Last week, These New Puritans rolled through town to much adoration from what a friend described as a “woodwork” gig – everyone comes out for it. Indeed.
Not only was the performance an excellent one from a band who hasn’t put a foot wrong in their decade-plus reign (their latest Crooked Wing being no exception), but it has to be said that the crowd also made the night what it was. Phones were in pockets, and people were totally locked into the performance from start to finish.
It was a night that reaffirmed the power of live music and what the results can bring when people come together. Which doesn’t happen often enough (particularly in Liverpool, which has always been renowned as a “tough sell” for a lot bands). Rising cost and time being two of the more common factors, however it’s also true that music has become a very insular proposition for a lot of people.
In a recent interview with Agriculture, Dan Myer touched on the power of community space and live music, and and after last week’s These New Puritans show, everyone in that room experienced exactly what he was talking about.
My point? If you can, do your best to get out and support live music. Right after you’ve checked our latest Albums Quarterly, of course…
Our twentieth edition and final one for the year is a few weeks ahead of schedule, but with another Weirdo Rippers feature set to follow in the coming weeks, it’ll be the last of our regular columns before our end of year round-up culminates another big year.
For now, though, for your listening pleasure…
Stay Positive: In Conversation with Immersion’s Colin Newman & Malka Spigel
Asma: Fantasma
Repetidor
Sometimes you only have to look at an album’s cover art to realise that you’re onto a winner, and Asma’s Fantasma has that kind of power.
Hailing from Cantabria, Spain, the shadowy duo return with their fifth album that follows the path of their previous four. Melting space-rock into post-hardcore and shoegaze, Fantasma sinks deep into the bones, almost like a snapshot of someone’s record collection.
Asma really are Spain’s answer to Bailter Space, and it’s bands like this that are the reason why we keep doing what we do here. A wellspring of discovery, and on the back of Fantasma, it’s one of the great unearthed gems of 2025.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Deafheaven: Lonely People with Power
Roadrunner Records
The Los Angeles band’s dream-laden black metal hasn’t exactly evaded these locales, however Lonely People with Power has taken a little longer to hit the spot.
No longer that little band exclusive for your ears only, once again Deafheaven ascend to new stratospheres with their longest release to date. 12 songs at over an hour, the band enmeshes beauty and brutality, taking metal to the same places that Turnstile have with hardcore.
Always divisive but never leaving anything behind (the majestic closer The Marvelous Orange Tree one of the best songs they’ve written), once again Deafheaven bring their A game with Lonely People with Power – a release that gets stronger with every listen.
Joyer: On the Other End of the Line
Julia’s War Recordings
And the best artwork of our latest AQ feature goes to… Joyer! It just makes you want to listen to their music, doesn’t it?
Their fifth album in six years, On the Other End of the Line, doesn’t disappoint, either. Consisting of brothers Nick and Shane Sullivan, there’s a little bit of everything here. Indie-rock, dream-pop, shoegaze, Dunedin sound, all thrown into the melting pot for what is quite the succulent stew.
There are plenty of bands out there with similar influences, but these songs feel close. That unspoken sibling intuition, playing its part during On the Other End of the Line. A release that gets the job done on multiple levels. – Hayley Burton
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Paz Lenchantin: Triste
Hideous Human Records
Former Pixies and A Perfect Circle bassist, Paz Lenchantin, returns with her first long-player in two decades with Triste.
There’s plenty going on here as you’d expect. The sinewy post-Pixies echoes of Wish I Was There; the ’70s-inspired balladry of Lows & Highs and Sin Dios as well as some post-grunge gnarl of Si No!, it ties up Lenchantin’s many creative endeavours over the years.
While there was plenty of talk surrounding its release following lead single Hang Tough, those who have been longstanding fans of Lenchantin will welcome this album with open arms, as Latin and Americana influences combine to gently fill the room, led by the beautiful Lucia.
Mark William Lewis: Mark William Lewis
A24 Music
From Bark Psychosis to Burial, while both have occupied completely different orbits over the years, the one thing they both have in common is their ability to capture the sound and feel of London. Mark William Lewis does exactly the same thing on his latest self-titled release.
Lewis is the product of a generation that cares little about staying in their lane. Genres aren’t blurred, they just don’t exist, and as the songwriter pulls from Dylan as much as he does from pop music, Lewis crafts a modernised version of folk music that really does sound like nothing else out there.
It’s sleepy-eyed loner balladry that resonates deep, where everything in your mind manages to just line up perfectly.
Lucky Horse Red: Lucky Horse Red
Dream House USA / Shuga Records
On their debut self-titled album, Lucky Horse Red assuage all your dream country needs.
Led by full-time Playboy model Bunny Gaubert and backed by bassist Keilah Nina (The Aquadolls),multi-instrumentalist and husband, Laine Gaubert, guitarists Mark Martino and Jake Melendez, drummer Mika Rebina, pedal steel player Colin Croom (Twin Peaks, MJ Lenderman) and harpist, Leng Bian, Lucky Horse Red unfurl a brand of swooning alt-country that is all breeze and twang.
There’s a bit of everything here, as Lucky Horse Red take the baton from the equally unheralded Holy Motors to create something that hits the spot in a kind of elusive, narcotic way. All told, they really are a band you need in your life.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Alex Lukashevsky: Ooooh
Tin Angel Records
The leader of Deep Dark United and all-round don of the Toronto DIY scene goes it alone on his latest release, Ooooh.
Backed by Cocoa Corner, and featuring a hallucinogenic-like duet with U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy on closing song, Things Keep Happening, Ooooh feels like something in the realms of Daniel Johnston discovering Scott Walker for the first time.
It’s one of those records that brings you back into alignment when you’re not feeling quite right. In those indecisive moments through life where everything feels a little foggy, it’s records like Ooooh that help pull you out of it. – Hayley Burton
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Jessica Moss: Unfolding
Constellation
No one combines neo-classical composition with drone quite like Jessica Moss. Following 2022’s excellent Galaxy Heart (and a brief pivot with Black Ox Orchestra), the Canadian artist returns with Unfolding.
Moss’ latest LP sees her taking electro-acoustic composition to the darkest corners. A sonic response to the atrocities in Palestine, which reaches a poignant conclusion with until all are free, Moss produces a series of emotive snapshots with echoes of klezmer music bubbling underneath a swathe of rich tones and textures.
Featuring an appearance from The Necks’ Tony Buck, Unfolding sees Moss channelling the same hypnotic heaviness as fellow Canadians BIG|BRAVE, and while perhaps reaching the same point through different disciplines, Moss is one of the key players at the coalface of drone-based composition.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
SANAM Interview: “Everything outside of Lebanese pop music or business techno is DIY”
Marta: Out the Way
False Idols
Sometimes one needs a gateway album that leads to new possibilities, and where this latest AQ is concerned, Polish vocalist, Marta Złakowska, is the provider with Out The Way.
Like her 2023 LP, When It’s Going Wrong, Marta resumes her excellent alliance with Adrian Thawes (which began when Marta featured on Tricky’s harrowing release, Fall to Pieces), and together they deliver a set of broodingly hypnotic songs that slowly lift the fog.
Fusing elusive electronica with post-punk, Out the Way possesses a dark edge that feels completely like its own thing. It’s background-y as much as it is something to be met head on. A multi-faceted concern that sees both artists exploring new depths.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Matmos: Metallic Life Review
Thrill Jockey
If there’s one certainly in life, it’s that Matmos never make the same record twice. It’s virtually impossible due to their approach. Their concept, always singular in idea and practice from one release to the next.
What Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt orchestrate on Metallic Life Review is something designed for candlelight dinners. Engineered with metallic objects with appearances from Susan Alcorn and Water Damage’s Thor Harris, Matmos melt glitch-laden electronic and deep techno into a new form of post-rock.
While the approach is a world away, Metallic Life Review feels like the closest thing anyone’s come to rubbing shoulders with Tortoise’s TNT. A slow-burning marvel that, when it finally hits, is one of the duo’s greatest feats.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Mekons: Horror
Fire Records
Speaking to Robert Poss earlier this year, and he claimed that bands should last no more than 10 years. Anything more, and it becomes diminishing returns. “Unless you’re the Mekons.” he said.
Immune from mediocrity since the first note of their 1979 debut, The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen, their twentieth album, Horror, doesn’t buck the trend. Driving around the country over the past couple of weeks and seeing small towns littered with flags for utterly ridiculous reasons, Horror is a sharp indictment of these times, and who better than deliver the message?
It’s probably all been said about the reliable veterans, but while 2025 is – in my opinion – the scariest of our generation so far, at least we have the Mekons. Trite? Perhaps, but there’s an awful amount of truth in it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Nadja: Cut
Midira Records / Cruel Nature Records
Following another mammoth year of new releases, Aidan Baker hits the resume button on the Nadja machine with Cut.
Whichever banner he creates under, you never know what you’re going to get with an Aidan Baker release. He and Leah Buckareff, continuously trying to outgun themselves in not making the same record twice, and once again, Cut sees them succeeding. Four compositions steeped in long-form, Najda orbit from stringed minimalism to metallic doom and sludge in slow motion.
It’s this dialled down approach which has served Baker well in recent years. The Tavare project alongside Cut guest Tristen Bakker, one of the best slowcore releases this year, and the vibe has subtly rubbed off on these recordings.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Weston Olencki: Broadsides
Outside Time
During this decade, Americana has morphed into wonderful new shapes thanks to the post-country movement led by SUSS as well as the likes of forward-thinking practitioners such as Daniel Bachman and droneroom.
Weston Olencki is another. On his latest LP, Broadsides, the South Carolina-born, Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist smashes bluegrass standards and folk music into sound design. From banjo and pedal steel to bow across autoharp, it results in the kind of unsettling deep metallic drones that lead to the avant-garde.
It’s the ideas that make Broadsides the mind-mangling encounter it is. A new matrix of Americana, and in the live arena it might be just as thrilling as it is from the vaults.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Orcutt Shelley Miller: Orcutt Shelley Miller
Silver Current
Anyone for a barnyard freak-out? Bill Orcutt, Steve Shelley and Ethan Miller have you covered where the beer is cold and the riffs are fire.
On their self-titled debut, the three are having the most fun they’ve had in years. Miller leads the way, with Howlin’ Rain-like metallic guitar jaunts that are like razor wire echoes that you could have imagined Steve Albini concocting after a Neil Young and ZZ Top binge.
Shelley has been a notable gun for hire in the American underground since Sonic Youth disbanded, while Orcutt’s electrifying wanderings have always made him ripe for a collaboration or two. And on the back of Orcutt Shelley Miller, this feels like the start of something much bigger.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Pallbearer Industry: Constellation Seance
Self-released
Closer to home, and it’s felt like diminishing returns for a lot of the U.K. psych practitioners. Between the retreads and pastiche, lately it’s all felt a little dull. Further afield, not such much, with Ontario’s Pallbearer Industry blowing the competition away with Constellation Séance.
Following their Afterlife EP from earlier this year, the three-piece of Leigh Newton, Pat Farrell and Jeff Dowdall pivot from conventional ball tearing tonality to off-kilter gadget wrangling, and it’s a wall of sound unlike anything else across the frontiers of psychedelia.
It’s quite startling just how little love this band gets, for there is no one else like them on the planet. It’s all in the subtleties, and on Constellation Séance, Pallbearer Industry keep the torch burning.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Prewn: System
Exploding In Sound
Few on this planet are writing songs like Izzy Hagerup. Under the Prewn moniker, one of 2023’s greatest anomalies was that more weren’t listening to the L.A. based songwriter’s debut LP, Through the Window. That will change with her equally expansive follow-up, System.
With the kind of string-laden grunge Kristin Hersh would be proud of, these songs grow the more one delves. The songs on System, moving between the same calm and chaos as Hagerup’s once label mates, Pile.
It’s the same kind of intensity that makes her songs so unsettling, but all told, that’s what good art is meant to do, and Prewn’s System is just that.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Cosimo Querci: Rimane
Quindi Records
On his debut LP, Rimane, Turin-based, Tuscany-born Cosimo Querci confirms that he is the quintessential vibe machine. Or in the words of the Bandcamp user, “burgerdog”, the conjurer of an “ecstatic clouded mirror groove session”.
With Rimane, Querci is the creator of something free and nomadic. It’s krautrock for the hills, infused with the kind of LSD grooves that take you to fictitious places. Except they aren’t, because what Querci creates here is a new reality.
Fans of Can and Faust, rejoice because the Italian has created new dimensions here without a shred of pastiche. He’s essentially done to krautrock what Rodriguez did for folk music all those years ago.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Karen Schoemer: August
Dromedary Records
New York poet, Karen Schoemer, returns with her intoxicating new solo LP, August. 31 poetic snippets that fill the month in question.
Backed by Ivan the Tolerable’s Oli Heffernan as well as Schoemer’s other renowned guests, including Mike Watt, Madeline Darby, Amy Rigby, MABH, Zak Boerger, Eric Hardiman, Wednesday Knudsen, Parashi and Steve Almaas, Schoemer spearheads something that is like punk storming the gates of a spiritual healing retreat.
It’s another unique cut in this latest AQ edition, and alongside Pete Simonelli, Schoemer’s wicked observations cut right through to the core. The latest batch on August, a perfect entry point for those who have yet to delve into the poet’s world.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Soft Kill: Watch It Burn
Self-released
It’s been difficult to keep up with Soft Kill, who have spent the decade steadily releasing new music that really should be reaching wider spheres.
Watch It Burn is their most accomplished effort since 2018’s Savior (which still remains their finest moment from the vaults), capturing the uncertainty of these times, as things slowly unravel to tipping point. (Just take a look at the artwork.)
It’s music on the fault lines, but what Soft Kill do on Watch It Burn is produce something made for aimless jaunts into the middle of nowhere. Which is kind of a nice place to be these days.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
The Radio Field: Air and Sunlight
Subjangle
Two years after their debut album – as its title suggests – Dusseldorf-based The Radio Field helped stretch out the summer for a couple of extra weeks with their sophomore release, Air and Sunlight.
In many ways, you know what you’re getting with most artists under the Subjangle stable, but when it’s done as well as what The Radio Field produce here, well, you can do nothing but smile.
This is tightly constructed jangle-pop that lights up rooms. It’s music to play on a loop, as The Radio Field keep us entrenched in their world with songs that are modest, yet large-hearted, making the day that much better. And at this time of year when one needs some light, The Radio Field are here to provide it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Nyxy Nyx Interview: “Most of my songs are recorded the day I write them”
Dave Renegade: Haunted Heart
Self-released
From the artwork to the title itself, both go a long way into painting the picture of Dave Renegade’s second album, Haunted Heart.
One bruising lament after another, the London artist is a long way from the light at the end of the tunnel, with the kind of songs that slice through the heart. And delivered with a Kuepper-esque rasping vocal that cuts through the darkness, it’s the kind of broken balladry that has you furtively glancing towards the liquor cabinet.
Haunted Heart sees Renegade revealing a new depth of honesty. These tales of loss, relatable to us all at some stage in life, and Renegade uses every inch of strength to get these songs out.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Joanne Robertson: Blurrr
AD 93
With Blurrr, Scotland-based multi-disciplinary artist, Joanne Robertson, may have pulled off the kind of record that any artist aspires to make.
An album best consumed in quiet rooms and headphones, Robertson’s emotional force reaches greater depths on Blurrr. With subtle sonic bedding shaped by cellist Oliver Coates, Robertson’s tangled brand of loner folk simply stands on its own.
While there will be comparisons to Liz Harris’ Grouper, Robertson’s songs harbour a different feeling; the security blanket of lo-fi not there, and it’s this naked intimacy that makes Blurrr the artist’s watershed moment and one of the finest experimental folk records from the U.K. this year.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Shrine Maiden: A Theory of /Cloud/
White Sepulchre Records
With a name that makes you want to hit the play button, Shrine Maiden deliver the tunes to match on their latest LP, A Theory of /Cloud/.
The husband-and-wife duo of Rachel Nakawatase and Ryan Betschart dispense the kind of tonal overload that makes the walls sweat. 11 fizzy breeze blocks of sound that clean out the ears, think Ragana wrestling with Thou with songs that move through realms of everything from emotive dream-pop to bowel-twitching drone.
It’s all here on A Theory of /Cloud/, and while many have cross-pollinated these ideas over the years, few have done it to the same devastating effects as Shrine Maiden.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Starer: Ancient Monuments and Modern Sadness
Adirondack Black Mass / Fiadh Productions
Metal has felt a little lacklustre this year, but New York’s Fiadh Productions are the knight in shining armour, dropping a swathe of excellent new releases for all your hard-nosed esoteric requirements.
One of which is Starer’s Ancient Monuments and Modern Sadness (whereby Adirondack Black Mass are undertaking the vinyl duties). The project steered by Josh Hines, the Bowling Green, Kentucky wrecking ball smashes through the walls that lead to black metal majesty.
Through maelstrom of loss, grief and longing, Hines creates the kind of screaming-skull noise that stops you in your tracks. He’s been around for a while now, and for those unaccustomed with this glorious noise, let Ancient Monuments and Modern Sadness be the gateway.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Jeff Tweedy:Twilight Override
dBpm Records
To the older heads who have been around since day dot, it would be fair to say that much of Wilco’s output over the last decade has been more miss than hit.
The same can’t be said for Jeff Tweedy’s solo works, though, and on the back of Love is the King and More, the Chicago veteran goes big as in triple LP big with Twilight Override.
What looks like a commitment on paper really isn’t; these songs, flying by in a flash, containing some of the Tweedy’s best work in years. Our generation’s Kris Kristoffesen? I wouldn’t bet against it, and Twilight Override adds more weight behind such claims.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Volk Soup: 10p Jazz
Cruel Nature Records / Dipterid Records
Leeds six-piece, Volk Soup, make the kind of racket that is hard to place, and on their debut full-length, 10p Jazz, it’s anything but what its title suggest.
Is it jazz? Is it noise-rock? Is it actually classifiable? Probably not, which is why it continues to pique the interest, despite us scrolls always eager to pigeonhole at any given opportunity.
Abrasive and euphoric, leader Harry Jones possesses a shape-shifting Jarvis Cocker vibe. And smashing this ramshackle aesthetic into the kind of melodic moments the Broken Social Scene spent the early ’00s mastering, the more I think about it, this band could have been as big if they existed back then. They still might on the back of 10p Jazz, too. – Hayley Burton
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Previous AQs:
AQ #19
AQ #18
AQ #17
AQ #16
AQ #15
AQ #14
AQ #13
AQ #12
AQ #11
AQ #10
AQ #9
AQ #8
AQ #7
AQ #6
AQ #5
AQ #4
AQ #3
AQ #2
AQ #1
6 replies on “Albums Quarterly #20”
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