Fontaines D.C. have just released a new video for the track 'Marianne' which comes off their forthcoming album 'Dopamine Chamber', due out on 16 October via XL Recordings 'Marianne' is a tight wound and enigmatic track that seems to continue where the band left off in their brilliant album 'Romance' - expanding and developing their sound while still centering around singer Grian Chatten unique delivery. Guitars have moved back in the mix while a muffled pounding sound gives an ominous feel, augmented by the lyrics: This yearYou should come and stay here…

Robyn has announced her ninth studio album, Sexistential, due out in March 2026, alongside new singles ‘Talk To Me’ and the album’s title track.

Queens of the Stone Age have spent three decades making the crooked, strange and occasionally sleazy sound irresistible. Now Josh Homme and company are heading somewhere new again with ninth studio album ‘Perfecth’, arriving October 30 via Matador Records and Remote Control Records. The announcement comes with ‘Insignificant Other’, the second taste of the album following ‘Easy Street’, featuring Nikki Lane. Recorded in only two takes, the new track captures Queens playing loose rather than chasing studio perfection, leaving space for the five members to react to each other as the song unfolds.

At the risk of using superlatives so early in a review, I haven't got this excited about a band since I heard the first single from Fontaines D.C.. Originally from Chicago and now based in New York, Horsegirl stunned with their debut album 'Versions of Modern Performance' back in 2022 (read my review here), where I said it was:

While there have been a few live performances and the odd single and solo work, the venerable Pulp today announce the release of their first album in 24 years, fittingly entitled 'More'. The original line-up (sadly of course without bass player Stephen Mackey who died in 2023) with extra musicians on board will release the album on 6 June 2025 through…

A lot has been happening to Chicago’s enigmatic Horsegirl since the release of their stunning debut ‘Versions of Modern Performance’ back in 2022 – of which I said in my rev…

At the risk of using superlatives so early in a review, I haven’t got this excited about a band since I heard the first single from Fontaines D.C.. Originally from Chicago and now based in Ne…

Future Islands have never relied on spectacle to sustain their story. Across two decades, the Baltimore group have moved from underground promise to cult devotion, then into the rarer territory of a band that simply keeps enduring. Their next release honours that path without reaching for the usual anniversary clichés. Instead of a conventional greatest-hits package, Future Islands have announced From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth, a twenty-track collection of rarities, long-hidden recordings and fan favourites that have often existed outside the streaming era. Due May 22, the double LP gathers songs from across the band’s lifespan, many of them arriving on digital platforms for the first time.

We here at the Antipodean outpost of Backseat Mafia have admired Didirri ever since 2018 when we covered his single ‘Formaldehyde’, and we confess we are a little late to the party with his most recent release, the elegantly beautiful duet 'No Cure For Love' with fellow indie artist Rowena Wise. 'No Cure For Love' drips with a melancholy bittersweet air enhanced by the delicious interplay of the vocals.

It’s been just over three years since Mess Esque – the stunning collaboration between Helen Franzmann (McKisko) and Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Tren Brothers) – released their self-titled album (see my review here), and a follow-up entitled ‘Jay Marie, Comfort Me’ is due for release on 28 March 2025 through Drag City Records and Remote Control Records. As a taster of what's to come, a dreamy new single 'Let Me Know You' has been released today.

Pop doesn’t stand still for long in 2026, but this one feels like a jolt. CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso have stepped into Robyn’s orbit, reworking ‘Blow My Mind’ into something sharper, stranger and built for movement. Stream it HERE. The remix arrives hot on the heels of their album FREE SPIRITS, a record that cemented the duo’s reputation for refusing to sit in one lane for too long. That same unpredictability drives this collaboration. What was already one of the standout moments from Sexistential now feels rewired — basslines pushed harder, edges roughened, the groove stretched until it snaps back into place.

Anniversaries tend to invite simplification. A neat timeline, a run of highlights, the familiar arc from breakthrough to legacy. Future Islands have never been particularly interested in that kind of framing. With From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth, their 20-year marker arrives not as a summary, but as something more porous. Rather than a conventional greatest hits collection, the record pulls from the edges of their catalogue. Alternate versions, rarities and long-circulating fan favourites sit alongside more recognisable material, reshaping the band’s history into something less linear.

Pop rarely permits revision. Once a song is released, it calcifies into its most recognisable form, fixed in the cultural bloodstream. Robyn has never quite adhered to that logic. With “Blow My Mind,” she returns to a track first released in 2002 and treats it less like a relic than a living document, one capable of being rewritten in response to a life that has shifted around it. Produced once again with Klas Åhlund, the new version strips away any lingering sense of nostalgia. Instead, it leans into abrasion. The rewrite, shaped by her experience of early motherhood, resists sentimentality in favour of something more contradictory.

At Sydney’s Metro Theatre, bar italia turn the mystique of their early years into something bold and theatrical, delivering a blistering set that proves just how far they’ve evolved since their underground days. Powered by the new album Some Like It Hot, the trio move with confidence, heat and a newfound muscularity—transforming their spectral indie into a force built for big rooms.

Sleaford Mods will return to Australia and New Zealand in April 2026, armed with their new single ‘Megaton’ and a renewed commitment to War Child, marking their first visit since 2023’s Vivid LIVE and Dark Mofo sets.

bar italia release ‘rooster’, a sinister and anthemic preview of their upcoming album Some Like It Hot (out October 17), capturing their journey from elusive outsiders to full-blown festival stormers.

David Byrne has always been an influential and innovative musician from his time in the iconic Talking Heads to his solo and collaboration work that have magnified his talent exponentially. Today, he announces a new album entitled 'Who Is The Sky?' out through Matador Records and Remote Control Records on 5 September 2025, a single 'Everybody Laughs' to whet the appetite and a massive world tour from September taking in North America, the UK and Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand.

In 'More', Pulp return not with a bang but with a graceful, knowing nod - like old friends who’ve learned that the quietest whispers can sometimes carry the heaviest truths. It's a record suffused with a poignant maturity, and yet it dances with all the absurd, anxious glamour that has always made Pulp more than just a band—they are a mirror held to the face of modern Britain, cracked and beautiful.

Mess Esque, the collaboration between Helen Franzmann (McKisko) and Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Tren Brothers), follow up on their self-titled debut 2021 album (reviewed by me here) with the astronomically beautiful 'Jay Marie, Comfort Me'. Released through Drag City Records and Remote Control Records, it's a stunning collection of dreamy shimmering tracks that glow in the firmament.

Following a thrilling tour last year between the two icons of Australian indie music, Ed Kuepper and Jim White have released ‘After The Flood’ on 21 March through Remote Control Records. Kuepper has also announced an extensive solo tour across Australia – his first solo gigs in five years following a series of gigs with a full band and with The Saints.

Following a year in which Fontaines D.C.'s album 'Romance' almost universally featured in critics' favourite albums of 2024, the Irish band has just released its brand new single 'It's Amazing To Be Young', and things are just getting exponentially better. And while I still steadfastly maintain debut single 'Boys From The Betterland' to be one of the singles of the past decade, Fontaines D.C.