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Witch Fever weave doom, punk, goth and noise into the fabric of their second album, FEVEREATEN. Alongside Chris W. Ryan’s production, the four-piece band sounds balanced and unified. Continuing on from their debut, Congregation, FEVEREATEN unpacks religious (and other) trauma through allegory and personal narrative.
Amy Walpole’s raw, nearly feral vocals anchor the album in its emotional core. At the centre of it all is a steady, driving heartbeat: great for screaming into the void about our disenfranchisement. The album builds a familiar sense of otherness, underwritten by experiences coming of age – and now living as adults – under authoritarianism. At the midway point, SAFE features a haunting and ethereal cello theme.

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When Chicago drummer Makaya McCraven released his album In the Moment a decade ago few could have foreseen its prescience, not just as a grand statement representing the aesthetic tendencies of International Anthem, the influential label that released it, but as a sonic blueprint for the leader. That album was famously culled from 48 hours of recordings made during a weekly residency at a club in Chicago in 2013, with the drummer subsequently building compositions in the studio from groove-oriented live improvisations played by an ever-changing cast of local heavies, including guitarist Jeff Parker, trumpeter Marquis Hill, and bassist Junius Paul, all of whom remain frequent collaborators. Although McCraven’s last studio album—the orchestrally sumptuous…

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Radioactivity took ten years to follow up their 2015 album Silent Kill, but the wait was worth it. 2025’s Time Won’t Bring Me Down does everything the group’s previous records did but adds new layers of sonic adventurism and lyrical maturity on the way to being top notch punk rock for grown ass adults. The band can still knock out sweaty rockers perfect for bopping round the room to; the jacked-up title track and raucous “Watch Me Bleed” kick off the album with a one-two punch that’s like a blaring wake up call. Once the band have everyone’s attention, they start to peel off in different directions that are just as invigorating, while also packing some serious emotional punch. Singer and songwriter Jeff Burke isn’t interested in starting parties or rocking out…

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Two years after he first appeared on Balmat with 1977, Mike Paradinas returns with 1979. The sense of continuity between the two records is clear, and not just from their titles. Both capture the Planet Mu head venturing into the wilderness, seeking something-half-formed memories, thoughts caught in midair-in some of the most abstract, searching music he has released.
Just like 1977, 1979 surveys a synth-heavy array of ethereal soundscapes, ominous crevasses, and strange, psychedelic fugues. Like its predecessor, the new album’s atmospheric cast sets it apart from much of the work Paradinas has released as µ-Ziq on Planet Mu. It’s not strictly an ambient record, but it’s close, as close as this famously mutable artist ever comes to inhabiting a particular genre.

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This 12-track companion album to the documentary about the band features 2023 remasters of such songs as “Whip It,” “Girl U Want,” and “Beautiful World” plus covers of “Working in the Coal Mine” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
Acclaimed filmmaker Chris Smith (Wham!, Fyre, 100 Foot Wave, and Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond) captures the gloriously radical spirit that is DEVO – a rare band founded by a philosophy; a Dada experiment of high art meets low, hellbent on infiltrating American popular culture. Through never-before-seen archival and interviews with Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh, and Jerry Casale, DEVO relishes in the highs, lows, surreal moments and incredible performances of a 50-year career, embracing the spectacle…

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Collaborative albums are a tricky undertaking that can often result in clunky material that tries too hard to appeal to two separate audiences.
In the case of Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo, however, In the Earth Again showcases a seamless connection of artists that appear to be on polar-opposite ends of the sonic spectrum, while simultaneously showcasing a logical next step in the band’s trajectory.
From the very start, Pedigo’s guitar playing fits right into the Chat Pile universe. Dreamy instrumental opener of “Outside” and onward, his finger-picking style conjures imagery of a dusty, desolate rural American landscape — a familiar concept, both lyrically and sonically, for the band. (Pedigo grew up in the Texas Panhandle,…

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Shortly following the noisy ambient Americana of no floor, claire rousay‘s 2025 collaboration with more eaze, rousay remained on Thrill Jockey with the solo effort a little death. On this album, the composer mixes numerous found sounds and field recordings with droning strings, rustic guitars, stirring pianos, and electroacoustic processing. It feels very autumnal, like crunchy leaves underfoot, but also like a warm jacket in the crisp night air. When spoken samples are clearly audible, such as on the brief opener “i couldn’t find the light” or the comforting drone of “somehow,” they directly relate to topics of disassociation and mental illness. On “just,” M. Sage’s delicate, considered piano notes give way to swelling, gliding strings and curdled tape distortion, packed with…

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British composer and multi-instrumentalist Roger Eno’s releases his 3rd album for DG Without Wind, Without Air. The project follows on from the success of The Turning Year (2022) and the skies, they shift like chords (2023). The latter was described by Spectrum Culture with the words: “a remarkable release that unsettles with haunting lines and simultaneously makes one tingle with warmth at a display of beauty”.
The new album includes both solo piano pieces and tracks orchestrated for various combinations of clarinet, guitar, bass, strings, synths, percussion and electronics. There are guest vocal appearances from soprano Grace Davidson and Roger’s daughters Cecily and Lotti Eno, with Roger himself singing on The Moon And The Sea.

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On Virtue Falters, Ritual Howls made a significant leap forward, pairing their sweeping gestures with songwriting that was just as compelling. They continue their evolution on Ruin, delivering a set of even more tightly constructed songs that reestablish pounding, pulsing industrial beats as the backbone of their sound.
From the first notes of their sixth album, it’s clear Ritual Howls’ mastery of atmosphere remains. The glowering twang of “Follow the Sun” conjures images of long black leather jackets and swirls of clove cigarette smoke, but it also boasts hooks that claw their way into listeners’ heads and stay there. Ruin is also a showcase for Paul Bancell’s increasingly commanding baritone: on “In the Morning,” his booming delivery…

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On “Radio Seance,” Puritan Themes‘ strangest and most surreal song, Emil Amos intones “They always leave me on the shelf/ I live my life all by myself” like some starry-eyed sunshine popper broadcasting from some alternate dimension; the jaunty, optimistic vocals washing up like so much driftwood on a sea of guitar feedback, insomniac field recordings, epic Pink Floyd synths and dyslexic beats. It’s like the lost masters of some would-be ’70s pop star slowly going mad on black mold, cobwebs and isolation, the earthy folksiness growing soft and haunted around the edges.
On Puritan Themes, Amos found himself inspired by late-night broadcasts of “this bizarre, ’70s AM radio station that plays these sleazy, obscure/lost hits,” as he put it in an interview…

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Snocaps are a new band, but not really. They’ve only been together a matter of months, and they’ve just surprise-released their debut, but the two mainstays – twins Allison and Katie Crutchfield – have been singing together for most of their lives. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, they were active in the local DIY scene, forming their first band, The Ackleys, when they were in high school and only splitting up when the other members went off to college. They rechristened themselves P.S. Eliot in 2007, released two well-praised albums of earnest, anxious indie rock, then disbanded in 2011 when they simultaneously realised, with twin intuition, that they needed to go in different directions for a while.
Allison quickly formed the scrappy indie-rock…

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The first time we hear Bob Dylan on this fabulous 8CD, 165-track boxset, it’s Christmas Eve 1956. Dylan’s high school trio, The Jokers – Bob Zimmerman (vocals and piano), Larry Keegan and Howard Rutman (vocals) – are whomping through Shirley and Lee’s “Let the Good Times Roll” in a version recorded on a 78rpm acetate at the Terlinde Music Store in St Paul, a bus ride from the 15-year-old Dylan’s home in Hibbing, Minnesota.
It’s barely a minute long, not much more than a gloriously raucous din, but there distinctly is the young Bob, hollering his head off. The last time we hear him, it’s October 1963, at the end of his first headlining show at a sold-out Carnegie Hall, Dylan in full command of 3,000 hip New Yorkers who’ve just been profoundly wowed…

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Recorded and filmed October 5, 2024, before a sold-out crowd at London, England’s historic Islington Assembly Hall, Lighthouse: Live from London sees McKagan and his band performing songs from throughout the iconic musician-songwriter’s legendary career, including stellar renditions of tracks originally found on his critically acclaimed third solo album, 2023’s ‘Lighthouse’.
Lighthouse Tour ’24 saw McKagan lighting up sold-out houses across North America, Europe, and the United Kingdom, joined by his murderer’s row of musicians, guitarist Tim DiJulio, guitarist/keyboardist Jeff Fielder, bassist Mike Squires, and drummer Michael Musburger, with live sound engineered by longtime collaborator Martin Feveyear.

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After a five-year break, Magic 8-Ball marks Gazpacho’s return with eight new tracks built around the idea of fate-how it moves without warning, and how the choices we make can slowly strip away who we thought we were.
Magic 8-Ball is about someone who gambles everything, believing that eventually everyone gets their break. That the universe is fair if you just wait long enough. But the break never comes. He loses everything and is left with the realization that it was never fate, only his own choices. His responsibility. His idea.
The title, Magic 8-Ball, ties into the idea of randomness and inevitability—shaking something for answers you already suspect and repeating the cycle over and over. The idea of infinity is central.

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Twenty-five years ago this Halloween, three Kalamazoo, Michigan-area college students got together for an impromptu house party-gig that would forever change the course of progressive bluegrass. Inspired by a handful of informal performances at some bluegrass open mic nights hosted by a Kalamazoo-area rustic Greek bar & restaurant, The Blue Dolphin, Michael Arlen Bont (banjo), Dave Bruzza (guitar) and Paul Hoffman (mandolin) performed for the first time as Greensky Bluegrass, delivering an intimate set of bluegrass standards in a living room surrounded by a few small handfuls of their closest costume-laden friends and acquaintances.
The trio continued to hone their impressive chops and wildly unique style over the next…

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The Devil Makes Three has never been accused of making light, vapid music. Across seven albums, the Santa Cruz-based trio has melded blues, folk, Americana, and even influences of punk with often deeply personal, occasionally dark lyrics for a deeply satisfying gothic folk sound. Like Johnny Cash fronting The Cramps, the band has cleaved out a unique sound for more than two decades.
And their latest, Spirits, is no different. In fact, it might be the most Devil Makes Three album yet, as it leans into darker subjects like grief and mortality. “There’s a theme of ghosts and death running through this album,” says frontman Pete Bernhard, who lost his mother, brother, and closest childhood friend while making the record. “The world’s in a strange place right now.

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California’s The Neighbourhood are on a mission to make goth R&B a touchstone in the musical lexicon. It’s a sound they championed on their debut album, 2013’s I Love You, and continue to explore on their sophomore effort, 2015’s Wiped Out! Once again working with producer Justyn Pilbrow, the Neighbourhood expand upon the moody synth, heavy bass, and echoey guitar-based style of I Love You with a collection of tracks that, while not mind-blowing, will pleasingly remind most fans of the group’s 2012 breakout track, “Sweater Weather.” While other artists have flirted with the darker side of R&B, including Lana Del Rey, the xx, and Halsey (who also worked with Pilbrow on her similarly inclined 2015 debut, Badlands), the Neighbourhood commit to…

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This fifth studio album from Admiral Fallow is their first in four years, with at least one track (‘The Shortest Night’) dating back further, to the early days of the pandemic. Clearly, the Glasgow five-piece are the kind of band happy to allow their ideas room to breathe, to crystallise at their own pace, which is something palpable on First of the Birds; the best songs here are stately and refined, unfurling at their own pace.
Opener ‘First Names (Storms)’ is a case in point, as is the stunning ‘Dead in the Water’ along with gorgeous closer ‘All the Distractions’ – all tracks where the sparse, elegant instrumentation provide a foundation for frontman Louis Abbott’s stirring vocals to wash over. Elsewhere, there’s experimentation, with mixed…

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