Quite where this Hendrix album has been hiding for the last 40 years is a mystery, but it’s out now and sounds surprisingly fresh. Read More

In this reviewer’s opinion, this is the album of the year so far. After a three-year lull from their first and fantastic album, All Hour Cymbals, the evolutionary Odd Blood was something of high anticipation and orgasmic relief. Read More

BECK – RECORD CLUB: THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO (Online)

Hundreds of bands have unsuccessfully covered The Velvet Underground but here Beck and friends manage to successfully pull off a whole album in a day to spectacular effect. Read More

The sum of soft and sweet US indie kings The Shins frontman James Mercer and Gnarles Barkley man and producer of the moment Danger Mouse, Broken Bells is a mini supergroup effort that meanders at times but has flourishes of greatness. Read More

If there was one UK over the past five years who have eccentrically cheered up English pop music it would have to be this lot. Read More

Oh such a pleasant acoustic sound from the duo that call themselves Kings of Convenience. Norwegian Erlend and Eirik’s third album features soft vocals and intertwined acoustic guitars, all craftily put together from soundchecks in big, empty concert halls. Read More

Florida’s Surfer Blood are disgustingly young. The sun-soaked alt.rock with a distinctly 90s bent (in a good way, a very good way) that they pedal is so good you think it must be a fluke, and Astro Coast’s opener, ‘Floating Vibes’, sounds almost too good to be true. Read More

On first listen, Cult from Japanese act Hazel Nuts Chocolate is too much. It’s all over the place, with children’s instruments seemingly played by madmen, unpredictable beats, rabid samples, sweet melodies sung in a borderline cutesy/sinister voice…and that’s just the song about kittens. Read More

Did you know that speakers can be sick? I didn’t either, but thirty seconds into Rebirth every tweeter and woofer was vomiting in disgust and all the while my stereo edged closer to the window in the hope it could plummet ten stories down and take this truly awful album with it. Read More

I say French, you say electro. These days you could be forgiven for thinking the entire population of France was born with trendy angular haircuts, dressed in ironic day-glo T-shirts and was breastfed milky MDMA from the word dot. Read More