoustic guitars. The deeply resonant piano piece “Snow Lake” seems far too texturally treated to label…
The album art that Max Allison designs for Hausu Mountain, the way-out-there experimental label that he co-founded with Doug Kaplan, often look like the world maps that led players through late-’90s video games: bright, pixelated representations of forests, mountains, ancient ruins and futuristic cities. Zoom in for a closer look, though, and it’s impossible to tell how your digital avatar would make it across these fractured landscapes. On the cover of Juckport, the latest from Allison’s solo project 
Lots of international superstar DJs end up making cosmic and exploratory records when they tire of – as the late Andrew Weatherall, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek, put it – “that ghastly oompty-boompty music.” Lots of them do quite well at it, too. But they are just daytrippers in the galactic expanse compared to Detroit hero Jeff Mills who is not only still bashing out the brain-jellifying techno to vast crowds week-in-week-out well over 40 years into his DJ career, but has been making out-there sounds for imagined futures in performances, collaborations and recordings for very nearly as long.
Once written off, the ’00s indie movement has proved to be remarkably enduring. Just look at Hard-Fi – the band took time out after 2011 album Killer Sounds, but have rebounded in fine style. Last summer saw some of their biggest headline shows to date, while a 20th anniversary (when did we get so old?) re-issue of debut album 
Swim Deep’s evolution has been fascinating to watch. Since forming in 2011, the British indie band have zigged and zagged through different shades of alternative music, taking in everything from the dreamy indie-pop of 2013 debut Where the Heaven Are We and the synth-led psych wigout of follow-up ‘Mothers’, to third album 
Daniel Monkman’s third album as 
Indie rock outfit 
…featuring 8 new tracks & reworks.
The Veils have occupied a distinctive place within alternative music for more than two decades, blending literary lyricism with emotionally driven songwriting and an evolving sound. Formed around singer-songwriter Finn Andrews, the band emerged in the early 2000s after Andrews signed to Rough Trade Records at just 16 years old. Since then, The Veils have released eight studio albums, moving between piano-led ballads, expansive rock arrangements, and atmospheric indie soundscapes while maintaining a strong emotional core. Their music frequently explores themes of love, loss, identity, and mortality, delivered through Andrews’ expressive vocals and poetic writing style.
Following up on their expansive 2024 double album Stung!, the Western Australia-based psychedelic rock outfit Pond wanted to tighten things up. The result is the much more focused Terrestrials, a collection of synth-heavy rockers that shine with a neon gleam.
Can we get a “WOO-HOO”? For “lost” albums to see the light of day during an artist’s lifetime is something of a rarity. Fortunately, 
When does jazz become more than a set of tools and techniques, and what is the crucial element that makes it into its own unmistakable form?