Five Albums You Have To Listen To This Month
You haven’t heard the new Black Country, New Road album? What’s wrong with you! Time to get your ears out of your ass and start listening to these five crucial albums from February.
On their magnificent sophomore LP, Black Country, New Road soar high, smashing through the barriers of their previously acclaimed songwriting capabilities. ‘Ants From Up There’ is a drastic shift in sound for the band. Replacing volatile and vicious soundscapes with a subtly harrowing beauty that inescapably infects the soul. The album is a heart-wrenching opus, delving into topics of relationships, escapism and fame. Made ever more painful with the departure of lead vocalist Isaac Wood just days before the release of the album, Black Country, New Road have released an album so truly unique and momentous for the UK alternative scene.
Animal Collective has this tendency to indulge in a decade-lasting process of experimentations before they’ll formulate something substantial enough. Enough to not only satisfy the closest-clinging fans but something that would be like an avantgarde-pop asteroid smashing almost on our heads to leave a mark for the next few years. It’s what happened when after tumbling around niche alleyways, they’ve stepped in ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion. When literally everyone around has noticed how splendid it is, Animal Collective could never quite build something as simply astounding as this. Until now. Followed by a few awkward album-long trips of last years’ records, Animal Collective has finally found the right track to take us along on this strangely ecstatic journey. The collective meets us at the crossroads with their eleventh studio album ‘Time Skiffs’.
“Pompeii” Cate Le Bon’s sixth album released via Mexican Summer on Friday 4th February sees the Welsh multi-musician offer up a record crafted during the height of lockdown that is heavily laden with a claggy, subdued, melancholic claustrophobia, leaving the listener with vast amounts to uncover, much like excavating through the ashy weight of destruction that shrouds the Roman city that it shares its name.
Left to their own devices, Big Thief collect like rainwater. The music of Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia gathers strength in time, the band itself growing more resilient and complex the more they write together. Tightening while feeling loose, yet always with a lightness. In late 2019, the band was touring in Europe for their two albums released that year, the mythic twins, U.F.O.F. and Two Hands. Krivechnia proposed the idea of writing the follow-up record. This prolific tilt is natural with the band’s current momentum, combined with a simmering curiosity, but it was led by a central question: “How do we encapsulate the different aspects of Adrianne’s songwriting as well as the different aspects of the band onto a single record?”
Beach House - Once Twice Melody
Once Twice Melody is Beach House’s most ambitious project. 18 tracks of glistening dream pop gold infect the soul. Whether that’s with the 7 minute epic Over and Over, the acoustic ballad Sunset or the magnificent title track, this new album is Beach House at the peak of their creativity and experimentation. The album manages to feel experimental whilst warmly nostalgic towards their previous albums, especially their earlier work.
