WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
OUT: now
It’s quite something that pop star and songwriting genius Sia thought her tune What The Future Holds would be best sung by this reformed boy/girl band quintet.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
OUT: now
We’ve only seen Norwegian electro pop star Annie live once we think, supporting St Etienne in October 2009 at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
OUT: now
Fingers Crossed goes immediately for the pop jugular with a hook that is so captivating in its high-pitched kookiness it could be a sample of Kate Bush or Florence Welch at their most commercial – but probably isn’t.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: now
What do you get if you introduce arguably the world’s most exciting pop star of the moment to a British singer-songwriter and a Compton rapper/producer?
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
OUT: now
Get Yourself Together, the lockdown collaboration between Blow Monkeys’ frontman Dr Robert and Youth, was the first time we’d listened to any of the band’s new work for a long while.
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
OUT: now
Hurts reveal their best song since the track that launched them – Wonderful Life in 2009 – from a new album out in just over a month.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: now
Both Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga have enjoyed rapturously received returns to releasing music in 2020 during a curious pandemic period when their euphoric and uplifting dance albums have proved just the tonic that the world is looking for.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
OUT: now
We saw Little Boots (pictured above) twice in May 2012 (once headlining at XOYO and once supporting the Scissor Sisters at 02 Shepherds Bush Empire) and since that happy fortnight we’ve not seen her perform live again.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: now
‘I’ve known Youth for 20 years or so. We live up in the same mountain here in southern Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. I’m not mad on industrial, metal dub and trance so it seemed only right and proper that, at weird times like this, I would do something unthinkable, like work together with Youth’, says Blow Monkeys frontman Dr Robert.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: now
If debut Hurts album Happiness was about love and loss and its follow up (Exile) about sex and death, then the new material we’ve heard from fifth album Faith (out 4/9/20) feels like a return to the lyrical themes that made their name.
