Alternative Album Chart: the best new indie and alternative albums this week
Most people would admit we’re guilty of being too serious these days. Whether that be in how we lead our lives, with many playing fictional characters on social media, or the way we consume music, with everything deemed to be truly great having to be completely new and daring, it’s nice when people break the mould, particularly in the arts, and have a bit of fun. That’s what Leeds favourites, Thank, do on their new album, I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed.
While the group are adept at scintillating noise rock, pulling from across the genres to create their madcap sound, the lyrics are also particularly impressive on the new one. Using the track ‘Woke Frasier’ as an example, it’s a blackly comic composition that hilariously lampoons the media and normal population’s obsession with the ostensible mind disease of ‘wokeness’. At its backdrop is a convergence of electronic textures, shimmering film noir guitar lines and a funky groove. It’s strange but absolutely brilliant, five words that sum up Thank perfectly.
In another highlight this week, Tilly Scantlebury, AKA Lazy Day, has finally delivered their debut album, Open the Door. A masterclass in pure songwriting that lays the songwriter’s feelings bare while providing an array of slick basslines, adroit electronic textures, and no end of catchy hooks, this is contemporary indie at its best. It confirms that Lazy Day has a very bright future in store. I look forward to hearing where they go next.
Elsewhere, Friedberg’s debut album Hardcore Workout Queen provides ample anthems and no end of stirring wordplay, and Manchester’s Freak Slug also asserts why she is one to watch for the future with I Blow Out Big Candles. Find this week’s Alternative Album Chart below.
The best new indie and alternative albums this week:
I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed – Thank – [4]
There are few bands in the Leeds scene who have attracted more love than Thank. Each time the noise-rock outfit takes to the stage, whether it’s in a dingy DIY venue or the hallowed halls of the Brudenell, audiences flock to see them. They come to scream along to every word of ‘Dread’, to dance to their heart’s content and to douse the floor in beer in the process.
Somewhere between those packed-out live shows and practice sessions spent in community spaces, Thank have honed one of the most distinctive sounds not just in their home scene, but in the entirety of noise-rock. It’s frantic and abrasive, danceable and anthemic, and completely unserious. And on I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed, the band’s new album, it sounds sharper than ever before.
Thank pull from all over the place instrumentally. Elements of punk subgenres meet nods to Tears for Fears, swarming synths rise up against thrashing drums contributed by newcomer Steve Myles, and, of course, there are those frequent and relentless torrents of noise. But it never feels disjointed in its myriad of influences, each of them pulled together by that intrinsic Thank-ness.
Open the Door – Lazy Day – [4]
Sometimes, we get so caught up in the contemporary era’s penchant for daring experimentation that we forget that songwriting in its purest form can still be extremely effective. This is a point that’s affirmed with Open the Door, the long-awaited debut from Tilly Scantlebury’s project, Lazy Day. It’s a substantial slice of exquisite modern indie that both warms the cockles and makes you head for the box of tissues.
Open the Door is pure songwriting at its best. Not only is it authentic, extracted from deep within the Lazy Day leader, but it’s got that universal pull based on such lyrical honesty as well as the quality of the music, with no end of slick basslines, hooky riffs, and the expert use of electronic textures comprising a record that holds your attention until the final notes ring out.
Dear Alien – Lili Holland-Fricke and Sean Rogan – [3.5]
Lili Holland-Fricke does things her own way. A cellist from the Royal Northern College of Music, Holland-Fricke was the first student to take on the pop songwriting course with an instrument that wasn’t vocals or a guitar. She also got signed to Manchester-based Melodic after sending the label an email, to which they responded, marking the first time they truly paid attention to a cold pitch.
Dear Alien sees Holland-Fricke and fellow college student, guitarist, and producer Sean Rogan converge. They navigate intimate and striking concoctions of sounds, resulting in an eight-track-long dreamlike, suspended atmosphere. The distortions dance around concepts of discomfort while playing with structural expectations before landing nowhere in a powerful move to instate the importance of relinquishing expectation.
Many aspects feel unsettling, dangerous, and even hazy, keeping everything intact even when multiple components play alongside each other. Above all, Holland-Fricke and Rogan prove to be masters at entertaining the intersection between hope and melancholy, keeping you guessing with every passing note as each song unfurls with more complexity, confrontation, and abstraction than the last.
Hardcore Workout Queen – Friedberg – [3.5]
Anna Friedberg’s vision for the debut album of her band, Friedberg, was simple; she wanted it to sound like a road trip. But over the course of the ten tracks, she explored just how vast and varied the road can be, changing up who’s in the passenger seat, the mission of the journey or the atmosphere inside the car. From excited theme wavers for fun to wrought and tense soundtracks for the drive towards an emotional showdown, all bases are covered on Hardcore Workout Queen as you buckle in for an indie ride.
That open-endedness is reflected in the album’s title track, too. On ‘Hardcore Workout Queen’, the band celebrate everyone with an ‘I don’t really care what you do as long as you’re happy’ approach. It’s for the women waking up at 5am and killing it on rowing machines just as much as the women sleeping all day on their couches as Friedberg writes a new empowering indie anthem.
But lyrically, the album is at its best when it gets personal and specific. Friedberg said that on the album she wanted to explore the perspective of strangers as if she was peering into their car windows, but it’s best from her driving seat. ‘My Best Friend’ is the finest example of this as the all-female, all-LGBTQ+ band navigate the choppy waters of queer love where friendship and desire make for a confusing cocktail of suspense and seduction.
Instrumentally, it’s a masterpiece. We’re in an era where indie pop truly reigns supreme. Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter have shredding guitars on their bubblegum pop songs. The rise and rise of acts like The Last Dinner Party, MUNA and The Beaches show the hunger for catchy and hooky tunes but with an alternative edge. And on Hardcore Workout Queen, Friedberg are more than primed to take their place amongst the ranks, delivering masterfully layered tunes with plenty of texture and intrigue but an overarching accessibility that makes these songs hit-worthy.
I Blow Out Big Candles – Freak Slug – [3.5]
The use of the bedroom as a recording studio has created a seismic shift in how pop music sounds over the last ten years or so, and the fact that anyone can turn their hand to record their own music from the comfort of their own home has seen artists like Clairo and Alex G become celebrated names in indie music. While neither continued to make music in their bedrooms for long after their successes, the DIY and lo-fi aesthetics still worm their way into their homely sound and have developed something of a stranglehold on production styles in studio-recorded pop music.
For Manchester singer-songwriter Xenya Genovese, better known as Freak Slug, this is how she received her initial exposure to the world, with her 2020 single ‘Radio’ becoming a viral hit online yet having its origins firmly rooted in home recording through a Macbook speaker. Fast-forward to four years later, and the hallmarks of a full-length bedroom pop record are there on her debut, I Blow Out Big Candles, but with all the whistles and bells that working in a professional studio can offer an artist.
One issue with bedroom-dwelling artists is that it’s often easy to get tied up in trying to emulate your idols, especially when you have so many influences you’re eager to pay tribute to, and trying to cram them into the space of half an hour can often yield mixed results. In this instance, it sometimes feels like an intense focus has been placed on the direction of a song, whereas on other tracks there are too many brief indications of who Genovese wants to be regarded in the same vein as that none of them feel prominent enough to steer the course.
The Good Kind – Our Girl – [3.5]
There are some bands and artists you hear who champion one specific aspect of their music over all else. For some, guitar takes a front seat; others focus on rhythm, and others on vocals. All these different aspects of music can be exciting, but the best way they manifest is by coming together. A good example of that happening is on the new Our Girl indie album, The Good Kind.
The record starts on a weak note as the opener, ‘It’ll Be Fine’, despite being a nice-sounding track, falls into the standard remit of sweet-sounding singer-songwriter music. It’s good, but it doesn’t do enough to separate itself from some of the other tracks within that style. It feels as though you may be in for a whole record of this, but it picks up in a big way.
As soon as the second track, ‘What You Told Me’, plays, we’re treated to an example of the excellent instrumentation and vocals displayed throughout the record. There is a sincerity and purity to the performance that serves the songwriting perfectly. Some songs fall flat, but generally speaking, this is a great album that combines various sounds and musical tones to create a versatile little tapestry.
Vejula – Merope – [3.5]
Due looks pleasant from a kitchen window, twinkling away like diamontes on the grass. But if you’re in amongst it camping, and it drenches everything you own, the prettiness soon proves infuriating. The same can be said of the new Merope album Vejula. This offering from Lithuania takes traditional folk and renders it ambient. The result is so soothingly pleasant that if it catches you in the wrong mood, it can actually piss you off.
The swirling album is the latest offering from singer and kanklės player Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė and guitarist/producer Bert Cools. With its origins firmly in the folk of the duo’s homeland, it extends out into the future by digitising the rattle and creak of traditional instrumentation. The result is as haunting as it is becalming. This mixture of homespun avant-garde instrumentation and lusciously ambient production is a pertinent one, ensuring the past doesn’t lose its sincerity in the face of the evolving present.
The duo have been flirting with this notion since they first arrived in 2012, but Vejula may well be their most assured offering. They even welcome collaborations from Shahzad Ismaily, Laraaji, Toma Gouband and Bill Frisell, all of which add to the expansiveness and sense of importance that bolsters the dainty tunes. However, as stated, sometimes they are maybe in danger of being a little too dainty—a little too much like trying to catch a butterfly.
