100 albums of 2021 you shouldn’t miss, plus playlist

Field Works – Cedars (Temporary Residence)

We said: If you’re at all conceptually familiar with the work of William Blake, his Songs Of Innocence And Experience, you’ll see a parallel here; the twining and correspondences of differences is what leads to the progression. And I think that’s what we have here, courtesy Stuart Hyatt’s always enthralling Field Works: one side hot with sun and sustain and a gently fusion mysticism; the other demotic, plain, no less wondering.

Come climb into Cedars, join the two worlds for yourself; the album is long on thought and also on beauty.

Read the interview in full, here

Flyying Colours – Fantasy Country (Club AC30 / Poison City)

We said: The album does not hang around long (all the better to immediately start again). The circular, repeating hypnotic riffs of final track ‘Boarding Pass’ is a gentle and entrancing exit from a very big high. The effect is to induce a glorious reverie with the background drone driving the rhythm and the vocals sleepy and spiritual, given emphasis by a stabbing keyboard and buzz saw guitars that ascend and retreat. It’s immense as the night sky and just as sparkling and enchanting.

The band’s last album was released in 2016. A whole presidential term. 

Read the review in full

Fruit Bats – Pet Parade (Merge)

We said: If you love Fruit Bats’ music as much as I do then you are going to love The Pet Parade. If you don’t know Fruit Bats’ music, then where have you been? Stop what you’re doing right now and get this album on the real or virtual turntable. Then go back and listen to the awesome albums they have put out over the past 20 years. You can thank me later.

The whole review, should you so wish, is here

GB3 – Sakura Flower (Self Released)

We said: Sakura Flower’ is a sparkling, shimmering piece of incandescent dream pop/shoegaze from GB3, with a mesmerising ambient undercurrent. The Church’s Steve Kilbey’s voice is distinctive: deep, evocative, velvet with a barbed wire spine and the music has the gold-plated imprimatur of Underground Lovers’ Glenn Bennie with his ability to create celestial ambient sounds that are immersive and cinematic.

Read it in full, here

The Ghost of Helags – We Came From The Stars (self-released)

We Came From The Stars’ is a magical album that leaves you quite overcome with emotion as you reach for the replay button. End to end, beauty and pain is captured in twelve shimmering and celestial tracks. The consistency in quality of songwriting is quite breathtaking: this is an album with a vaulting ambition that exceeds its reach to the firmament.

Read more, here

The Gluts – Ungrateful Heart (Fuzz Club)

We said: The Gluts stated from their inception that they weren’t afraid to push the boundaries and nowhere is that clearer Ungrateful Heart; from powerful political messages to clever manipulation of genres – these guys know what they are doing and they do it LOUD.

Click here for the entire review

Gnod – La Mort Du Sens (Rocket Recordings)

We said: ‘La Mort Du Sens’ is GNOD’s best album of recent times. They have eschewed the esoteric elements of albums like ‘Faca De Fogo’ (2020) and combined the heaviness of ‘STUBNITZ’ (2020) with the angry punk tightness of ‘Just Say No…’. It is possibly their angriest album yet, the band’s rage at the world in which it was written and recorded audible in Shine’s vocal delivery. It is definitely their tightest album, with an adherence to relatively conventional song structures helping to convey the lyrical themes. It would serve as a good entry point to the band’s back catalogue for noise rock fans unfamiliar with their work. ‘La Mort Du Sens’ is the best album of 2021 so far in my opinion, and confirms GNOD’s position as the UK’s heaviest and most consistently innovative psychedelic noise rock band. I

Read the whole review, here

Gogo Penguin – GGP/RMX (Blue Note)

We said: Good things come to he (and she) who waits; and that GoGo Penguin have bided their time before taking the plunge has proved its own reward. They’ve assembled a really well-chosen cast of remixers who in turn have fashioned a brilliantly intelligent album; 11 tracks ranging from stellar dancefloor bangers through to neo-classical and old-skool ambient chillout – and especially points in between, where musical tectonic plates shift and abrade and subduct with delightful and beguiling results. If you love the places where modern dance and electronica begins to take on other colours and ripple into something quite otherly, you really should invest in this album. It’s a brilliant state-of-the-art showcase.

Find out more with the whole review, here

Golden Fang – The Man With Telltale Scars (Golden Fang)

We said: Golden Fang for the most part eschew traditional song structures. Not for them the old verse/chorus/verse/chorus/middle eight break/chorus pattern: each of their tracks feel more like special moments in time as singer/guitarist Carl Redfern emotes feelings and melodies that are scattered over raw, unadorned, visceral guitar riffs that ebb and flow, recede and engulf in rhythmic patterns. The result is quite frankly hypnotic and mesmerising: ambient music with barbed wire edges and lyrical poetry filtered over the top like fine lacing. ‘The Man With Telltale Scars’ is thus a magnificent series of episodes, movements, feelings and emotions that confirm this band as something quite special.

‘The Man With Telltale Scars’ is a brilliant magnum opus – an immersive journey with a series of eviscerating movements carried on intertwined guitars and pounding rhythms with impossibly beautiful poetry, words filled with anger, frustration, humanity and compassion. It really is a special album. get it though the link below or the usual download/streaming sites.

Goon Sax – Mirror II (Matador / Chapter)

We said: Mirror II’ is a garment of perfectly formed pop songs with a ragged edge and blemishes – but with a golden thread of celestial choruses that binds everything together. The songs are sometimes raw and vulnerable, sometimes lush and rich. It’s a dichotomy that works well and forms a perfectly whole costume. This is a band that might well have its genes formed in the Brisbane sound but is transforming into its own unique apparition; a creation steeped in a brilliant musical history but forging its own path.

Records 41-50