Album: Nia Archives - Sunrise Bang ur Head Against the Wall

★★★★ NIA ARCHIVES - SUNRISE BANG UR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL The jungle-pop star shows precisely what she's made of in this condensed statement

The jungle-pop star shows precisely what she's made of in this condensed statement

We are way, way past the point where it makes any sense to talk of jungle or drum’n’bass “revivals”. Thirty years from the emergence of jungle from the rave scene, its tempo and tropes have remained a staple sound for generation upon generation of clubbers, boy racers and festival goers. It is woven into the fabric of global, and particularly British, culture just as integrally as, say, indie rock guitars are.

Album: Shania Twain - Queen of Me

Music to frighten the horses

Shania Twain describes her sixth studio album as “a song of gratitude and appreciation. I was inspired that I still had air in my lungs” – and it certainly is a hi-energy affair, a long way from The Woman in Me, the sophomore outing that established her as “the queen of country-pop”. Twain’s come a long way from the mining and lumbering towns of her Ontario childhood – literally and metaphorically, for home is now on Lake Geneva.

Album: Måneskin - Rush!

Raucous, gritty Roman rockers release their third album

Rock'n'roll rejuvenators, Eurovision winners with more of their songs streamed online than there are people in the world, the glammy young Roman rockers have opened for The Stones in Las Vegas, delivered a city-stopping sold-out show at Rome’s historic Circus Maximus and been hailed as “America’s New Favorite Rock Band,” in the Los Angeles Times.

Album: Biig Piig - Bubblegum

★ BIIG PIIG - BUBBLEGUM Punchy statement of intent for the Irish pop self-starter

Punchy statement of intent for the Irish pop self-starter

Despite the silly name, the pigtails, the propensity for cutesy posing with ice cream and candy, and of course the title Bubblegum all playing with ingenue tropes, Biig Piig – or Jessica Smyth – is a serious proposition. Irish born, partly Spanish raised, now resident in both London and LA, she’s been in the public eye since her songs started clocking up millions of streams in her late teens, and she seems to have quite a good grasp of where she’s going.

Albums of the Year 2022: Dina Ögon - Dina Ögon

AOTY 2022: DINA OGON - DINA OGON A very special sound from Sweden

A very special sound from Sweden

Some of what’s nourishing the debut album by Sweden’s Dina Ögon is evident. A Bossa Nova jazz-pop essence evokes Brazil’s Quarteto em Cy. There’s a trip-hop undertow. Vocal lines bring to mind Free Design. Less easy to pinpoint is a melodic sensibility which seems to be derived from local traditions; echoing the sort of fusion pioneered by Jan Johansson’s Jazz på svenska and Merit Hemmingson when she reframed folk music on the Svensk folkmusik på beat albums.

Album: Backstreet Boys - A Very Backstreet Christmas

★ BACKSTREET BOYS - A VERY BACKSTREET CHRISTMAS The Boys are back with a festive gift: pacing, phrasing and punch not included

The Boys are back with a festive gift: pacing, phrasing and punch not included

Good things don’t tend to come in slews. Slews seem to be reserved, pretty much exclusively, for the bad stuff: legal issues, school shootings, Christmas albums…  

Album: Dermot Kennedy - Sonder

The singer sticks to the plan on his second album of crowd-pleasing, high-polish pop

Not even a worldwide health epidemic could stop the meteoric rise of the Irish singer, who has managed to crack America, achieve national treasure status in his homeland and rack up streaming figures that could actually pay his winter gas bill. Not bad going.

Album: First Aid Kit - Palomino

A soundtrack for growing up, moving on and riding off into the sunset

First Aid Kit have grown up and moved on. So says the cheerful conglomeration of lockdown-emergent pop sounds that makes up their fifth studio album.

Machine Gun Kelly, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - fire and fury from pop punk convert

The Texan was on bombastic form, but lacked substance

If ever a moment summed up the spirit of a gig perfectly, then it is the segment in this arena showcase where Machine Gun Kelly is confronted by the internet, represented by what appears to be a blow up statue with a monitor for a head. As it demands the American rap rocker should be pigeonholed into one genre, he strikes on a solution which involves a helicopter flying in to shoot it. That was a defining trait of this relentlessly bombastic show, of going loud and direct as often as possible.