Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Are Working Men's Club the best band to have emerged from northern England in the past decade? We'd say there's a very, very good chance. Catch them live on stage and Sydney Minsky-Sargeant, Liam Ogburn, Hannah Cobb and Mairead O'Connor are utterly captivating, and their combination of post punk, rock, electronica, and acid house transfers very well onto record too. Their DJ sets, for which 'Syd' leads the charge, are also nothing short of quality. Informed by genre-less masters such as Andrew Weatherall, Ivan Smagghe and Erol Alkan, as this latest Megamix goes to show, the idea is to create these deeply immersive cosmic soundscapes that aim directly for the dance floor, taking phrases and sounds from their songs, reworking, rethinking and rearranging them into something fresh and high energy. Impossible not to make an impact.

Review: Londoner Ash Walker explored far and wide with his last album Aquamarine back in 2019. Now he follows it up with a record that is just as ambitious. This fourth full-length via Night Time Stories features plenty of top collaborations with contemporary stars like Andrew Ashong, Amp Fiddler, Yazz Ahmed and Saville and is a gorgeously astral mix of jazz, blues, folk, reggae and soul. Some tracks are laidback and blissed out star gazers such as 'Letting Go', others are mournful and wistful nu-jazz soundscapes like 'Time Gets Wasted' and 'Automation' is a woozy deep house for perfect smoking sessions.

Review: Waxahatchee is emerging, butterfly like, from a cocoon that has kept her safe for most of her career. There was nothing ugly or hidden about Katie Crutchfield's older output. But it was intimate, quiet, thoughtful, vulnerable and, at times, almost a little nervous. At least some of those adjectives became irrelevant with the last LP, Saint Cloud, and now she follows up that ten-foot-tall 2020 triumph with Tigers Blood, continuing in a similar vein. Having significantly increased the size of her audience with the preceding, infinitely rousing record, Crutchfield simultaneously looks to please those newcomers and win even more over here. The tracks are similarly open armed, proud and accessible, but the razor sharp songwriting - dealing with everything from trying to stay still without being bored, to self doubt - has lost none of its impact, and the instrumental arrangements have arguably never been stronger.

Review: Jamie Webster's 10 For The People perfectly encapsulates the Liverpool singer-songwriter's heartfelt narratives and soulful melodies. Released in 2021, the album is a poignant exploration of working-class tales and social commentary, blending folk and rock influences. Known for his association with football culture, Webster's tracks like 'This Place' and 'Living for Yesterday' resonate with authenticity meaning that 10 For The People not only showcases the artist's lyrical prowess but also solidifies his place as a voice for the people. His album is a sincere and evocative musical offering that speaks to the experiences and struggles of us all.

Review: The Wedding Present are an archetypal indie band if ever there was one. They first formed in 1985 and quickly made their way to prominence as part of the C86 scene - named after the cassettes to which NME recorded new tunes from hot bands of the times. Founder and only constant band member David Gedge wrote intelligent lyrics and paired them with fast-paced jangle-pop rhythms. Their debut album George Best in 1992 was a big one and Watusi - while coming some time later - was still sharp and commercially successful, with big tunes being the likes of 'It's A Gas' and 'Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah'.

Review: It's taken three years for Westerman to follow up that acclaimed debut album, Your Hero Is Not Dead, and to say the Athens-based pop outsider has been through a lot since would be nothing short of an understatement. After all, much of this record took form during the pandemic, a time that was difficult enough for bands, let alone soloists who had just offered the world their first intimate self-portrait.
That period was defined by intense isolation, heartbreak, fear, and anxiety, and some of those emotions have made it onto LP two. The title itself is a reference to humanity's innate flaws and weaknesses, while - perhaps ironically - the production sounds almost like a celebration of what it means to be alive. Live sounding, every breath, movement of hand down an acoustic guitar, and imperfection is captured in this expansive but intimate journeyman indie rock.

Review: Following the success of last year's My Beautiful England, his first solo album for two decades, David Westlake has decided to offer up an expanded reissue of his 1987 debut, Westlake (now retitled D87 in reference to the NME's legendary indie tape, C86, on which he featured). Westlake recorded the album following the collapse of the band he'd led, The Servants, with the help of fellow post-punk era songwriter Like Haines of The Auteurs. The original album, which bristles with jangling and layered, Johnny Marr style guitars, expressive vocals, good grooves and occasional strings, still sounds great, and this time round comes backed with recordings of a 1987 'session' for Janice Long's BBC radio show.

Review: Short-lived So Cal band Wheezing Maniac will bring back many nostalgic memories for those old enough to have been wooed by seminal skateboarding video H-Street's Hokus Pokus. Two of its most iconic tunes were by this outfit - 'Dollar on a Platter' and 'Don't Come Close' and both showcase their off-kilter invention and high-energy sound perfectly. The band only recorded 17 tunes in all and each one makes it onto this Shade Through the Night Door reissue on Putojefe Records. A fine remastering job brings them up to scratch and makes this an essential one for the collection for fans old and new.

Review: If you've seen the South Park series on America's mass shooting epidemic 'Ten Dead', track two on Wilco's 13th studio album, will ring a familiar bell. In so far as protest songs go, it's not the most innovative, but the newsreader, matter of fact tone behind the lyrics, which literally count casualties from schoolyard and in-store massacres, really makes the normalisation of horrific violence clear. Enough to make you feel numb, thankfully Cousin is overall a far warmer, alluring affair. Wilco's output has also become more norm-y over the years, but drafting rebel production and songwriting icon Cate Le Bon to assist on this record has certainly paid off. While it's definitely not what you might call 'wildly out there', the result is a mesmerising meld of Americana, folk-rock, acoustic and rousing indie that doesn't stick to any straight lines.

Review: Jonathan Wilson's new album Eat the Worm is, he says, a series of songs that have been made in reaction to the production work that he does. It finds him breaking free of any conservatism and taking chances on songs that have come together over the last two years in his own Fivestar Studios in Topanga Canyon, California. Plenty of experimentation can be heard throughout as he channels influences like Jack Nitzsche and Todd Rundgren into 12 beautiful folk and Americana fusions that find him reaching new heights and paying homage to the 60s folk revival of Greenwich Village.