New releases on CD & DVD
Album: PUP - Who Will Look After The Dogs?
Friday, 02 May 2025
PUP’s Who Will Look After The Dogs? is a raw and emotionally charged album that captures the band’s chaotic spirit while showing clear growth in both sound and subject matter. Across 12 tracks, the Toronto group delivers a mixture of driving punk energy, wry humour and moments of vulnerability. It is a loud and heartfelt record that might not hit the heights of their best work, but still leaves a strong and lasting impression.
Album: Suzanne Vega - Flying With Angels
Thursday, 01 May 2025
Wow, can it really be 40 years since Solitude Standing, the second studio album by Suzanne Vega who put the 1980s folk revival on the map. “Fast folk” the New York scene was called, and its voices emerged from much the same Greenwich Village cafes which were the proving ground for the 1960s revival that introduced Bob Dylan to the world.
Album: Lael Neale - Altogether Stranger
Wednesday, 30 April 2025
Over its crisp 32 minutes and nine songs, Altogether Stranger embraces electropop, lo-fi terrain and gothic solo contemplation. By deconstructing...
Album: Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars
Monday, 28 April 2025
Following a tradition that reaches back to the The Who’s Tommy, bands and musicians with serious artistic ambition have created rock operas, reaching...
Album: Dr Robert & Matt Deighton - The...
Saturday, 26 April 2025
There’s this mod milieu, harking back to the Eighties. Weller at the forefront; Dr Robert and his Blow Monkeys; all righteously hate Thatcher; then...
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
Album: Self Esteem - A Complicated Woman
Dissecting the utter tripe 21st-century western women navigate every day. In song! |
Album: Billy Idol - Dream Into It
Immense charm and uniqueness shine through, but too much leaning into the generic |
Album: Viagra Boys - Viagr Aboys
Louder, weirder and all the way in |
Album: Maria Somerville - Luster
Irish musical impressionist embraces shoegazing |
Album: Ronny Graupe's Szelest - Newfoundland Tristesse
A deep, subtle and constantly engaging album |
Album: Gigspanner Big Band - Turnstone
Third album from British folk’s biggest big band |
Album: Mark Morton - Without the Pain
Second solo album from Lamb of God guitarist lays down hefty southern boogie |
DVD/Blu-ray: In a Year of 13 Moons
UK disc debut for Fassbinder's neglected, tragic, tender trans tale |
Album: Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson - What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow
Finger-picking good |
Album: Joe Lovano - Homage
Free-flowing spontaneity |
Album: Bon Iver - SABLE ƒABLE
An album of exquisite wonder |
Album: Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong
A left turn that trades chaos for charm, with mixed results |
Album: Sofia Härdig - Lighthouse of Glass
Swedish singer-songwriter takes control of her music |
Blu-ray: Yojimbo / Sanjuro
A pair of Kurosawa classics, beautifully restored |
Album: The Waterboys - Life, Death and Dennis Hopper
An alternately involving then naff tribute to a countercultural film figurehead |
Album: Miki Berenyi Trio - Tripla
Debut set from Lush singer-songwriter’s new trio |
Album: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Death Hilarious
Geordie rockers’ pulverising psych metal is guaranteed to rattle windows |
Album: Elton John and Brandi Carlile - Who Believes in Angels?
Elton John & Brandi Carlile step out in style |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Substance
French director Coralie Fargeat on the making of her award-winning body-horror movie |
Album: Erlend Apneseth - Song Over Støv
Norwegian musical impressionist’s journey into the centre of a vortex |
Album: Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt - Loose Talk
A match made in urban nightlife and the mysteries of everyday living |
Album: Will Smith - Based on a True Story
Big Willie’s back - but maybe he should’ve stayed home |
Album: Perfume Genius - Glory
Album seven from an artist carving out his own space in the most modernist of ways |
Album: Alison Krauss & Union Station - Arcadia
Their first album in 14 years looks hard at the past, and its role in the present |
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Pimpinone, Royal Opera in the Linbury Theatre review - farce...
Full marks to the Royal Opera for good planning: one first night knocking us all sideways with the darkest German operatic tragedy followed by...
Krapp's Last Tape, Barbican review - playing with the l...
In the Stygian darkness of a bare room, a table on a low platform with a light hanging overhead starts to emerge. Then a door briefly...
Formula E: Driver, Prime Video review - inside the world...
The success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive not only provoked a viewer-stampede towards the world’s most expensive sport, but also...
Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, Tate Modern review - memories are...
A traditional Korean house has appeared at Tate Modern....
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review - total music drama
Wagner’s universe, in the second of his Ring operas which brings semi-humans on board to challenge the gods, matches exaltation and misery, terror...
Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street re...
Does it spark joy? Yes, definitely...and maybe we music critics should ask the Marie Kondo question more often. London-based vocalist/lyricist...
The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music,...
The makers of The Extraordinary Miss Flower are billing it as a “performance film”, a subspecies of the concert-movie...
Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade review - how the gr...
Purporting to be a documentary about John Lennon in the 1970s, Borrowed Time is no such thing....