review
-
Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear feels perfectly calibrated for this cultural moment. A novel obsessed with nostalgia, memory and reinvention, it interrogates why modern society remains so addicted to romanticising the past. Part literary fiction, part cultural critique, the novel has already generated enormous attention ahead of its forthcoming film adaptation starring Anne Hathaway, who is…

-
8/10 Daði Freyr has always occupied a curious space in modern pop. Too eccentric to be conventional chart-pop, too emotionally sincere to be dismissed as novelty, and too musically sharp to fade into the endless algorithmic sludge currently swallowing the genre whole. Like many others, you may have first discovered Daði in 2020 with his…

-
Our Rating 8/10 There is a quiet precision to Ailbhe Reddy’s Kiss Big that sets it apart from much of the current indie landscape. It does not compete for attention. It earns it gradually. The record is built on restraint. Arrangements are deliberately minimal, allowing space for both vocal delivery and lyrical detail to carry…

-
With Waxing | Waning, Taupe reject almost every convention currently driving music consumption. This is not a record built for ease. It is built for friction. Operating somewhere between jazz, noise, experimental rock, and improvisational structure, the album refuses stable ground. Tracks shift direction without warning. Rhythms dissolve and reassemble. Melodic ideas appear briefly before…

-
Our Rating: 10/10 There is a fine line between evolution and repetition in pop, and Olivia Rodrigo has spent the last few years walking it carefully. “Drop Dead” lands as a calculated step forward, not a reinvention, but a tightening of what already works. At surface level, the track holds all the hallmarks of her…

-
There is a particular kind of pop song that does not just arrive; it carries people with it. With “So Long, Solo”, Collette Brady-McEntee steps firmly into that space. Written within a collaborative songwriting environment and shaped by the hands of experienced writers, the track holds both scale and substance. It is built on connection,…

-
Our Rating 7/10 There’s a point in an artist’s career where the question shifts. It stops being about how big they can go and starts being about what they choose to hold onto once they’ve already been there. The Weight of the Woods sits right in that space. This is Dermot Kennedy pulling everything inward.…

-
Our Rating 10/10 Some songs arrive loudly, demanding attention. Others move differently. “Intimacy” doesn’t push its way in. It draws you closer, slowly, until you realise you’ve stepped into something far more exposed than expected. This is Loah working with intent and control. The production is stripped back but deliberate, built around space rather than…

-
Our Rating: 8/10 “Body” knows exactly what it’s trying to do, and to its credit, it commits. Built on a fluid Afro Fusion foundation, the track leans into rhythm as its driving force. There’s a physicality to it that makes sense once you understand Mighty Koba’s approach. This is music designed to move first and…

