8 d. ago Model/Actriz: Pirouette review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(True Panther Sounds/Dirty Hit)Inspired by Mariah and Kylie but full of jackhammer rhythms and noise, the quartet’s second album could attract a big followingYou can see why Model/Actriz’s 2023 debut album Dogsbody attracted a lot of approving critical attention. In an era when rock music largely leans towards familiarity – where originality has essentially come to mean rearranging recognisable sounds from the past in a relatively fresh way – here was a band who genuinely didn’t seem to sound much like anyone else.The Brooklyn quartet had released a handful of noisy singles pre-Covid, which attracted vague comparisons to the notoriously challenging clangour of the late 70s no wave movement or the frenetic dance-punk of Liars, an outlier band on the far left field of the early 00s New York scene that gave the world the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But on Dogsbody they honed their sound into something entirely their own. Continue reading...

Culture

2 w. ago Self Esteem: A Complicated Woman review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(Polydor)After her big breakthrough and West End fame, Rebecca Lucy Taylor works through her worries in real time on her new album – to fascinating and confusing effectLast week, London’s Duke of York’s theatre played host to an elaborate four-night live staging of Self Esteem’s third album. Devised by Self Esteem herself – Rebecca Lucy Taylor – along with Tony award-winning theatrical director and designer Tom Scutt, it was rapturously received by critics, and seemed to speak of an entirely understandable confidence on Taylor’s part.Since 2017, she has completely reinvented herself, from one half of middle-ranking indie duo Slow Club into an on-her-own-terms pop star. Her second album as Self Esteem, 2021’s Prioritise Pleasure, was a critical and commercial success, shifting her into the realm of breakfast TV interviews and appearances on The Graham Norton Show and Celebrity Bake-Off. She also has a burgeoning career as an actor, having played Sally Bowles in a West End production ...

Politics

3 w. ago Scottish Ballet: The Crucible, Aberdeen review: 'prayer books wielded like weapons'

Choregraphy and score work in perfect tandem to evoke the hysteria and hatred engulfing Salem in Scottish Ballet’s revival of The Crucible, writes Kelly Apter

Events

3 w. ago Julien Baker and Torres make space for their own stories on the country

The Tennessee duo are faithful to country’s traditions while also delivering songwriting about queer love, addiction and anxiety

Politics

3 w. ago Julien Baker and Torres: Send a Prayer My Way review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(Matador)The two deep south songwriters ditch country’s rhinestones for a personal, defiant reframing of the genre’s tropesThe origins of Send a Prayer My Way stretch back nearly a decade. The partnership between US singer-songwriters Mackenzie “Torres” Scott and Julien Baker germinated in 2016, when the pair performed together in Chicago. Scott subsequently suggested, in a text sent during the pandemic, that they make a country album. Accusations that the pair are jumping on an ongoing trend for high-profile pivots towards a Nashville-oriented sound – which has so far involved the likes of Beyoncé, Post Malone, Zayn Malik, Chappell Roan and Lana Del Rey – are thus diffused.Nevertheless, it still feels telling that Send a Prayer My Way arrives now. Baker has spent much of the 2020s as one-third of Boygenius, a collaboration with Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers that made her far more famous than her previous solo albums. It spiralled into something that resembled a genuine pop phenome...

Politics

3 w. ago David Bowie’s daughter Lexi Jones launches new album with defiant message to haters

Lexi Jones proved she'd inherited her father's aptitude for music this week with the release of her debut album, but despite the milestone she has shared her frustration at being compared to the music icon

Politics

3 w. ago Will Smith's comeback album 'flops' as his first record in 20 years sells very few copies in the wake of the Chris Rock Oscars slap scandal

Last month, the actor and rapper, 56, released his latest record Based On A True Story, but despite his superstar status, the album only sold 268 copies in its first week in the UK.

Science