STN Select: March 2025

Actually timely for once, the thirty-strong best of what we heard over the course of this month just ending.

April 29th will mark Sweeping The Nation's twentieth anniversary. We had special things planned to coincide with it. None of them are coming to fruition, or at least not in time for that date. As always, idealism has been ruined by reality and drive.




Adebisi Shank - Start A Band
This is the return of a band called Adebisi Shank. Their first new release in ten years, in fact, with the kind of drive that doesn't suggest they'd been away at all.

Backxwash - Black Lazarus
The most extraordinary album of the year so far, the Montreal-based rapper's fifth album Only Dust Remains absolutely compels you not to turn away with the intensity and complete lack of compromise or veil over the personal or political darkness encompassing.

Black Country, New Road - For The Cold Country
Might be understating things to say the new BC,NR have been divisive, and that woodwind heavy press photo has absolutely not helped (nor has the growing army of those inspired by the Isaac era) but put that baggage aside and hear how this develops from plangency to rococo to percussive soaring.

Bob Mould - Fur Mink Augurs
If you're going to recall the later Husker Du albums, as the Tubs' album does, the man who wrote and sang on them may as well too on Here We Go Crazy.

caroline - Total euphoria
Somehow only 4:30, the post-rock octet skilfully play all their different parts out of time and then gradually coalesce into catharsis.

Dana Gavanski - Bolted Heart
Stately piano-led rumination from EP Again Again.

David Lowery - I Wrote A Song Called Take The Skinheads Bowling
A song about writing Take The Skinheads Bowling, by the man who wrote Take The Skinheads Bowling.

Emma-Jean Thackray - Maybe Nowhere
A slippery groove with thick old bassline housing open thought about the grief that followed her partner's death, from second album Weirdo out on 25th April.

Girl Group - Yay! Saturday
We've had Girlband!, before that we had Girl Band who became Gilla Band, maybe this was the next natural step. Musically understated (self-produced too) for something that itemises the messiest of all nights out and ends in the only way possible. a monologue about piss on a toilet seat.

Kelcey Ayer - Different Planets
The former keyboard player and co-vocalist in Local Natives breaks for a solo career, built on knotty guitar picking and layers forming that recall some of Grizzly Bear's most becalmed moments (speaking of whom, what happened to those reformation dates you said were happening this year, Ed?)

Knitting Circle - Safe Routes
"Safe Routes encourages an end to all arms sales everywhere, and an end to all wars! No borders!" is pretty conclusive, a strident call for human solidarity from the jagged indiepop-post-punk band featuring members of Milky Wimpshake, Crumbs, Red Monkey and No Fit State. 100% of proceeds from Bandcamp sales (after fees) will be donated to Campaign Against Arms Trade

Lawn Chair - Fancy Car, Girlfriend And The Big House
Back into the European post-punk wilds, this time to Cologne where we pick up the kind of synthy pulse that fills floors under a pointed picture of that kind of confident man.

Little Simz - Free
Lotus is out 9th May (on Inflo's label, which is awkward given she's suing him), we find Simbi in contemplative mode that suits her as much as the explosive stuff.

Matt Berninger - Bonnet Of Pins
While Aaron is off producing Gracie Abrams and refusing to apologise for it, world-weary singer boy has made a second solo album, Get Sunk out May 30th, and captures an energy the band haven't always lived up to in very recent years. Even a bit of a New Order influence in there.

Mclusky - people person
I mean, what do you need to know at this stage? Apart from that 'the world is still here and so are we' is out on May 9th.

Mhaol - DM:AM
Is it Mhaol now or still M(h)aol? Sources differ. Anyway, the reconstituted band continue a path between slinky and sinister, deconstructing online harassment and the self-regarding defences thereof on the road to Something Soft, out May 16th.

Neev - He Built Himself
A highlight of the cinematically expansive blown out folk of second album How Things Tie In Knots.

Panic Shack - Gok Wan
ATTN: SHITMUNCHERS. What have they been doing for the two and a half years between releases? Making an album, of course, no details yet but this is its first single. And touring lots, including practically every festival. And drinking, in all likelihood.

pencil - Silent Corners
"Something beautiful turning into something terrifying" according to the band, previewing their Bohemian Clutter EP with something that develops upon flurries of ornate folk-pop.

Perfume Genius - Clean Heart
But you already know how great Glory is.

The Pill - Problem
Five singles of this kind of sticky compressed shoutpop, loads of festivals and HotWax and Panic Shack tour supports ahead, and yet no word of an EP or album. What gives?

Prohibition Prohibition - Columns
Back to the German underground, Munich this time, and anxiety induced build and release post-punk with a vocalist who sounds like Hamish Hawk.

Prolapse - On The Quarter Days
Had they not been teasing it for the last few years and seen them live twice along the way we'd have gone up into orbit at the news that the mid to late 90s' actual finest noise-pop band had reformed. Even with that this is the kind of return that shows they've barely lost a step, noise freakouts, Scottish Mick shouting and all.

Rival Consoles - Catherine
Ambient electronic producer with Jon Hopkins parallels previews ninth album Landscape From Memory by conjuring shards of melody and emotion amid pulsing atmospherics.

Sacred Paws - Winter
The hi-life guitars/busily propulsive drums combination turns up trumps again throughout third album Jump Into Life, this track adding some of Ray Aggs' other speciality, weeping and soaring fiddle.

Snapped Ankles - Smart World
Machine tooled arrythmia from new album Hard Times Furious Dancing

Sugababes - Jungle
Don't know if you know these, they've been around in various Thesean forms for a while now. A weirdly overlooked actual comeback single given how keen people were for new material from the original three before they settled onto the corporate occasion circuit instead, but absolutely bringing their classic era momentum into house-pop modernism.

Sunny Intervals - As Summer Draws In
Late night ruminative/melancholic acoustic indiepop from Andy Hall formerly of Pocketbooks (and Indietracks), from album Swept Away out on 11th April.

Superchunk feat. Rosali - Bruised Lung
Chunky, cripsy power-pop just as they did it back in the day.

Throwing Muses - Drugstore Drastic
Meanwhile the first new Muses album in five years Moonlight Concessions uses acoustic and cello to create the necessary shaded mood, none better than here.

STN Select: February 2025

Adwaith - Planed (from Solas)
Anna Hillburg - The Shape's Gonna Shift My Way
Bambara - Letters From Sing Sing
Bob Mould - Neanderthal
Cheekface - Art House (from Middle Spoon)
Dana Gavanski - Hang In For Us Both
Factory Floor - Between You
Florist - Gloom Designs
Fontaines D.C. - It's Amazing To Be Young
Hurray For The Riff Raff - Pyramid Scheme
King Hannah - Leftovers
mclusky - way of the exploding dickhead
Mirrored Daughters - Unreturning Sun (from Mirrored Daughters)
Neev - My Own Back
Panda Bear - Ends Meet (from Sinister Grift)
Patrick Wolf - Dies Irae
Perfume Genius ft. Aldous Harding - No Front Teeth
Project Overload - Silhouettes
Robin Kester ft. Rozi Plain - Departure
Sacred Paws - Turn Me Down
Scrounge - UTG
Sister Wives - Malady
SMILE - Hot Friend
Snapped Ankles - Pay The Rent
Stuart Pearce - Rope
Tugboat Captain - Dog Tale
Twat Union - Singer Of The Band
Yoshika Colwell - Last Night
Youth Lagoon - Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas) (from Rarely Do I Dream)

STN Select: January 2025

Anna B Savage - Mo Cheol Thú
Hymn to love and to new home Ireland from typically intimate in warmth and detail third album You and i are Earth (capitalisation artist's own), which in a move that makes absolute logical sense shares a producer with Lankum.


C Duncan - Think About It
In case you didn't think they made lavish and sweeping piano-led orchestral romance any more, It's Only A Love Song has all the flourishes, expansive tropes and, yes, ba-ba-ba backing vocals you'd want.


Florist - Have Heaven
The ghost of Big Thief lurks in both Emily Sprague's phrasing and the building outwards intimacy with care. Fifth album Jellywish out 4th April.


GOAT feat. MC Yallah - Nimerudi
Propulsive masked Swedish acid-funk psychedelicists team with rapidfire multilingual Kenya-Uganda rapper and highlight of last year's End Of The Road, bring some blaxploitation flute.


jasmine.4.t - Highfield
Airy sparseness around a dark subject, from debut album You Are The Morning, carefully arranged by all three of its producers, namely Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Never heard of them. Are they good?


Magana - Hold On
The last, Jeni now claims, of a series of seasonally affected EPs, Bad News reflecting the move from winter to spring and sounding appropriately like frost melting.


The Orchestra (For Now) - Skins
Hark, is that the sound of the Brixton Windmill? Don't they have the roof dog any more? The septet's second single hoards nominatively orchestral slow-burn dramatics before bursting out and racing to the skies. EP out on 28th March.


Panda Bear - Ferry Lady
One of those solo Animal Collective projects in that this track also fetures Geologist on "sounds" and Deakin on "synth trumpet". Still sounds as woozy and whacked-out as Panda's best work. From Sinister Grift, out 28th February.


Pigeon Dog - Wet Washing
North London trio stalk the perimeter of knotty alt-rock that might remind some of Throwing Muses or Cay. These are good things.


Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory - Trouble
Yeah, she's got a band now, while still threading the needle between electronics and her signature rolling, self-questioning songwriting. self-titled album out this Friday.


Snapped Ankles - Raoul
And now the other masked psych-art freaks, who follow a post-DFA pulsing, yowling disco-punk groove to the abyss with what seems to be references to Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote disasters. Hard Times Furious Dancing is released on 28th March.


Viagra Boys - Man Made Of Meat
A radio-ready chorus, a ranting on a street corner-ready verse. Look forward to them sending a crowd as nuts as they go in that Research Chemicals Glastonbury experience you've doubtless seen on YouTube. New album is called Viagr Aboys, because why not, and is out April 25th.

20 '25: a score of albums we're looking forward to in the coming twelve months

Those we know about

Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out (10th January)
Sophie Jamieson - I still want to share (17th January)
Anna B Savage - You & i are Earth (24th January)
Sharon Van Etten - Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory (7th February)
Panda Bear - Sinister Grift (28th February)
The Tubs - Cotton Crown (7th March)
The Horrors - Night Life (21st March)

Those we don't

Beach House: playing a bunch of dates in May and June including Primavera, suspicious behaviour for people who haven't released anything for three years

The Beths: seem to tour Australasia perennially but it's two and a half years since Expert In A Dying Field, which they officially brought to a close in September, and they're promising to play new songs in a couple of dates in March

Big Thief: have, as is their way, been playing loads of new songs live lately (here's one), put out an appeal for a recording space in January/February, Uncut claim they're aiming for autumn

Julien Baker & TORRES: actually all three of Boygenius might be active in the next twelve months, with Lucy Dacus already touring new songs and whoever ever knows about Phoebe, but this shamelessly country collaboration has apparently been in the can even before The Record took Baker to new popularity heights and they've already released Sugar In The Tank

LCD Soundsystem: X-Ray Eyes wasn't great, no, but Primavera accidentally leaked the news with their announcement and it was known they were in the studio in late 2023

Little Simz: Drop 7 early on in the year just as Drop 6 preceded Sometimes I Might Be Introvert by a bit over a year, new track Hello Hi casually dropped on 30th December, a casual "See you in 25" on the Instagram announcement

Mclusky: Falco has been talking about a new album for ages, they signed a US deal in July and he posted updates and photos from the studio to social media in autumn, yet the none too disguised promise when dates were announced for May still seemed to surprise people

Panic Shack: this year's obligatory debut album inclusion, our old Cardiff girl gang punk favourites, for all their touring and festival slots since, haven't actually released anything for gone two years but they appear to have been in the studio over the latter period of 2024 and have a big UK tour announced covering May

Pulp: played at least five new songs live in 2024, announced they'd signed to Rough Trade in December, and that natural source Stella Creasy MP says she tipped off by Jarvis they were in the studio in August

Self Esteem: Big Man was a misstep as far as we were concerned but Rebecca says her third album will be out in spring, describing it on Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw's podcast as musically "not what you think... I made quite a complicated listen. It’s horribly honest."

Tunde Adebimpe: the superb Magnetic was accompanied with news that despite TV On The Radio's reunion carrying on well into the year (they're supporting Khrungabin for some reason at Gunnersbury Park in August, notably on Green Man weekend) he's signed to Sub Pop with an LP to follow

Wet Leg: not only announced for a lot of summer festivals but Joe from Fat Dog so casually dropped into an interview with DIY that nobody seems to have noticed that they followed his band into James Ford's studio

The xx: Romy confirmed to NME almost exactly a year ago that they were back in the studio: "I think Oliver and Jamie and I have all tried new things and learned a lot from different projects and I think that’s quite healthy to be like, ‘What have you learned? What should we do now?’ And I think it’s quite wide open and it’s exciting to be starting again in a way. But we’ve started making some music and I’m really excited about it"


AND ALSO? Adwaith, Alan Sparhawk (the songs he's been playing live, not the odd experimental beats of White Roses, My God), Backxwash, Bambara, C Duncan, Courtney Barnett, Deradoorian, Doves, Double Diamond Club (Helen Love and John Mouse), Dry Cleaning, Emma-Jean Thackray, Ex-Vöid, Hamilton Leithauser, Heartworms, Horsegirl, John Glacier, Julia Jacklin, Keg, Laundromat Chicks, Lorde, Lucy Dacus, Massive Attack, Melin Melyn, My Bloody Valentine (yeah, yeah), Sky Ferreira (ditto), Snail Mail, Sparks, Spoon, These New Puritans, Viagra Boys, Wednesday (though Karly has suggested despite already being recorded this is more likely to be 2026 due to MJ's touring commitments), Young Knives, Youth Lagoon