Flea – Honora (Nonesuch) (13th Floor Album Review)
Let us consider…or reconsider…Flea…sock-wearing Rock & Roll Hall of Fame bass player, political activist, drug addict, native Australian, and now…jazz musician.
DYLAN – The Light (Dylan Wade Music ) (13th Floor Album Review)
Dylan Wade Lajunen has broken his 14-year silence on record to release his latest offering, The Light, reminding us of his contribution to folk, reggae, rock and blues genres synonymous with the sound of Aoteroa New Zealand heard mainly at festivals through our glorious summers.
Girl Scout – Brink (AWAL) (13th Floor Album Review)
After releasing a trio of EPs, Swedish band Girl Scout have released their debut album, Brink. Amongst the polished hooks liberally crafted into each song, it’s the perfect mix of guitar, synths and attitude that I am sure these up-and-comers will be celebrated for over the next few months.
Aro – Tāwauwau (13th Floor Album Review)
Despite attempts by those at the political helm to diminish the presence of Māori language in everyday life, there’s a definte ascendency of te reo in contemporary music. Where once Moana and the Tribe were pretty much lone trailblazers singing in te reo they now have company that stretches across the spectrum of from metal […]
Tedeschi Trucks Band – Future Soul (Fantasy) (13th Floor Album Review)
Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Future Soul is a groove-led, tightly constructed record that places ensemble playing and songcraft at its centre.
William Crighton – Colonial Drift (ABC Music) (13th Floor Album Review)
William Crighton’s Colonial Drift plays as a slow journey across landscape, memory and time. The album moves in three clear movements, threaded together by fragments of radio chatter, environmental sound and drifting noise, creating the sense of travelling through a country where past and present sit side by side.
Kim Gordon – PLAY ME (Matador) (13th Floor Album Review)
Former Sonic Youth Kim Gordon has just released her third solo album, PLAY ME…the 13th Floor’s Jeff Neems gives it a spin…
The Long Ryders – High Noon Hymns (Cherry Red) (13th Floor Album Review)
The Long Ryders return with High Noon Hymns, a country rock album that begins with the feeling of walking into a bar mid-set.
Cut Worms – Transmitter (Jagjaguwar) (13th Floor Album Review)
Transmitter is Cut Worms’, aka Max Clarke, fifth foray into the recordsphere that includes three long players – Hollow Ground (2018), Nobody Lives Here Anymore (2020), and a self-titled album in 2023, with debut EP, Alien Sunset, released in 2017.
The Sophs – GOLDSTAR (Rough Trade) (13th Floor Album Review)
LA-based newbies, The Sophs are sending us on a guitar-driven journey (of which, you might recognise some of the spots they visit on the way) on their debut album GOLDSTAR. It’s loud in all the right places and is loquacious in its lyrical delivery.
Jake Baxendale – Waypeople (Earshift) (13th Floor Album Review)
Jake Baxendale’s Waypeople opens with the bright shimmer of a guzheng cutting cleanly through the silence, its plucked strings gliding outward before saxophone, piano and drums gather around them.
The Monochrome Set – Lotus Bridge (Tapete Records) (13th Floor Album Review)
The Monochrome Set, somewhat memorable for two albums and two singles from their late 70s, early 80’s period, as they trail blazed UK post-punk. The single The Jet Set Junta from their third album Eligible Bachelors was a hipster (before they were called hipsters) badge of honour. Through almost 50 years of break-ups and reformations, […]
The Delines – The Set Up (El Cortez) (13th Floor Album Review)
The Delines’ The Set Up unfolds as a sequence of interlocking short stories. Soul-inflected arrangements frame the closely observed lives created by songwriter Willy Vlautin, tracing people whose paths intersect as they drift through fading towns towards uncertain futures.
Los Frankies – D.E.D City (Licorice Pizza) (13th Floor Album Review)
LA band Los Frankies – titled as such because two of their members are called Frankie – are dropping their debut album, D.E.D City. Noticed for their attitude and swagger amongst a fairly bustling scene, the band aims to celebrate the wild side of rock music. And you’ll find plenty of that on this outing.
Daniel Avery – Tremor (Midnight Versions) (Domino) (13th Floor Album Review)
Daniel Avery’s Tremor (Midnight Versions) pushes the material of his sixth album back onto the dancefloor. Rather than inviting outside remixers, Avery reworks the entire record himself, reshaping its collaborative songs into darker, club-focused counterparts designed for late-night sets and strobe-lit rooms.
The Brook & The Bluff – Werewolf (Dualtone) (13th Floor Album Review)
The Brook & The Bluff are soulful soft rockers no more. They loosen up and let rip on Werewolf, a rowdy and welcome departure from their earlier work.
Joshua Idehen – I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try (Heavenly) (13th Floor Album Review)
Joshua Idehen’s I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try presents an immersive fusion of spoken word and electronic textures that explores community, endurance and emotional navigation through sound. Built on pulse and atmosphere, the record unfolds gradually, allowing its musical language to establish itself before attention turns toward the […]
Rob Zombie – The Great Satan (Nuclear Blast) (13th Floor Album Review)
Rob Zombie is theee Goreman!!! Way back when, his past band White Zombie (with Sean Cummings) exploded with two awesome albums; 1992’s La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One, and 1995’s Astro-Creep: 2000 – Songs of Love, Destruction and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head, Zombie was creating a magnificent melding of no wave, goth […]
The Wave Pictures – Gained / Lost (Bella Union) (13th Floor Album Review)
The Wave Pictures’ Gained / Lost arrives after more than two decades of the band following their own musical path, building songs through instinct and conversation.
Heavenly – Highway To Heavenly (Skep Wax) (13th Floor Album Review)
After a 30 year hiatus, British band Heavenly have cut their 5th long player Highway To Heavenly, a return to the ‘Jangle’ and Indie Pop genre of the late 1980s and early 90s that featured a number of similar groups – Heavenly precursor Talulah Gosh, The Field Mice, The Orchids and others – first described by the UK […]