new-music

  • Our Rating 8/10 Some songs arrive loudly. Others move quietly, like someone stepping into a room and simply standing there until everyone notices. “Grace”, the new single from Irish alt-pop artist Chubby Cat, belongs firmly in the second category. Built around a sparse electronic foundation, the track leans into atmosphere rather than immediacy. Soft synth…

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  • Our Rating 10/10 Music has long been described as a healing force. Not the clinical sort found in a pharmacy, but the quieter medicine that settles somewhere deep in the chest when the right song arrives at the right moment. When I pressed play on “Golden Thing,” the new single from West Cork songwriter Molly…

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  • Our Rating 6/10 When BLACKPINK release music, it is never just a drop. It is a recalibration of global pop temperature. Deadline arrives after a period where each member expanded her individual identity. That matters. You can feel it in the control here. This EP is not chaotic spectacle. It is sharpened, deliberate, aware of…

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  • Dotts O’Connor – Jodie

    Our Rating 9/10 In a culture obsessed with noise, Dotts O’Connor chooses stillness. The alternative folk songwriter has built his reputation on restraint. Rooted in rural landscapes and the emotional weight they carry, his work inhabits the space between connection and isolation, routine and longing. Nothing feels forced. Nothing feels ornamental. His songs sound lived…

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  • Focus track: “Gang Signs” Our Rating: 7/10 THUMPER have always understood impact. Density. Volume. The physicality of sound. But Sleeping With The Light On suggests something more interesting than just noise. It suggests discipline. The album opens with “The Rip,” and the name is apt. It does not ease you in. It arrives with crunch…

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  • Our Rating: 7/10 Some artists chase reinvention. Olivia Dean chose refinement. The Art of Loving is not an album built on shock or spectacle. It is built on emotional steadiness. On craft. On the decision to explore love as something complex and negotiated rather than cinematic and chaotic. From the first track, the tone is…

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  • Our Rating 7/10 There is a particular kind of silence that happens just before morning. Not peaceful. Not calm. Suspended. That unsettled space is where Iarmhaireacht lives. A little bit of an Irish language breakdown before we break into the music here: Iarmhaireacht comes from Irish Gaeilge. “Iar” means ‘after’ or ‘behind’. “Mhaireacht” relates to…

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