4. The Hope Six Demolition Project - PJ Harvey.
Politics, poverty and apocalyptic imagery stand centre stage in PJ Harvey’s latest album. It echoes some of the themes from the Mercury Prize winning ‘Let England Shake’ but with a defined anger from earlier albums like ‘Dry’. Its not all doom and gloom with Polly Jean though; lead single ‘Community of Hope’ is a delicate ballad named after a charity she spent time working with during the writing of the album. Harvey’s 9th album is definitely a challenging listen but a very important one in the context of a world infested with inequality in every corner.
5. A Moon Shaped Pool - Radiohead.
So, erasing their entire internet presence and releasing a new album with two days’ notice is probably the most Radiohead-like stunt that Radiohead could've pulled. A Moon Shaped Pool is an eerie, puzzling triumph that exudes passion and anxious ambivalence throughout. Thom Yorke is definitely not one to wear his heart on his sleeve but he slithers tenderly between each desolate track with such raw emotion as he croons an anxious "i feel this love run cold" as the beautifully bleak 'Glass Eyes' fades out. We were all lulled into a sense of false security by lead single "Burn the Witch". It was a deceptive slice of classic Radiohead; full of vicious cellists and spiraling chorus' that in no way prepared us for what was about to come.
6. Untitled Unmastered - Kendrick Lamar.
It is as if Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Untitled Unmastered’ is on the flip side of Kanye’s life of Pablo – its an album that makes a small but extremely relevant statement. It is as if ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ was for us but Kendrick’s latest work is completely self indulgent but without the boast that weights so much of his contemporaries’ work. Consisting of a short series of rugged lo-fi tracks seems like Lamar’s attempt to puncture the inflated expectations of him since the release of “To Pimp a Butterfly”.
MUSIC.