Weyes Blood is the voice of her generation, Nickelback sound heinous – the week’s albums

Weyes Blood, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow ★★★★★

Natalie Mering, who goes by the name Weyes Blood, laments that “we have all become strangers, even to ourselves” on the opening track of her beautiful new album, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow – a woozy daydream from a hauntingly romantic balladeer whose music offers comfort to the loneliest souls.

At 34, with songs about solitude, the natural world, the power and fragility of women and how technology has shaped modern romance, Mering became a critical darling with a cult following. Sitting somewhere between Joan Baez’s 70s social justice-fuelled folk and Olivia Newton-John’s hyper-feminine 80s pop, Mering’s exquisite, timeless voice and hymnal harmonies hold a nostalgic appeal that unites the Spotify generation and their parents alike. She describes herself as a “nostalgic futurist”.

Mering grew up within a staunchly Pentecostal Christian family in Santa Monica and began making music as a teen – adopting the moniker Wise Blood in reference to Flannery O’Connor’s 1952 collection of stories. She may not have observed the strict morality of her God-fearing parents, both musicians, but her voice and compositions pay homage to the songs she heard in childhood: gospel and hymnal paeans.

Since then, Mering’s compositions have leaned into glorious baroque madrigals, tenderly layering melodies and harmonies as if she were adorning a human body with pearls, coats and scarves.

In the Darkness, Heart Aglow is Mering’s fifth album, and the second in a trilogy dedicated to the fallout from climate change (beginning with 2019 album Titanic Rising). Her lyrics pine for the natural world, with Mering believing that our collective destruction of forests, land and sources of water have fostered division and alienation. Titanic Rising was met with rave reviews, but this record – which spans steely indie-rock and strummed country ballads – might just be her magnum opus.

On the epic, multi-layered harmonies of Children of the Empire, she reimagines a Beach Boys/Shangri Las doo-wop fantasy that is gorgeous when it could have so easily become overwrought. The luscious orchestral compositions (tuba, sax, organ, multiple violins and cellos), riddled with brief interludes of manic keyboards, stormy strings and thundering piano chords, build empires and shatter them within minutes.

Titanic Rising addressed the transient beauty of nature, doomed to human sabotage. It troubles her still, and there is an existential fear and surrender within her lyrics, clear on the ambient beauty of God Turn Me Into a Flower, which puts Mering’s angelic voice under the spotlight.

The song examines how our desire to appear as the flawless creature we curate on social media fights a higher power. What if, in our imperfect present, we are exactly as God intended us? “You see the reflection/ And you want it more than the truth/ You yearn to be that dream you could never get to,” Mering sings. “Cause the person on the other side has always just been you/ Oh, God, turn me into a flower”. Like our planet, this album is a rare thing of wonder. Cat Woods

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 ★★★★★

Recorded in the spring of 1969 before a raucous, sold out audience, The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s performance at the Los Angeles Forum on April 26, 1969 has never been released in its entirety. Finally, though, it is here as a new live album, featuring the band’s original line-up of Hendrix himself, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding.

When you talk to anyone about the music of the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, a common refrain is ‘that you had to be there’ and with this brilliant recording of Hendrix’s whirling dervish of psychedelic, frenetic, hallucinogenic rock, you can be. Every detail had been recorded for posterity. The instrumental tuning up, ardent dedications to the pulsating and excitable crowd and pleas from Hendrix to audience members to stop them from rushing onto the stage. Crowd control was a huge concern and a heavy police presence can be felt; especially when the lyrics to Purple Haze are changed to “Scuse me while I kiss that policeman!”. 

Produced by Janie Hendrix, Jimi’s sister; John McDermott, manager of Hendrix's music catalogue; and Eddie Kramer. Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 features several classics and has been released ahead of what would have been Jimi Hendrix’s 80th birthday on November 27. 

Each song on the album is an immersive and a transcendental experience, it feels like you are right there in your denim bell bottoms, flower power tops and kaftans. Hendrix never relied on a standard set list prioritising commercial hits, and instead gave his adoring fans what they wanted – the pure Jimi Hendrix Experience, including some of virtuoso’s best-loved tracks, from Foxey Lady to an explosive 17-minute medley of Voodoo Child (Slight Return). It is a stellar showcase of the trio’s unparalleled improvisational skill.

This live album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience is a compelling and beautiful tribute to a psychedelic showman who was one of the most pioneering, creative and influential musicians of the 20th century. His legacy, vision and continuing influence can still be felt today. Emma Harrison

Nickelback, Get Rollin’ ★★☆☆☆

Love them or hate them, people will always have an opinion about Nickelback. Despite having sold millions of records and sold out thousands of shows they’re still defined by the meme-worthy moments: the Photograph video will never die, the beefs with journalists and critics. It comes as no surprise then that Get Rollin’ is the sound of a band who no longer care what people think. 

Their tenth studio album kicks off in fine form with the first single, San Quentin. Surprisingly heavy with an intro that sounds like an alarm you might hear at the titular prison (reportedly inspired by a chat between frontman Chad Kroeger and a prison warden he met at – wait for it – Guy Fieri’s birthday party) it is winningly tongue in cheek. If only the whole album was like this, but instead listeners will get whiplash from all the genre changes, which spans American rock, country and frat-boy pop. 

Songs like Those Days are unfortunately heinous. An acoustic guitar-led ballad about the joys of first sexual experiences and slow-dancing to Prince, it’s the musical equivalent of one of those nostalgia-porn Facebook posts about how great everything was decades ago. 

The worst of the bunch is Does Heaven Even Know You’re Missing? A syrupy saccharine ballad, it features lyrics including “Did you come here straight from above? Did you choose to fall from grace and lose your wings to fall in love?” Even pick-up artists would cringe at this, though we can surely expect to hear it over a romance reality show montage in 2023. 

If only the entire record had taken the lead from San Quentin. Nickelback are at their best when they’re not too serious, and Get Rollin’ needs more of that. Jen Thomas

Dermot Kennedy, Sonder  ★★★★☆

Since releasing Without Fear in 2019, Ireland’s best-selling debut album of this millennium, Dermot Kennedy has been troubled by the inwardness that seems to come with artistry. “I exist in an industry where we’re encouraged to think about ourselves only, constantly,” the platinum-selling pop star has said. “And I find that exhausting and uninspiring”.

Sonder, out today, is the 30-year-old’s antidote to such narcissism, the title a word taken from John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, referring to the realisation that every person on earth has just as complex an inner life as you do. It fits the bill perfectly: all 13, ultra-polished tracks have lyrics that are emotive enough to pull at your heart strings, but also vague enough that they are universal in their appeal. Kennedy tackles the big ticket themes: love, loss, and ultimately, hope.

The lead single, Better Days, became a post-pandemic anthem when it was released last year, while on One Life, the existential angst in the lyrics is tempered by the bright, bold production, drawing on ambient electro as well as Kennedy’s life-long love of hip hop.

It’s these moments of experimental magic that make Kennedy more than just the typical troubadour, be that the rapping on Blossoms, or the kaleidoscopic autotune on Dreamer. The opener, Any Love, is reminiscent of Imogen Heap’s epic “folktronica” classic Hide and Seek. The main criticism of this album is just that it’s a shame there aren’t more of these edgier moments.

That said, Innocence and Sadness is as flawless a piano ballad as any, and a reminder of Kennedy’s extraordinary writing chops. Listen, and you’ll understand why individuals as varied as Dua Lipa, Travis Scott, Roy Keane, Shawn Mendes and Taylor Swift are all fans.

Already Gone is another anthem in the making, sure to come alive when Kennedy takes it on his first arena tour next year, which includes sold-out shows at London’s O2 and New York’s Madison Square Gardens. There’s no doubt that the gigs will be powerful, communal experiences; touching ode to lost love Something to Someone is heartbreakingly relatable.

Shaped by soaring guitar, sweeping melodies and a constant foregrounding of the Spotify star’s rich, reverberant voice, Sonder provides a channel for vulnerability in a way that marks Kennedy out as one of the contemporary greats, alongside the likes of Lewis Capaldi and Adele. The result is, of course, crowd-pleasing in the extreme. Kathleen Johnston

Neil Young with Crazy Horse, World Record ★★★★☆

On Neil Young’s 45^th studio album (along with everyone else, I’ve genuinely lost count), the Canadian singer and his backing band Crazy Horse ruminate about the environment, war and the state of the world. Co-produced by Rick Rubin, World Record (clever title) comprises 10 songs that range from tender folk to all-out stompers. Opening track Love Earth is light and breezy with a tinkly piano, slide guitar and brushed drumming. It’s so slight that it’s almost throwaway, yet its elementary two-note chorus lulls you in. Songs like Overhead and This Old Planet are in a similar vein of superior bar blues. The lyrics are almost childlike in their directness. “Overhead the sky’s so blue/ I’m a bird and so are you,” Young sings. The naivety is deliberate and affecting: come on folks, he seems to be saying, looking after the planet is really quite simple.

But Young’s trademark heaviness is in evidence too. I Walk With You (Earth Ringtone) is a sludgy rocker that has a fantastic tempo-change at the two-minute mark when it briefly becomes a military march. Then there’s Chevrolet, which clocks in at over 15 minutes long. The song is marginally longer than the 14-minute, 40-second Change Your Mind from 1994’s Sleeps With Angels (to my mind one of Young’s greatest songs) but, even so, it’s still not Young’s longest song on a studio album. That honour goes to three tracks on 2012’s Psychedelic Pill, the longest of which is 27 minutes long. Still, Chevrolet is epic. It’s about how the days of driving big cars need to be numbered.

The simplicity of Young’s message is best conveyed on the appropriately car-free Walkin’ On The Road (To The Future). “No more war/ Only love,” he sings. It’s hard to argue with that. World Record is classic Young: passionate, direct, ragged and beautiful. James Hall

Röyksopp, Profound Mysteries III ★★★★☆

Twenty-one years after the release of their debut album Melody A. M., Norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp have done things slightly differently. Rather than put out a traditional album, they’ve released a trilogy of LPs over the course of 2022, each one accompanied by a series of short films. The first two parts of the Profound Mysteries project came out in April and August respectively. Now the third and final part is released. Profound Mysteries III is a collection of chillout soundscapes and warm bangers featuring guest vocals from the likes of fellow Norwegian Susanne Sundfør and the UK’s very own Alison Goldfrapp.

It’s a beautiful listen that covers a broad spectrum of electronic music, from the Depeche Mode-like Sundfør collaboration Stay Awhile to the glacial lushness of opener So Ambiguous to the nicely meaty techno of Speed King. Sundfør’s vocals are the standout here. They manage to be both powerful and haunting in the way that Kate Bush’s often are. The song is about longing for intimacy from a position of solitude. “It’s killing me to be all alone/ I’d better take down my defences/ Or the moment will be lost,” she sings. Goldfrapp’s turn is less melodic but just as effective. The Night, on which she features, sounds like something that Leftfield might have done in 1995.

Next year, the band is touring for the first time since 2017 with a UK show at Brixton Academy. These tracks will sound fantastic live. Of course, releasing three albums in one year means that there’s a lot of new Röyksopp content for fans to get their heads around. The trilogy comprises thirty songs totalling just under three hours of music. In the era of the so-called ‘attention economy’ when we have so many things competing for our time, it’s a brave band that unleashes such an extensive body of work. It’s lucky, then, that it’s all so eminently listenable. James Hall

Fousheé, softCORE ★★★★☆

Working her way up from studio musician to opening for James Blake on world tour and co-writing one of the most euphoric songs of 2022 (Bad Habits by Steve Lacy was a deserved no.1 on America’s Billboard 100 chart), Fousheé has been widely touted as the future of pop music.

And on softCORE, which very much deserves to be the 26-year-old artist’s breakthrough album, the singer-songwriter soars highest when she pours gasoline to glittery pop conventions and lets loose as a menacing punk. Simmer Down is Bikini Kill mixed with Lil Wayne – something which shouldn’t work at all but does purely due to Fousheé’s eccentric variety of vocal cadences. “I’ll slap you in the face, I’ll break your heart” is this song’s rallying call.

On Stupid Bitch the artist effortlessly transitions from rage rap theatrics to the gorgeous sonics of a blissful day dream; a string section marks the change from Bad Brains distortion to Minnie-Riperton-on-a-Sunday-afternoon-in-a-hammock levels of comfort. One second she’s hitting falsettos in the whistle register, the next she’s purging her demons to metal guitar rifts.  

Spend the Night is another inspired moment with guest emo rapper Lil Uzi Vert, a song where the pair can’t decide whether they want to jump into the abyss or throw $100 bills in the air. All these radical shifts reflect Fousheé’s genre-fluidity, but it’s also just cool to hear a major label album that doesn’t settle on one over-arching sound, with the changes in tone reflecting a world where the carpet can be violently ripped from underneath our feet at any moment. 

If you were to level any criticism at softCORE, it would be that sometimes Fousheé is in too much of a rush to change the vibe. Unexplainable is lavish and extravagant, but a song that should have its own three minute orchestral section reminiscent of Janelle Monae's The ArchAndroid ends almost as quickly as it begins. The same can be said of Scream My Name, which ends its tongue-lashing chaos way too early, and suddenly sends the album into the flat Britney-lite pop of Let You Back In.

When you are as talented as Fousheé, the temptation to show you're a jack of all trades must be intoxicating, and it's one of the reasons softCORE is such an unpredictable thrill ride. But to go to the next level, the artist needs build on all the experimental ideas and not let them fizzle out too quickly in pursuit of the next trip. Had some of these songs been given a little longer to breathe, it would have been even greater. Thomas Hobbs

Brockhampton, The Family ★★★★☆

Since breaking through in 2017 with their trilogy of Saturation albums, American hip-hop collective Brockhampton have played by their own rules. Formed via a Kanye West message board and promoting themself as ���the best boyband since One Direction”, Brockhampton have spent their career bounding between urgent hip-hop and melodic pop songs. 

Lyrically, the group are just as groundbreaking with leader Kevin Abstract regularly speaking about being queer in the fiercly-straight world of rap alongside songs of race, love and their own brotherhood. There’s always been plenty of space for jokes as well though. In typically Gen-Z fashion, Brockhampton balances trauma with humour, without either losing their razor-sharp edge. It’s little wonder they are so adored. 

However, the 13-strong collective announced an indefinite hiatus at the start of the year, with The Family their farewell album. The 17-track record is as hyperactive, heartfelt and honest as we’ve come to expect from the group. If you want to know exactly why they’re splitting up, the album makes it painfully clear, with talk of friendships turned toxic and the pressures of fame.

For a group who found fame as a collective, The Family strangely sees Abstract as the only featured vocalist, reflecting and venting on the band’s turbulent journey. In an accompanying note, he admits that this record is an attempt at closure, for both him and their passionate fanbase. 

Opener Take It Back is a gospel-tinged look back at the group’s origins and their family bond, while the swaggering RZA compares Brockhampton’s breakup to a divorce. Gold Teeth blends Michael Jackson’s They Don’t Care About Us with the industrial snarl of West’s 2013 Yeezus album while Boyband is a giddy, carefree summertime anthem. Closing track Brockhampton sees Abstract eulogise the collective and the individuals that made it, before joking about solo careers. Loud and sincere, The Family celebrates everything that is so brilliant about Brockhampton, before laying it to rest.

Determined to have one last laugh though, the group celebrated its release by sharing alternative artwork, which proudly displays a middle finger and confirms the release of surprise album TM, made up of tracks featuring the whole collective and originally recorded in 2021. One last act of rebellion and fan-service as the influential collective bow out, it’s perhaps the perfect way for Brockhampton to say goodbye. Ali Shutler

Honey Dijon, Black Girl Magic ★★★☆☆

Fresh from production duties on Beyoncé's Renaissance and guest-starring on Neneh Cherry's The Versions, Honey Dijon (born Honey Redmond) makes her own statement on 15 tracks of Black Girl Magic. 1970s Chicago-born Dijon has made her home in Kreuzberg, Berlin: a city where illustrious techno clubs reign. 

She began DJing in the 90s, mentored by Derrick Carter and Mark Farina. By the end of that decade, she'd infused her Chicago house vibe with the fierce, repetitious techno elements becoming popular in clubs like Berlin’s Tresor. In New York, Dijon established herself as a fashion show DJ, soundtracking Kim Jones’s Louis Vuitton and Dior runways for years. New York's underground clubs and the eclectic, embracing fashion scene provided a sense of community for Dijon, who found her place as a Black, trans woman in the underground New York and Berlin dance clubs. Her second album is – fittingly – a communal affair. Spoken word artists, DJs, vocalists and songwriters all inject their voices and vibes into these funky house tunes.

The buttery-smooth vocals of Compton-born rapper, singer and producer Channel Tres suavely cut a swathe through Show Me Some Love, as a throbbing, modulating synth weaves around the shapes of his voice. Sadie Walker comes in on the chorus, her slightly breathless intonation verging on orgasmic. Singer, rapper, producer and performance artist LATASHA drops an unapologetic, sultry flow on Don't Be Afraid. It bounces along on a squelchy, shuddering house beat, culminating in the climaxing mantra “I'm free, I'm free, I'm free!”

Throughout the tracks, wailing saxophones, elastic bass guitar, and the sweet, rich, jazzy timbre of piano have all the nuance of voices, giving a sense of immediacy that only organic, live instrumentation can amidst a thudding, undulating labyrinth of synths, looping kick drums, cow bells and disco sirens.  

Sonically, it harks to the 90s-era house club party anthems of Green Velvet, Ru Paul, Claude Von Stroke and David Morales. It's sexy, restless, and perfectly suited for creatures of the night to writhe their glittery, glossed-up, bejewelled bodies to for all the ungodly hours. Cat Woods