Alternative Album Chart: the best new indie and alternative albums this week
This week, cult South London act Fat White Family return with their long-awaited fourth album, Forgiveness is Yours. Well worth the five-year wait, the follow-up to Serfs Up! sees the Lias Saoudi-led group continue to push themselves forward and add a different dimension to their exceptionally distinctive context. Blending jazz, spoken word and spiky guitars, it represents the band maturing and demonstrates why the full-frontal post-punk of their early years is an ever-fading memory; it’s morphed into something else entirely.
Following the experimental strides of the Fat Whites is Leeds’ mysterious collective, Honesty. As their group name might suggest, their latest album, Box, is one of the most authentic things we’ve heard this year: a bold but masterful 34-minute listening experience. A blend of heady club nostalgia and pulsating techno, this is music for our times, with the quartet asserting why they are one of the most compelling UK acts presently active.
Elsewhere this week, St. Vincent arrives with All Born Screaming, a record that distils her scope as an artist as she takes on the role of musician and producer for the first time. While it is not a flawless move, it’s still an entertaining offering, drawing upon the talent of Dave Grohl, Josh Freese, Stella Mozgawa and more to bring it to life. It might, in the future, be viewed as the start of a new and discernible chapter, wherein teething problems are a prerequisite for such evolution.
Other notable releases include Montreal rockers Corridor’s fourth studio effort, Mimi. It’s a competent exploration of life’s idiosyncracies and comes with what might be the best album artwork of the year to add to the magic. Furthermore, Atlanta favourites Microwave return with Let’s Start Degeneracy, an album that also sees them push into new realms. It’s a sea change that has borne promising green shoots amid other songs that, unfortunately, undo the potency of their fresh artistic exploration.
Find this week’s Alternative Album Chart below.
The best new indie and alternative albums this week:
Forgiveness is Yours – Fat White Family – 4
Fat White Family are a notorious band, everyone knows that. Since their inception, they’ve flirted with some shocking imagery and deliberately provoked outrage through controversial lyricism and nudity-laden live shows. You only have to skim through lead vocalist Lias Saoudi’s book Ten Thousand Apologies, which he co-wrote with Adelle Stipe, to stumble upon some stomach-turning stories about the band, leaving you wondering how they’re still making music.
Fat White Family’s fourth album, Forgiveness Is Yours, sees them push themselves even further into a musical territory they’ve never traversed before. While the band’s quintessential sound is still present, they’ve experimented with chaotic jazz-inspired arrangements and spoken word among concoctions of synths and guitars. Saoudi gives an unbridled performance, moving between delicate delivery and more cutting, intense demonstrations of his vocal ability.
This isn’t an optimistic album about life’s great joys, but it’s hardly a miserable listen. At every turn, there’s something intriguing to discover. Forgiveness is Yours is one of the band’s finest efforts, proving them to be more than provocateurs. Fat White Family are incredible musicians who continually set out to do something different. It’s no wonder their shows are always crammed with fans. People aren’t just hoping to catch a glimpse of the band’s subversive stage antics – they want to hear these ingenious songs played back to them. [Words: Aimee Ferrier]
Box – Honesty – 4
The Leeds-based collective Honesty, consisting of George Mitchell, Matt Peel, Josh Lewis and Imi Holmes, make a point of doing things differently. In a departure from convention and an embrace of the digital age, the electronic quartet have decided to release their debut album as a continuous 34-minute mix. With such a format, perhaps I shouldn’t refer to Box as an album, but whatever the weather, Honesty has prospered in this latest project.
In Box, Honesty takes the listener on a patterned voyage through the choppy seas of electronica. Epic compositions can often become tiresome, but at 34 minutes, this mix feels, if anything, too short. The fourpiece combines the disparate realms of techno, hip-hop and ambient in a strangely coherent package that derails the consciousness into a delightful nightlife fever dream. [Words: Jordan Potter]
All Born Screaming – St. Vincent – 3.5
All Born Screaming is the first album St. Vincent has self-produced and solo-produced. And it shows. The album acts as a moodboard for her artistry, one that flits between her musical interests with ease, unafraid to try and sometimes fail at new things. There are industrial soundscapes, sultry grooves and pulsing-club-ready moments. There are moments of straightforward rock and screeching guitars, Bowie influences, and Byrne influences, all moulding around the drama in her delivery.
As the instrumentation struggles to stay in one place, so, too, do her musings. She sings of life and death, of violence and of kindness, of lipstick stains and haemorrhaging heartthrobs, of eternity, and of the end. She jumps between topics just as easily as between genres, but her tone is unwaveringly weighty and cinematic.
While Clark may have immersed herself in the producer role for All Born Screaming, the record boasts some impressive instrumental features. Dave Grohl offers up his drumming skills to several tracks while Cate Le Bon provides bass to the concluding anthem. With Josh Freese, Stella Mozgawa and more, Clark’s list of collaborators is a particularly impressive one, but she never loses herself within it.
Forgoing personas and external producers, All Born Screaming is St. Vincent in her purest form. It’s just a shame that, sometimes, that form is shrouded in busy soundscapes and straightforward rock. [Words: Elle Palmer]
Mimi – Corridor – 3.5
Despite being considered one of the most intelligent animals, cats have an innate clumsiness that speaks to the perils of human existence. They’re inquisitive and a little annoying but lovable all the same. Corridor may boast the same kind of allure in their new album’s fresh packaging, yet it’s the music within that makes it worth staying for.
With age comes a heightened scrutiny of life’s peculiarities as we find ourselves increasingly drawn to the intricacies of its administrative nature. Corridor’s Mimi puts these moments of self-reflection under the microscope under an effortless guise of psychedelia, alongside their inherent Montreal charm. The more you listen to Mimi, the better it gets as Corridor contemplate and tackle maturity from various angles.
Growing older may parallel feeling restricted, but Mimi dances around the subject as if the band know it well. By the time the final notes have faded, Corridor have taught us to view maturity as something trivial that only exists as much as we enable it. The passage of time often closes doors, but this is an album where age means growth, and growth means anything is possible. [Words: Kelly Scanlon]
Shapeshifting – Nisa – 3
Why be one thing when you can be everything? That seems to be Nisa’s ethos when it came to making her debut album, Shapeshifting. Taking strains of electro, pop, alternative, indie, grunge and beyond, the record is a melting point of a staggering amount of ingredients that will take a while to fully digest.
For the most part, the album manages to be somewhat cohesive. Within the maximal production, Nisa manages to balance classic band sounds with electronic additions by simply doing it all at once. It’s not that one song suddenly catches you out as an outright rock tune, or one is randomly techy, but the two sounds coexist somewhat in harmony.
It’s an album that will grip tight onto your attention by switching it up any second you dare to relegate it to background noise. On her debut, Nisa is well and truly kicking down the doors to the industry and offering up a vast repository with her full versatility on show. But, if you’re not feeling in the mood to be taken on a busy ride, you’ll be left bewildered. [Words: Lucy Harbron]
Let’s Start Degeneracy – Microwave – 2.5
After an extended absence, Atlanta’s Microwave have returned. Their last album, Death Is a Warm Blanket, arrived in 2019 in a world much different from the one we currently inhabit. With the pandemic and other immense geopolitical issues wreaking havoc since then, it’s no surprise that the trio have changed markedly in this span. This shift comes with its positive and negative byproducts.
Ayahuasca trips in Peru, the pandemic slowly fading, and a desire to be better and happier by shaking off unhealthy behaviours have fuelled a record that will undoubtedly divide longtime fans. Some will celebrate this new space they inhabit, courtesy of slick production and fresh textures, while others will rue the fact that they have moved far away from what was a potent blend of emo, post-hardcore and alternative rock.
While there are undoubtedly moments of sheer brilliance, the music veers into being too poppy for its own good on numerous occasions after years of the group tentatively toying with this area. This means that the sharp production and junctures when the band does something genuinely new and exciting are unfortunately counterbalanced by an apparent propensity for vanilla pop rock fusions instead of really going for it and seeing the album represent wholesale change à la Talk Talk or other masters of complete creative metamorphosis.
So Sorry So Slow – Adult Jazz – 2
Jazz, more so than most genres, is a style of music in which artists have a great sense of freedom. The same can be said for the free-flowing Leeds outfit Adult Jazz, who have returned with So Sorry So Slow, their first full-length release in a decade. The phrase ‘slow and steady wins the race’ might spring to mind, but, in all honesty, the amount of time taken to construct the record might have been to its detriment.
Ultimately, So Sorry So Slow feels far too sanitised to be truly gripping. Not only is it endlessly overproduced and overdeveloped, but the vocal performances on the album – delivered by Harry Burgess – feel frustratingly inoffensive. For a group that have previously prided themselves on putting across complex emotions and heartbreaking honesty, this record sounds akin to the soundtrack of a Disney film, and Burgess’ vocals to a theatre-school kid. Sure, the performances delivered by Adult Jazz are undeniably skilled and proficient, but there is a distinct lack of passion and emotion coming across to the listener, which makes it very difficult to connect with So Sorry So Slow. [Words: Ben Forrest]
The Big Decider – The Zutons – 1.5
In the horror movie Antrum, the producers have different speakers set to different sonic frequencies throughout the film. It means the audio is still perfectly perceptible, but the way the brain takes it in throws the viewer slightly off balance, making them somewhat uncomfortable despite the fact there is nothing blatantly unsettling about what they’re hearing. It’s an excellent technique used to create a feeling of unjustified anxiety. The Zutons‘ new indie pop album, The Big Decider, has a similar effect.
Every song on The Big Decider sounds half-finished, and the way that melody is presented throughout sounds incredibly intentional, but not in the sense that the band is clearly trying to write a song, in the sense that they have started with, “What’s catchy and will stick in someone’s head?” and worked backwards from there. It’s not fun to listen to. It sounds incomplete and yet too forced at the same time. The horn sections are boring, the choruses are forgettable, and the overall musical performance is uninspired.
The best way to describe this album is “Royalty-free rock music.” It sounds like the kind of record TV producers or marketing companies would turn to if they needed a quick track for the introduction to a product they want to be perceived as “cool.” The music has a clear intention but is so unnoteworthy that it isn’t at risk of taking away from a main feature. It’s commendable that The Zutons have made an album to get people moving and having fun, but this LP falls victim to being bland rather than remotely enjoyable. [Words: Dale Maplethorpe]
Reissue – Portishead – Roseland NYC Live – 4
While promoting their second album, Portishead decided to stage a one-off concert at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom. With such a meticulously produced studio product, they felt they could bring justice to their live adaptation by commissioning members of the New York Philarmonic. As Utley informed me in a recent interview, the orchestral backing came at a large financial cost but was worth every penny. Knowing they didn’t have the time or money for mistakes, he remembered Roseland Ballroom as a “nerve-wracking” experience.
During the performance, Portishead honoured highlights from Dummy and Portishead, many of which ended up on the 1998 live album Roseland NYC Live. “I didn’t like what we did that day,” Barrow reflected in a 2008 conversation with the New York Times. He went on to describe the endeavour as “overblown” and “pompous.” The band subsequently entered a hiatus from which they have only surfaced for Third and several tours since.
This week, Portishead breathed new life into Roseland NYC Live with a reissue to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The newly remastered album stretches across two red LPs in a visually stunning package that is appropriate for the audio within. I am afraid I have to disagree with Barrow’s opinion on the release as a brilliant celebration of the band’s first two albums. It contains several enduring classics, including ‘Roads’, ‘Glory Box’ and ‘Sour Times’ from Dummy and ‘Cowboys’, ‘All Mine’ and ‘Only You’ from the self-titled follow-up.
What seems essential to Roseland NYC Live is its willingness to reimagine the songs. Instead of copying each cinematic soundscape frame for frame, they embellish the tracks with new instrumental flourishes, live samples and scratch intrusions. Audiophiles will appreciate that live albums often fall victim to substandard recording environments and an unrefined mix. However, this album benefits from surprising clarity, and where the mix differs from the studio versions, it brings a seemingly purposeful nuance.
You can pre-order/purchase the Roseland NYC Live reissue here. [Words: Jordan Potter]
