The Alternative Album Chart: The best new indie albums this week
With every passing week, 2023 continues to assert why it has been one of the best years for music in recent memory. As new heroes emerge and old ones confirm why they rose to the top so long ago, this lap around the sun has seen a perfect combination of fresh and legacy acts demonstrate why music is as healthy as ever. Indicative of this trend, buttering us up a little more in these seven days is a reissue of a classic record by Oasis.
Taking the torch from October, a month bountiful for new music, November has continued the sprint to the finish line in an apt fashion. Following last week’s extensive menagerie of albums, this seven-day cycle has provided more than enough to keep us entertained as storm Ciaran thrashes our windows and plunges us ever further into the depths of winter. In addition to the volume of releases, the quality has been excellent.
In recent weeks, we’ve been treated to new releases by the likes of Mitski – an album of the year contender – Black Pumas, and even a surprisingly decent return from classic rock survivors, The Rolling Stones. This week, alternative rock masters Drop Nineteens have produced their first album in nearly 30 years. Following this, Lisa Lerkenfeldt has made us consider the concrete trappings of the world in exquisite detail and punks Spiritual Cramps arrive with their studio-length debut.
So, without wasting any more of your precious time, find this week’s Alternative Album Chart below.
The best new indie and alternative albums this week:
Hard Light – Drop Nineteens – 4
Drop Nineteens, undoubtedly one of the most lauded yet questionably overlooked acts of 1990s alternative rock, return after nearly 30 years away. Tags such as ‘shoegaze-adjacent’ sell the group short, given that their music is an intricate patchwork of influences. On their long overdue third album, Hard Light, the Boston legends have reaffirmed why they were so celebrated in the first place and created what might go down as their most distilled offering.
Hard Light sees the band explore their sonic parameters in much more forensic detail, fully realising the dreamlike palette they first lathered on to the sonic canvas back in 1992. In the press material, Greg Ackell explains that his primary motivation for getting the quintet back together was to see what they would sound like after all this time. Hard Light is Drop Nineteens for the contemporary era, an age that they were always signalling all those years ago. [Words: Arun Starkey]
Halos of Perception – Lisa Lerkenfeldt – 4
In 2023, the concrete crawl continues to not only gobble up green spaces but also subsume the very nature of our existence. It’s really rather easy these days to go a whole month without leaving the same single square mile radius of land where your cramped city domicile resides. As a result of this, now even ‘exploration’ paradoxically dwells within urban settings. This is the theme that Lisa Lerkenfeldt channels in her new album Halos of Perception.
As mad as it might be to say, the album genuinely places you somewhere about 20 feet beneath the pavement or else gazing through a cracked window 40 feet above it, and that makes for a listening experience both rare and alluring. [Words: Tom Taylor]
Spiritual Cramp – Spiritual Cramp – 4
Spiritual Cramp have achieved the impressive feat of cherry-picking from wide-ranging inspirations and emerging with their own unique, anthemic sound. Drawing from post-punk, hardcore, and indie, the tracks on their self-titled debut make the grit of punk accessible without ever compromising its spirit.
The ten-track offering wastes no time, treating each sub-three-minute song as an opportunity to cycle through various sounds with as much intensity as possible. On the likes of ‘Can I Borrow Your Lighter’ and ‘Addict’, that is most decisively punk, but flashes of a more meat and potatoes brand of rock rear their head, as does the early aughts indie sound on ‘Catch A Hot One’.
The way they ricochet between syncopated punk and far more polished beats shouldn’t work at all, but it does. Every word, groove, and beat feels painstakingly intentional, done with confidence, but not overproduced to the point they lose their core sound. Eminently cool, their assured debut sets personal insecurities to driving, anthemic beats that chime with universal anxieties. [Words: Poppy Burton]
I<3UQTINVU – Jockstrap – 3.5
On their latest offering, Jockstrap take their debut record by the hand and drag it out of Brixton’s Windmill, down the stairs of a dimly lit basement club, and behind the decks. What was once avant-garde pop for Speedy Wunderground devotees and Goldsmiths students has become a collage of electronic experimentation, filled to the brim with the sexiest and silliest samples of their previous output.
I<3UQTINVU is Jockstrap at their most club-worthy yet – eclectic, experimental and entirely committed to electronica. Their sampling is silly and sexy in equal measure, carving a more chaotic collage of their existing catalogue, but their production is effortlessly clean. It might put off purist fans of Ellery’s more jazz-inspired post-punk endeavours, but maybe that’s the whole point.[Words: Elle Palmer]
Cartwheel – Hotline TNT – 2
While shoegaze emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the genre is currently enjoying a revival, with Hotline TNT, the brainchild of Will Anderson, one of many bands currently flexing their reverb-heavy muscles.
Yet, on Cartwheel, the band’s second album, Hotline TNT boasts influences that range from classic indie rock and pop to emo, transforming a shoegaze-inspired sound into something considerably more accessible. The fuzzy walls of guitar and blistering drums that define every song are accompanied by structured vocals that carve a discernable sense of stability into each song, holding together Anderson’s musings on heartbreak and hope.
It’s a frustrating listen – consistently leaning on the cusp of greatness. Anderson is clearly an immensely talented musician, yet Cartwheel often falters back into safety, relying on consistently similar melodies that give the album a lack of variety. Moreover, Anderson’s weak vocals and lacklustre melodies tend to muddy the soundscapes rather than elevate them to higher levels, subsequently preventing the album from achieving what Anderson is almost certainly capable of creating. [Words: Aimee Ferrier]
The Twits – Bar Italia – 2
Despite having already released three albums, Bar Italia remain heralded as one of London’s most exciting new bands, a name that is repeatedly wheeled out whenever discussing fresh, heavily-hyped acts on the rise. Formed in 2020, the trio now release their fourth studio album, The Twits, unfalteringly sticking to their brand, but perhaps to their detriment this time out.
It begs the question of what causes hype. What makes Bar Italia a one to watch in comparison to other bands on the scene? Is the credit amassed from their first records enough to sustain them? The answer is totally dependent on the taste of the listener, but The Twits feels like an album many people will say they like, but the question of whether it is actually good is a whole other story. [Words: Lucy Harbron]
Reissue – Oasis – The Masterplan – 4
In our vinyl corner, we like to adhere mainly to studio albums. As all-encompassing artistic units sold as originally intended, studio albums should take up most of a discerning record shelf. However, we do make our exceptions for B-side and rarities compilations. The Masterplan, the blockbusting 1998 compilation from Oasis, certainly falls into this bracket and what a fine example it is.
In celebration of the LP’s 25th anniversary, Oasis has scheduled an exciting reissue for Friday, November 3rd. Arriving via Big Brother Recordings, the remastered reissue will be available on limited silver-coloured vinyl or black vinyl, each spread across two 180g records. A CD issue will also be available.
The standard black vinyl option is currently available for pre-order for £29.99. Browse purchase options here. Far Out Magazine may earn from qualifying purchases. [Words: Jordan Potter]
