GOAT GIRL – ON ALL FOURS
GOAT Girl's second album expands the London quartet's post-punk sound, adding rhythm and repetition, using layered vocals, washes of synths and analogue drum machines.
These tracks are sparse and more spacious, with lyrics ranging from ecological peril and social injustices to struggles with mental health in Anxiety Fills, Closing In and P.T.S.Tea.
Opener Pest is slow, acoustic, but with a burning anger, single Badibaba is built on layered vocals, and insistent keyboards, while Jazz (In The Supermarket) adds discordant trumpets and viola before the instrumental ending.
The insistent synths in tracks such as Where Do We Go? hint at bands such as Broadcast and Stereolab, with the looser, fluid polyrhythmic songs bringing to mind This Is The Kit, while closer A-Men is about the importance of breaking out your comfort zone.
Goat Girl have certainly achieved that with On All Fours, at times mysterious and unsettling, but, despite its unsettling themes, ultimately life-affirming.
Rating: 4/5
Matthew George
CELESTE – NOT YOUR MUSE
BBC Music's Sound of 2020 and Brit Rising Star award-winner Celeste's highly anticipated debut album Not Your Muse was placed on the backburner at the start of the first lockdown.
Finally released this week, the empowered 12-track offering is a delightful pop-jazz crossover that enthralls from the enchanting opening chords of Ideal Woman to the closing sentiments of Some Goodbyes Come With Hellos.
Not Your Muse oozes the distinctive smoky tones we've grown to know and love from the British-Jamaican songstress, pairing delightfully understated melodies with pop sensibilities that both lure and intrigue in equal measure.
Tracks like A Kiss and The Promise are no exception, showcasing Celeste's vocals at their finest. And, while many will recall the dancey highs of A Little Love from the John Lewis/Waitrose Christmas advert, it's the assured sentiment of Stop This Flame that really beguiles, with recent single Love Is Back marking Celeste out as a contemporary soul artist with longevity.
Rating: 4/5
Danielle de Wolfe
ARLO PARKS – COLLAPSED IN SUNBEAMS
COLLAPSED In Sunbeams pivots between sweet natured ruminations on love and life, and darkly poetic pieces about depression and domestic strife. It functions as a tightly wound series of vignettes and wry observations about the people and places around the London singer.
Parks can evoke a whole world in a sentence, like with the opening of Caroline ("I was waiting for the bus one day / and watched a fight between an artsy couple escalate").
These 12 tracks draw on a scramble of influences – from trip-hoppers Portishead and folkies Grizzly Bear to Frank Ocean and Sufjan Stevens – only possible in the internet age.
Collapsed In Sunbeams is steeped through with Parks' own identity: she is openly bisexual and has Nigerian, Chadian and French heritage. It's an album that proves two things, that Parks is an old soul and that she has plenty more left to say.
Rating: 4/5
Alex Green
STEVEN WILSON – THE FUTURE BITES
THE Future Bites serves both as a prescient reminder of the pitfalls of capitalism and the healing capabilities of music. It's an especially uncomfortable listen given how lockdown has only accelerated our dependency on digital content.
But listen we must, because Wilson's message – one moment earnest liked on 12 Things I Lost, the next scathing like on lead single Personal Shopper – is essential right now.
Wilson (53) takes a different tack than on his five previous solo albums and 10 with his former band, progressive rockers Porcupine Tree. His constantly evolving, mutant rock, which now owes more to Prince than Radiohead, looks to the future with disdain and confusion.
Ultimately, this a record about mankind's blindness in the face of beauty. Wilson puts it perfectly in the song Self: "Self sees a billion stars, but still can only self-regard".
Rating: 4/5
Alex Green
