The last two months have seen an incredible amount of great new music released, perfectly coinciding with my life getting far too busy to properly keep up. So unfortunately I’ve had to combirne it with October. More than a few albums have had to be dropped, despite how good they were, but this is just how it goes sometimes. There’s a lot of acts here this month, but I guess that means loads to dig into? In the words of one of my favourite podcasts, “We go again!”
Dawnwalker
The Unknowing
Prog
Ever since I discovered the album Human Ruins, back in 2018, Dawnwalker have been expanding my musical taste. Human Ruins had a black metal component that was way out of my comfort zone, but was good enough to win me over. The album after it, Ages, pushed things even farther into those black metal waters and again, it took me a long time to crack it. The Unknowing follows this tradition of pushing my boundaries by getting rid of pretty much all the metal from their sound and going full prog. Not prog metal, just prog.
It was a shock to the system but Dawnwalker are one of those bands that refuse to sit still, refuse to repeat themselves and always push their sound in new directions. So although I was expecting the unexpected, I wasn’t expecting this.
The opening track, Thelma Mundi, shows this change with the blending of both male and female voices and the addition of a flute. I’m guessing you need a flute to be properly prog, but I honestly wouldn’t know. The second track, Capricorn has a reggae feel to the keyboards which was about as big a surprise I’ve ever had on a first listen. I’m not sure if it’s intentional but it’s all I can hear when I listen to it. It’s a great song, but again, it was a bit of a shock.
Mentioning prog all the time here is doing the album a disservice. It conjures up images of some of the worst self indulgences in modern music, musical masturbation, jarring time signature changes and really boring, overblown guitar solos*, but that’s not what’s going on here. This album is progressive in the way it just follows its own path. This record isn’t obviously beholden to any one band or influence, it’s the sound of a band following their own muse.
This explains the band’s openness to try different sounds on this album, from the aforementioned flute, the lush orchestration on Heaven and Earth, or the slap bass on Sword of Spirit, there doesn’t seem to be much the band won’t use to forge their own sound but amazingly, it’s always focused and never sounds like throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
The last two songs on the album finish things off with a confident flourish. While the heaviest two songs on here, it’s the combination of the pretty, heavy, (while still not being metal) and some of the most assured writing of the band’s career that make these songs shine.
It hasn’t been the easiest album for me to get into, but that is more my issue than anything to do with the quality of the music here. Like every Dawnwalker album before it, spending time with The Unknowing has gotten me past some of my musical prejudices and with a bit of time, I’ve come to realise that this is yet another fantastic album.
* I am aware that this is my opinion and may not be shared by you, the reader.
Dawnwalker are on all streaming platforms except Spotify. Because Spotify are bad, bad people.
https://dawnwalker.bandcamp.com/album/the-unknowing
https://linktr.ee/dawnwalkeruk
65daysofstatic
Silent Running
Soundtrack
First released way back in the distant year of 2011, Silent Running was a project 65days created for the Glasgow film festival, and involved 65 playing a live score to the 1972 Sci-fi film Silent Running . After the performance, they crowd funded the recording of it and later put it on Bandcamp. That’s the only place it’s been available for the last few years. Now the band have decided to put some of their Bandcamp only releases onto streaming and so Silent Running is now easily available.
This is a very good thing because in a discography of so many amazing records, this soundtrack stands up with the band’s best work. So instead of some 70’s folk music there is a dramatic upgrade to 65’s mix of guitars, keys and beats. Even though it’s a soundtrack it holds together well as a stand alone album, flowing nicely and doesn’t need the visuals to carry its atmosphere. I don’t have the time to get into details of a 13 year (!) old album so I’m just going to assure you, if you like moody electronic music you should listen to this album.
https://lynkify.in/album/silent-running/LwJ1EF0V
Night Swimming
No Place to Land
Shoegaze / Dream pop
There’s so much shoegaze out there these days, it’s getting more difficult to bother wading through the caverns of guitar noise. But happily, I’m still finding bands that remind me why I love this kind of music in the first place.
Night Swimming are yet another Bristol band (seriously, what is in the water down there?) and they play a very delicate, very beautiful style of shoegaze. Or maybe this is dream pop because it doesn’t have the walls of noise other bands use, but it’s clearly inspired by the more stary side of Lush’s discography.
No Place to Land is a incredibly accomplished debut. A lot of bands would struggle most of their career to write something as good as Let That Be Enough, let alone release it on their first ep. No Place has five songs and no filler, just beautiful indie songs that reach for the stars.
Put this band on your To Watch list because we’re going to be hearing a lot more from them in the coming years.
https://lynkify.in/album/no-place-to-land/rCFDhSfi
Halina Rice
EVOLVE
Techno
Halina has been chipping away at the electronica scene for a while now, pushing her own style of music that fuses the more cerebral side of electronica with some straight up floor fillers. It’s a line she walks very well, without ever getting too chin stroking or churning out mindless floor fillers.
To let you into my process, when I’m trying to build my thoughts on an album, I’ll usually be doing something else. I’ll have a word doc open so I can add off hand notes of things that jump out at me. To give you an idea of my notes for EVOLVE let me just cut and paste here.
HYBRID is an IDM banger
SEQUENCE TEST banger
MELD banger
As you might notice, the word banger is appearing quite a bit. And that sums things pretty well. From the jump Rice lets you know that it’s time to dance, SPLIT (She really likes all caps) just throws down and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it, she’s got you from the outset.
But, it’s not all floor filler. For all the dance tracks, there are slower, more thoughtful tracks stopping the album becoming one note. PHEME is a downbeat number with some fantastic crunchy / glitchy percussion, and it’s testament to Rice’s skills that these tracks never cause a loss of momentum over the album.
EVOLVE is easily one of the best dance albums I’ve heard this year and I’m really looking forward to catching her upcoming show in London as this album is going to be phenomenal live.
https://lynkify.in/album/evolve/qeLlcN04
QOYA
Karma
Post Punk / Goth / Post Rock
I’m not sure if it’s because it’s getting colder and darker but there seems to be more and more goth bands kicking about this year. Maybe I’m only coming across them now, but as October rolls on, this music becomes more fitting. Qoya are a French band who combine post rock with dashes of blackgaze and a hefty slab of post punk / goth depending on how you feel about that distinction
Karma is an album that blends a lot of adjacent genres and moulds them into new shapes, indebted to the bands that came before them, but twisting things into their own sound.
Track two, Ghost, starts the album off properly, with its loud, attacking alt rock offseting some of the more gentle, starry eyed sections of the album.
Mantra takes this alt rock and fuses it with post rock, culminating into a skyscraping finish. The title track leans closer to blackgaze than anything else. Not the blastbeats and screaming parts, but the slower, darker, more melodic parts, making the song shine.
My only warning to the listener is that the vocals are going to be marmite for some people. They’re buried in cavernous reverb giving a very early 80’s feel to them. It’s very intentional but it does take some getting used too.
What QOYA manages on this album is remarkable. The genre mashing really works and makes them sound unlike anyone else in the alt rock world. It’s heavy but not aggressive, intense but not metal. It’s a must listen for those who like their music shrouded with darkness.
https://lynkify.in/album/karma/xDkGXU8R
New Ghost
A Dagger in Every Tide
Shoegaze
New Ghost’s second album is a huge step up from their debut. Now, I’m not saying that New Ghost Orchestra was a bad album, but A Dagger improves on it in every way. The song writing is better, the band seem more confident experimenting with their sound and it’s just straight up more catchy.
Like Lazurus is a deceptive opener, its chilled electronics give the listener the impression that this album might have a lot more beep in it than it actually does, but this is a shoegaze album at heart. And while there are some great electronics on here, this is an album built on effects pedals and more unusually, vocal harmonies. One of the first things that grabbed my attention is the interplay between the vocalists. Instead of straight harmonies, they seem to weave around each other, giving a push and pull to the vocals that really makes the band stand out.
New Ghost’s secret weapon isn’t really that big or clever, but it is incredibly effective. The band do a great line in almost metal guitar chugging, so amid the twinkling electronics and soft vocals, there is a real weight to the bottom end of these songs. More importantly, they understand the dynamics of this trick and use it sparingly.
Where most shoegaze acts are happy to ape the bands that came before them, New Ghost are pushing the edges of what the genre sounds like. They’re not reinventing anything, but they are certainly forging their own sound, the guitars chug, the vocals soar and the electronics are there for you to get lost into. What more could you ask for?
https://lynkify.in/album/a-dagger-in-every-tide/Ewf9W75j
Kelly Lee Owens
Dreamstate
Dance
KLO is a woman who likes to do her own thing. After having a small break out hit with the album Inner Voice she followed it up with an ambient album that lost me on first listen. So I was wondering what to expect from Dreamstate, would we get more downbeat ambient or some dance tunes?
So on a bleak Friday morning, I popped down to the shops and pressed play to see what was what with Dreamstate. I was in the supermarket at the self checkout at 9:30 and I caught myself starting to dance when the title track kicked in. That’s a pretty impressive thing to manage.
This is an album full of warm dance music that will help keep the cold and the dark out of your life for the upcoming months.
I’ve seen some of the muso crowd sniffing at this album and dismissing it as cheesy, but ffs! Sometimes you just need dance bangers and Dreamstate really delivers these in a big way. So to hell with the naysayers, grab your glow sticks if you really have to, but put this on and you’ll have a hard time trying not to dance around your room.
https://lynkify.in/album/dreamstate/rTA3clwd
Oahk
Sea Kelp
Alternative
Tiny Husks was one of my albums of the year back in 2022, so I was delighted and slightly apprehensive to see the arrival of its follow up. TH was an album built on grief, pain and anger, but intense as it was, it still was one of the best alternative albums that I’d heard in a long time. Its follow up, Sea Kelp carries on directly from where Tiny Husks left off.
Sea Kelp isn’t (quite) as intense as its predecessor, it carries more hope and more positive expectations for the future. However, this is still an Oahk album, so it’s never going to be sunshine and lollipops. But, it’s not as raw as the last album.
Sea Kelp starts with the ominously titled, To Cushion and Drown, a gentle introduction to the record that sets your expectations. This is an album that is in no rush, it invites you to just relax and sink into its atmosphere. The title track, Sea Kelp is beautiful, with touches of shoegaze. Towards the end of the song, the vocals become a harsh shout, not a metal vocal, more like a cry of anguish. It’s a bit jarring but really conveys the pain and anger present here.
Falling Droplets is a gorgeous, understated song. It’s the closest the album gets to full on shoegaze, but even as the guitar fills the song, it never becomes a wall of noise. But it’s the delicate and heartfelt lyrics that are the star here, carrying you like the tide through this album highlight.
She grows in the Garden is a haunting closer, a gentle sigh of a song that even as it builds, never tries to overpower the listener. The closing refrain “I’m whole. “I’m home” carries us through all the pain and grief that has come before and two albums later finally finds the catharsis Oahk has been looking for. It’s a remarkable, hope filled place to finish the album and speaks to better days and a brighter future.
https://lynkify.in/album/sea-kelp/iOSMXtil
Underworld
Strawberry Hotel
Dance
This is the first album since 2016’s “Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future” and a lot has changed with the world since then. While Barbara was a bit of a departure for the band, Hotel sees the band deciding that it was time to hit the dance floor again.
And they hit it hard. denver luna is one of the strongest songs they’ve released since the 90’s. That driving, building beat with Karl Hyde’s stream of consciousness vocal is what Underworld does better than everyone else.
And that’s just to get your attention. Techno Shinkansen is a heads down banger. It may be slightly too much of a throwback to Born Slippy but will still set fire to dancefloors. Even, and the colour red works much better here than when they were playing it on the festival circuit over the last few years. Live it was a bit plodding, but here it’s slowed pace fits well on the album and doesn’t dampen the energy they way it did live.
As it stands Strawberry Hotel is a great album. There are some tracks on here that stand up with the best of the rest of the band’s discography and I’m really looking forward to dancing to some of these songs, surrounded by a few thousand other people next year. Are there a few duff tracks on here? Yea. The last 5 tracks are very skippable, but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that a band formed in the 80’s can still reach these highs.
Bangin! as the kids no longer say.
https://lynkify.in/album/strawberry-hotel/JAa6kJMR
Solars
A Fading Future
Post Metal
When I think of post metal, I usually think of bands like Cult of Luna. Sprawling songs with a mix of sludgy riffs and delicate beauty, but that’s just one end of the spectrum. At the other end of that spectrum, Solars are very definitely here to put the Rock back into post metal.
From the opening track, Retrograde, you can tell the band are not here to fuck about. These drums are just barrelling along as the guitars provide the texture, while the song ends with some fun thrashy riffs.
The track, Doomscrolling, is more fun than anything with that name should ever be, and has one of the most fun beat downs I’ve heard in this genre. (It’s the only one I’ve heard.) It keeps the opening song’s thrash vibe without ever being trad metal.
It’s not all metal thrashing mad however, Ablation has a slower, bass driven proggy vibe until it builds into some towering riffage that makes a nice change of pace on the album.
A Fading Future is just so much fun. Miles away from the more po-faced post metal bands, this is good time metal. This is music to put a huge smile on your face, throw the horns and unapologetically headbang. But still keeping some of those slower, more pretty sections that embody post metal. It’s a fun bit of musical alchemy and really makes Solars stand out from the crowd.
https://lynkify.in/album/a-fading-future/wnbzvOaz
No Time for Caution
Thief in the Grove
Post Rock
I’m out of time but didn’t want to leave this album out.
Thief in the Grove is a lovely trad post rock album. It’s very pretty and has a lot to offer any fan of the genre. The album highlight, Climb, has a soaring guitar line over some nice crunchy riffs that reminds me of Mogwai in the best way.
Thief in the Grove is well worth your time, go check it out.
https://lynkify.in/album/thief-in-the-grove/ZMo9QnVU
You got to the end! Well done, it’s nearly fucking killed me!
The ways of exile 