A to Z

Grandiose art-rock from progpunk pioneers

Now elder statesmen of American alternative music, ...Trail Of Dead have always been at their best when embracing their unique headspace between prog and hardcore. After the straightforward rock of 2012’s Lost Songs, 2014’s IX saw them tentatively return to experimental baroque. X picks that up with more confidence, and tracks like the howling “All Who Wonder” and “Into The Godless Void” twitch with epic rage, while “Who Haunts The Haunter” has some of Lift To Experience’s skeletal grace. It’s a big album, but ...Trail Of Dead have always made music to get lost in and this one’s a maze.

PETER WATTS

Brooklyn Afrobeat collective marn their vicennial with reflection and protest

Since their inception, this long-running collective have risen from block parties to Broadway. With Fu Chronicles, they survey the shifting landscape of their career – including the gentrification of their home base in Brooklyn, the open-air corruption of American government, the resilience of displaced communities – or an album whose recorded version signals an even more transcendent concert experience. Driven by the joyous and insistent vocals of founding member Duke Amayo, as heard on “MTTT Pt 1 2”, a staple of the band’s live show that sees its first recorded version here, Fu Chronicles is further proof that Antibalas is the best Afrobeat group in the West.

ERIN OSMON A true Qorthern Irish, star/ fulfilling 534 debut’s sromise

Mark McCambridge’s second offers unanticipated twists: the abrupt interruption of the Irish folk introducing lugubrious opener “A Stranger Heart”, “Taxi”’s punctured, spoken-word nostalgia, the quiet directive – “Fuck their language” – on drowsy piano ballad “The Guttural Blues”. Mainly, though, he skilfully amplifies Home Burial’s pathos, his tender voice redolent of Patrick Watson amid “Can I Add You to My Will”’s brass flourishes, and soaring sweetly on “Here Comes The Devil”. His lyrics, meanwhile, are witty on “By Rote”, whose gentle, luxurious strings recall Lambchop’s Nixon, and stirring on the title track’s ode to his homeland’s countryside. Z\QGKAMZALLAFE

US duo revisiting sampladelic trip-hop

Glueing together ambient drones, distorted breakbeats and stray vocal samples, Max Lewis and Mirza Ramic create glistening electronic soundscapes that sound – to listeners of a certain age – rather like 1990s trip-hop. The only “proper song” here is the dreamy, bilingual R&B of “Leon”, sung by Guatemalan-American actress Sofia Insua; elsewhere you’ll find fragmentary grooves (“In The Jaws Of Life”), ambient miniatures (“Roman And Mayan”), wispy ethereal jazz (“Unbound”), wonky chillwave (“After World’s End”) and cartoonish big-beat (“Centralia”). It’s pleasant background music, but only “Ruined By Geography”, with its ghostly, wordless vocals and juddering funk beat, makes any attempt to grab your attention. JOHN LEWIS

Macabre musings from Idles’ favourites

Death infiltrates every crevice of this noir-rock trio’s fourth album. It lurks in the smile of the pyromaniac “Serafina” as she gleefully fuels a blazing fire, in a late-night chase through murky woodlands on “Machete” and in the smouldering, post-arson rubble of “Ben & Lily”. Inspired by the Southern Gothic writing of his native Georgia, frontman Reid Bateh pens short stories about disturbed characters. And like their majestic third LP Shadow On Everything, it’s accompanied by an intoxicating blend of surf-rock guitar and the blusterous post-rock drama of forefathers such as Lift To Experience; a bewitching blend that makes death’s ominous presence feel that much closer. JREJFRFR AE

Young songwriter muddling her way through adulthood’s transition

Brooke Bentham combines the voice of one who has just awoken from a dream with the lyrical precision of a stand-up comic. Her Bill Ryder-Jones-produced debut is characterised by hazy arrangements and fragmented imagery; life on the cusp of adulthood via Sunday hangovers and nostalgia (“All My Friends Are Drunk”), vices abandoned (“My Baby Lungs”), street harassment (“With Love”) and contemplating mortality while reading “books about death” (“Blue Light”). Layered guitars make a luscious soundtrack to get lost in, but relatable lyrics (“even my mother will tell you I’m not good at affection”) will guide you home. LISA-MARIEFERLA

Synth0sos five0siece’s candy0 coated third LP

Blossoms scored a major hit with 2018’s and haven’t moved the dial too far for this follow-up. The band come in somewhere between The Killers