Category 2020s

Hayley Williams Album Reviews

Hayley Williams is best known as the lead vocalist of Paramore. However, she has also released three solo albums, two of which stand proudly along Paramore’s best work. Hayley Williams Album Reviews Petals for Armor 2020, 8.5/10Paramore’s After Laughter is my favourite…

Read MoreHayley Williams Album Reviews
Wet Leg Album Reviews

Isle of Wight’s Wet Leg were breakout stars in 2021, when their innuendo-laden hit ‘Chaise Longue’ went viral. Their name comes from an Isle of Wight expression denoting visitors to the island, recognisable because they’d have wet legs from getting…

Read MoreWet Leg Album Reviews
Blondshell Album Reviews

Sabrina Teitelbaum flirted with musical success in a different guise. Between 2017 and 2019, she released singles as the pop artist BAUM. Her grandfather, Randall D Smith, is known as the pioneer of vulture capitalism. Dissatisfied with the results, she…

Read MoreBlondshell Album Reviews
Mk.gee Album Reviews

Michael Gordon grew up in New Jersey, where he played in bands but gravitated to making solo music in his bedroom. He grew up in the age of music piracy and was inspired by the eclectic range of music that…

Read MoreMk.gee Album Reviews
Ela Minus Album Reviews

Gabriela Jimeno Caldas was born in 1990 in Bogotá, Colombia. She spent her teens as the drummer for Colombian hardcore band Ratón Pérez. They played at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. She moved to the US, where she studied…

Read MoreEla Minus Album Reviews
The Smile Album Reviews

There hasn’t been a new Radiohead album since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. The Smile might be the next best thing. The two most distinctive members of Radiohead – vocalist Thom Yorke and guitarist Johnny Greenwood – formed The Smile in…

Read MoreThe Smile Album Reviews
Ducks Ltd. Album Reviews

The duo of Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis met on the Toronto scene, bonding over their shared love of vintage indie jangle-pop. They now split their time between Toronto and Geelong, Australia. It makes sense because their jangling recalls Antipodean…

Read MoreDucks Ltd. Album Reviews
Squid Album Reviews

A crop of young, critically acclaimed post-punk bands emerged in the UK around 2020. It’s tough to keep up – I can barely differentiate Dry Cleaning from Black Country, New Road. My favourite of the crop is probably Squid, a…

Read MoreSquid Album Reviews
Olivia Rodrigo Album Reviews

Olivia Isabel Rodrigo first came to prominence as an actor. She appeared in Bizaardvark and High School Musical. In 2020, she signed a recording contract and quickly became a pop superstar. Her debut single, ‘Driver’s License,’ debuted at number one on…

Read MoreOlivia Rodrigo Album Reviews
Boygenius Album Reviews

Female solo artists Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, and Phoebe Bridgers had never all been in the same room together when they decided to form a band. The three had collaborated on tours – Dacus and Bridgers had both opened for…

Read MoreBoygenius Album Reviews
Sault Album Reviews

British collective Sault have eschewed all the usual rules of music-making in their brief and eventful career. They’ve veiled their identities, never played a live gig, never released a music video, and have produced material at a breakneck pace. Sault…

Read MoreSault Album Reviews
2020s Miscellany Part 2

The consequence of reviewing new releases each week is that I already have too many records for one page. Here’s part two, continuing from part one. Manchester Orchestra The Million Masks of God 2021, 8.5/1021st-century arena rock is often problematic…

Read More2020s Miscellany Part 2
Dua Lipa Album Reviews

Pop music has become a much more respected art form in the past decade. Records like Taylor Swift’s 1989, Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion, and Robyn’s Honey have attained the acclaim usually reserved for more critically favoured musical genres. Dua Lipa’s an obvious candidate to…

Read MoreDua Lipa Album Reviews
Cleo Sol Album Reviews

Born in London, Cleopatra Nikolic’s parents met in a jazz band – her Jamaican dad plays bass and piano, while her Serbian/Spanish mother sings and plays guitar and flute. Cleo Sol was inspired to take up music by Stevie Wonder’s…

Read MoreCleo Sol Album Reviews
Magdalena Bay Album Reviews

Miami synth-pop duo Magdalena Bay consists of songwriter/vocalist Mica Tenenbaum and musician/producer Matthew Lewin. The pair met as high school students, first playing together at Live! Modern School of Music. They formed a progressive rock band, Tabula Rasa, before going…

Read MoreMagdalena Bay Album Reviews
2020s Miscellany

This page collects album reviews for 2020s artists of whom I’ve only reviewed one or two albums. This page became too long to edit easily so there’s a second part covering M-Z. Florence Adooni A.O.E.I.U. 2025, 7/10Florence Adooni was born…

Read More2020s Miscellany
2020s Album Reviews

Less than two years into the new decade, it’s already been eventful. A global pandemic and #blacklivesmatter protests have already created ten years’ worth of chaos. Because the decade’s only just started, it will take a while to populate this…

Read More2020s Album Reviews
Soccer Mommy Album Reviews

Sophie Allison was born in Switzerland and grew up in Nashville. She self-released guitar-pop as a teenager on Bandcamp, before releasing her official debut, Clean, in 2018. While she records with a band, Soccer Mommy is effectively an alias for…

Read MoreSoccer Mommy Album Reviews