Craig Finn
Clear Heart, Full Eyes

There’s a line early on in Clear Heart, Full Eyes where Craig Finn says “Pretty sure we’re all gonna die”, and it could very well be a mission statement for this first solo effort. It’s a striking line, and it’s almost perpendicular to what one would expect from the man in his day job fronting the Hold Steady. Sure, you can find despondent characters at the end of their respective ropes in albums like Separation Sunday, but there’s always some sort of grand, sweeping moment of redemption that brings everyone together...

The 2 Bears
Be Strong

If this was a concept album then the story would be missing two of its principal characters in Mommy Bear and Goldilox. Thankfully it is not, and despite the front cover resembling a page from some fairy tale or other and the sound resembling house from the early 90s, and in spite of some very silly (but hugely enjoyable) moments, this record is very much of the here and now and it is clear that Raf Rundell and Joe Goddard (of Hot Chip fame) take their dance music very seriously. Except perhaps for "Bear Hug" which sounds like what Azealia Banks' "212" might sound like if you ate some magic honey and were being sung to by a bear in a leather bondage outfit who may have been Ian Dury in a previous incarnation.

Be Strong is not a major departure, for Goddard, from Hot Chip's One Life Stand in both sound and...

First Aid Kit
The Lion's Roar

Sweden, originally famous musically for Abba and death metal, has recently spewed forth a couple of artists who have somehow managed to use the template of good, old fashioned Americana to their credit. The Tallest Man on Earth's The Wild Hunt was one of 2010's highlights whereby the relatively diminutive Kristian Matsson managed to channel the spirit of Bob Dylan and evoke the seemingly endless opportunity offered by middle America. Now two sisters are picking up where he left off.

Klara and Johanna Söderberg are too young for the voices that they possess. Some of the great female country and western singers had to suffer a great deal of hardship and put up with many beatings to be able to sing with the maturity and experience that these youngsters, barely into their twenties, master on every track. Klara takes...

Lana Del Rey
Born to Die

Wishing you were dead has always been very popular amongst teenagers of many generations; Jim Morrison's fans tried to share in his fantasies of death to feel closer to the soul of a fascinating artist and Kurt Cobain single-handedly made suicide cool for a generation of otherwise perfectly content kids in the nineties who all felt that their own lives would be significantly cooler if they shared Cobain's own misery and sarcastic sneer. Now another artist wants to tell us all how she would rather be dead than live this life with all of its excesses, frauds and phonies, bad boys and disintegrating relationships. The only problem is she gives us no indication as to why she wants to dance with the be-scythed one yet the lyrics, right down to the album title itself, frequently dithers around the subject. To look at her cover pose you could expect her sultry voice and nostalgic production to come from some...

Gonjasufi
MU.ZZ.LE

Even I'm Ashamed of Me

Depending on which calendar you follow or which raving lunatic's ramblings you listen to, 2012 is set to be the last year of life on this planet as we know it with the Apocalypse pencilled in for a few days before Christmas. For the rest of us, we'll be too caught up in the present buying mayhem that is the left-it-too-late end of December to notice the balls of fire hurtling down from the sky and seven-headed beasts rising from the depths of our oceans.

Sumach Valentine, aka Gonjasufi, pedals a good line in end of days dread and those who have seen him and heard his contemplative, world weary croak may well consider him to be some wise old prophet. Given the choice of prophets out there I would definitely prefer to listen to this man if only because he has the best tunes. His debut album, a collaboration with The Gaslamp Killer, ...

Raekwon
Unexpected Victory

To hear that Raekwon has given his new mixtape the moniker of Unexpected Victory was in itself unexpected. Over the course of about eight albums with the Wu-Tang, almost as many solo albums and countless guest appearances, spin offs and mix-tapes, the man they call Chef has not been bashful when informing us of his considerable abilities on the mic, in the sack and on the streets, and to my mind, nothing less than absolute victory is what we have come to expect, or at least been told to expect, from the man.

It gets a little tiresome though, doesn't it? Each lyric follows a similar narrative arc; starting with the streets, and how it's tough on the streets, and how he's the king of the streets (unless you believe what the guests on his records are saying because most of them claim to be king of the streets too, so it's difficult to know who to believe), and then how he conquered the streets (with some...

Matthew Dear
Headcage

When Matthew Dear released "Headcage" earlier in the year we could have been forgiven in thinking that the EP of the same name would be a continuation of 2010's sleazy Black City because of its pulsating, grinding beat, sexy synths and Dear's thin white Barry White vocal delivery. Others may have hoped that Headcage would point towards a new direction which Dear, having established himself as a contemporary artist worth keeping a keen eye on, would take to further stake his claim on artistic credibility.

The four tracks which comprise Headcage, a stop gap between Black City and this year's forthcoming, yet to be titled full length, are interesting because of what they are not as much as because of what they are. Whilst they are unmistakably Matthew Dear's handiwork, they are not the slabs of dark electronic sexuality that made Black City so thrilling. There is still a...

Rick Ross
Rich Forever

"Father, save me from Brokeness.
And bitch ass niggas.
And bitch ass bitches."

Rick Ross is not to everybody's taste and his rise to rap supremecy may well come as a surprise to many of us. Ross is an artist who has built a career on a fictitious back story, one which omits the truth about him actually being a prison officer for many years and instead focuses on a very different career, that of a coke dealing, nasty, ruthless, womanising criminal mastermind. Hip hop has its own sorting system to weed out the phoneys but Ross has discovered a flaw in the machinery which has enabled him to get co-signs from many rappers who have kept it real. And oddly, women seem to actually be making their way towards him, clearly pulled in by his planet sized magnitude.

Ross' style is by no means his secret weapon. He has a slow delivery, is hot on repetition...

Nirvana
Live at the Paramount

Teenage angst has paid off well
Now I'm bored and old

Whilst sitting in a coffee shop in Amsterdam over the New Year gazing with glazed eyes at a screen which was cycling through statements from a number of quotable historical figures and showbiz types, I was struck in particular by a quote from Kurt Cobain which went, "A friend is nothing but a known enemy." What a miserable git, I thought to myself and was surprised that my attitude towards Kurt had changed so drastically over ten or fifteen years. It was now closer to my Dad's opinion of him than what I believed to be my own.

I had plenty of time to think that day and I racked my brain as to what it was that I had once found so special about Nirvana, especially as I find it difficult to listen to Nevermind at all these days, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in particular, so much so, in fact,...

Neutral Milk Hotel
Box Set

"I Will Bury You In Time"

Had I been less mature or twenty odd years younger this Christmas, I may have had my day ruined by Jeff Mangum, or Santa, or whoever it was that was responsible for my Neutral Milk Hotel box set turning up late, despite my parents ordering it in plenty of time for the festivities. However, my 31 years on this earth have taught me patience if nothing else, and, as it happened, when I got the call on the 6th of January to say the package had arrived and rushed home to pick up this beautifully packaged box set, it felt as though Christmas had come about 353 days early rather than twelve days late!

Having the opportunity to own the (almost) complete recordings by one of your favourite artists is what Christmas is all about and this collection, which is wrapped up in artwork that stays true to the mysterious, nostalgic nature of NMH's previous releases,...

The Black Keys
El Camino

The release of El Camino is the culmination of one of the most improbable music industry ascents in recent history. It’s not necessarily improbable because of the material The Black Keys are putting out, but rather, the way the band’s stuck around all these years. The halcyon days of the garage-blues duo are long gone, but the Keys soldiered on. After several years of banging out slight variations on the usual flatted-third blues-riffing solidified by an energetic live show, the band spread its wings on Brothers with mixed...