I wanted to have 20 albums in this roundup. And for a while I actually did. But I had to delete one because I couldn’t find a single shred of information about it anywhere online. That almost always means one of two things: 1 | The release has been delayed but they didn’t tell anyone; 2 | The artist or label is too disorganized / clueless / arrogant to post even the most basic info about their own music — or to find someone else to do it. Frankly, life is too short to deal with dumbasses like that. Especially when you can spend your time listening to folks like these, who clearly have their shit together (in more ways than one). Let’s run the numbers:
The Guy Hamper Trio (ft. James Taylor)
Vol. IV: The Goddess Tree
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Guy Hamper Trio was formed by Billy Childish, after a chat with his friend James Taylor (the Hammond organ players, not the singer-songwriter). Billy and James had played respectively in The Milkshakes and The Prisoners, often sharing the same bill in the early ’80s, leading to Billy’s blues ensemble The Natural Born Lovers being the support act for the early shows of The James Taylor Quartet. The Guy Hamper Trio is: Childish on guitar, his wife Julie on bass and Wolf on drums — who, as it happens, was the drummer in the original incarnation of JTQ — and of course features Taylor on organ. The Guy Hamper Trio provide blues-influenced instrumental mayhem for those unafraid of dirt, germs and true grime. With no particular wish other than to be recognised as the best at playing badly, they refuse to obey the usual rules of combat and music.”
Mdou Moctar
Tears Of Injustice
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “If Funeral For Justice was the sound of outrage, Tears Of Injustice is the sound of grief. Mdou Moctar’s new album is Funeral for Justice completely re-recorded and rearranged for acoustic and traditional instruments. It is an evolution of the band’s critically adored breakout — the meditative mirror-image to the blistering original. “We wanted to make a separate version of Funeral for people to hear,” explains the band’s U.S. bassist and producer Mikey Coltun. “We’re always playing around with arrangements at shows. We wanted to prove that we could do it on a record, too. And there’s a whole other side of the band that comes out when we play a stripped down set. It becomes something new. On Funeral For Justice, anger at the plight of Niger and the Tuareg people is plainly expressed in the music’s volume and velocity. On Tears, the songs retain that weight sans amplification. They are steeped in sadness, conveying the grief of a nation locked into a constant churn of poverty, colonial exploitation, and political upheaval. It is Tuareg protest music in raw and essential form. “When Mdou writes the lyrics, he typically writes them with an acoustic guitar. So you’re getting closer to that original moment,” says Coltun. “It retains heaviness, but it’s haunting.”
Panda Bear
Sinister Grift
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On Sinister Grift, Panda Bear’s first solo album in five years, Noah Lennox has returned with another statement that feels equally cumulative and unprecedented in his catalog. While his solo records have ranged from starkly intimate expressions of grief to colorful, electronic opuses, his music has never before sounded so warm and immediate. Working in his Lisbon, Portugal home studio with Animal Collective bandmate Josh “Deakin” Dibb, Lennox transforms Panda Bear into something resembling an old-school rock ensemble, playing nearly all the instruments himself and inviting kindred spirits into the process such as Cindy Lee, Spirit Of The Beehive’s Rivka Ravede, and — for the first time on a Panda Bear solo album — each of his Animal Collective bandmates.”
Punter
Australienation
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Punter are back with another barrage of rabid and raucous hits. Still seamlessly straddling the line between proto-punk melodies and hardcore aggression but with even more brass and intensity than before. True resentment and hate for a nation combined with a hard working, Dexie-fuelled tour ethic has led Punter to spit out this jacked-up bar brawl of an LP that quite honestly could only have been executed by these three Aussie tearaways. This record will equally scratch the itch of any Radio Birdman fan, as it would a Dead Kennedys fan, while being completely relatable for the young punks of today.”
Split Dogs
Here to Destroy
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “London rock ’n’ roll revivalists Split Dogs are not here to make 15-second viral videos. They’re not here to sell you a lifestyle. They’re here to destroy. Born from the frustration of seeing music become commodified and soulless, vocalist Harry Atkins and guitarist Mil Martinez had the idea to form a band as far back as 2015, with the name Split Dogs pulled from the classic zombie film Return of the Living Dead. Here to Destroy was recorded over three days at Middle Farm Studios by producer Peter Miles. All tracks were laid straight to a 16-track reel-to-reel tape machine — no Autotune, no effects pedals, no computers. To add to the music’s authenticity, the album was recorded live, with Harry singing along in a vocal booth. No cutting and pasting, just nailing takes. According to Martinez, “It was a blast! We fully immersed ourselves, sleeping in a small apartment below the studio, cooking meals and listening to Pete’s extensive record collection.” Harry channels the spirit of Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister as they tear through hook after hook, singing about the Northern Soul clubs their mother once frequented, the Orwellian nightmare we’re heading for and a touching homage to British working class culture.”
Tunic
A Harmony of Loss Has Been Sung
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A Harmony of Loss Has Been Sung is a document of pure pain. The six songs that span Tunic’s fourth record are intense, uncomfortable and bleak as hell. The midwest duo move away from traditional songwriting and find themselves creating guttural, cathartic outpourings of tortured rage that combine elements of post-rock, skramz and of course, noise-rock. Tunic have always been a vessel for dealing with pain. However, the band’s latest effort chronicles not just frontman David Schellenberg’s pain, but his wife’s too; as the album centres around the miscarriage that the couple experienced in early 2023. Throughout the album Schellenberg tells the story of heartbreak between depraved screams of lunacy and defeated washed-out monotone that perfectly move in tandem with the heaviest compositions the band has ever crafted.”
The Unfit
Disconnected
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The hardest working boys in music are back! Following an amazing 2022-2023 world tour in support of their ground-breaking 2022 EP Ants In the Big Machine, The Unfit got right back to work in 2024 on what may prove to be the greatest musical project the world has ever seen, “[INSERT TITLE].” Whoa Nelly! These astounding phenoms could live comfortably off their portfolio incomes at this point, so what’s the rush boys? The brilliant literal geniuses don’t even all live in the same city anymore. They don’t even all live in the same state! How do they do it? I’ll tell you how they do it: Faith. Faith in the system. Faith in the magnanimous governmental, financial, and corporate institutions that provide for us, teach us right from wrong, nourish us with their foods and medicines, bestow the wisdoms of their sciences and technologies, protect us from ourselves, and mold us in their glorious image. Glory to the system. May doubters be punished for their wickedness.”
Who Shot Scott
Brain Side B
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Who Shot Scott is the musical project of Zaidoon Nasir, a producer and experimental hip-hop artist based in Auckland. In a short four-year run, Who Shot Scott has completed his Mercy EP trilogy, supported the likes of Snoop Dogg and Yung Gravy and toured throughout Aotearoa, Australia and Singapore. Who Shot Scott kicked off 2025 with Pack Steel, a funk-fueled new single taken from his upcoming EP Brain Side B. Packed with irresistibly funky basslines, distorted vocals, and punchy drum breaks, Pack Steel promises to get your head nodding. But beyond its infectious grooves, this track dives deep into personal reflection, exploring the emotional fallout of a fractured friendship and the self-awareness born from conflict.”
Year Of The Cobra
Year Of The Cobra
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Guitars? Who needs guitars in heavy music? Year Of The Cobra can happily do without the ones that have only thin strings and are mostly good for fiddling around. Vocalist Amy Tung Barrysmith gets a massive groove and lush heaviness out of her bass, which is more than enough to fuel the booming twin engine made from doom metal and psychedelic sludge that drives their self-titled third full-length. Year Of The Cobra have honed their songwriting, which is more to the point, and produces catchy yet super-heavy tunes that are tailor-made to fit the band’s strongest aspects. Amy’s rich alto and the seamless rhythmical rapport between her bass lines and Jon Barrysmith’s emotive drumming come to the fore. Year Of The Cobra were formed in Seattle in 2015. As a duo, they had to carve out their own niche, which they did with deceptive ease. Now they are ready for the next step as their self-titled third full-length irrefutably proves.”
