|   | | Jim Keays | | Dirty, Dirty | | Time Has Come Today – originally a hit for The Chambers Brothers the year The Masters Apprentices unleashed their debut single – could be the story of Jim Keays’ career. “I’ve been loved... more |
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 | | Mark Lanegan Band | | Blues Funeral | | | The ever productive Mark Lanegan returns with his first solo album since 2004’s Bubblegum in fine form. Opening with the southern gothic lament of The Gravedigger’s Song, the album... more |
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|  | | Speech Debelle | | Freedom of Speech | | | Three years on from her unlikely ascent to the 2009 Mercury Prize for stunning debut Speech Therapy – with Melbourne’s Plutonic Lab and Wayne Lotek pulling the production strings – young... more |
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 | | Bonobo | | Black Sands Remixed | | | Simon Green from Brighton first released music as Bonobo in the late 1990s, when the world was gripped by an unprecedented enthusiasm for lounge/chill-out CD compilations. While such releases... more |
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|  | | Pat Martino | | Undeniable: Live at Blues Alley | | | Pat Martino’s extraordinary musical journey continues with a live album, recorded at Washington D.C’s famous jazz club in 2009. The line-up of Hammond organ, tenor sax and drums (no bass) reverts... more |
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 | | Lachlan Bryan | | Shadow of the Gun | | | This is an impressive debut solo. Is it too early to be talking Top Ten for 2012? Lachlan Bryan is highly recommended as ‘one to watch’. He’s member of Melbourne alt-country band The Wildes... more |
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|  | | Cathedral | | Anniversary | | | Doom metal is the genre’s dark horse. The often painfully slow approach and morose lyrics have never attracted wider appeal despite the fact that Black Sabbath – the world’s first heavy metaller... more |
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|  | | Pet Shop Boys | | Format | | | Spanning 1996 to 2009, these 38 collected B-sides overflow with Pet Shop Boys’ patented dance-pop euphoria. A handful of tracks veer into more traditional piano balladry, but generally everything... more |
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 | | The 2 Bears | | Be Strong | | | The London duo of Raf Daddy and Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, The 2 Bears turn in a debut album that can better resemble a free-ranging house mix. Be Strong name-checks their diverse inspirations,... more |
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|  | | Goldfrapp | | The Singles | | | Lining up a dozen Goldfrapp singles with two new ones makes for a winning distillation of the English duo’s five albums. As Will Gregory lays on keen synths, singer Alison Goldfrapp glides from... more |
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 | | Pepe Deluxe | | Queen of the Wave | | | Despite their electronic origins, Finnish project Pepe Deluxé dive into kitschy ’60s-style psych on their first album in five years. It’s even subtitled “an esoteric pop opera in three parts”.... more |
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|  | | Emma Russack | | Sounds of Our City | | | “Tonight I’m gonna go out, get drunk and find someone to take me home/ No great expectations, anyone will do.” It’s a striking opening to Emma Russack’s debut album. Sounds footloose and fancy-free,... more |
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|  | | Witch Hats | | Pleasure Syndrome | | | Welcome to the Pleasure Syndrome, the assured second album for Melbourne band the Witch Hats. “I got the blues,” Kris Buscombe sings,“I got no way out. A buzzsaw running through my brain.”... more |
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 | | Go-Go Sapien | | This Body is Wrong for Us | | | [CD+DVD] “I don’t think, therefore I am not.” So states Will Hindmarsh in Go-Go Sapien’s second album, a kooky celebration of B-movies and schlock rock. The songs also provide the soundtrack... more |
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|  | | Gemma Ray | | Island Fire | | | A recent visitor to Australian shores supporting Grinderman; Essex-born, Berlin-based Gemma Ray took the fork in the road marked orchestral pop noir in producing her third album, part of which... more |
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 | | Tough Love | | Pulled Apart by Horses | | | The Leeds youngsters return with their sophomore album Tough Love, with legendary producer Gil Norton (Echo & the Bunnymen, The Triffids, Pixies) enlisted to distil their trademark... more |
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|  | | Vintage Trouble | | The Bomb Shelter Sessions | | | The Bomb Shelter Sessions Recent visitors Vintage Trouble, a much vaunted LA soul outfit signed to legendary manager Doc McGhee’s stable of artists (Bon Jovi, Motley Crüe), quickly graduated... more |
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 | | Onwards to the Wall | | A Place to Bury Strangers | | | New York City noiseniks A Place To Bury Strangers – oft referred to as the ‘loudest band in NYC’ – are frequently compared to the Jesus and Mary Chain. This EP sees little initial change from... more |
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|  | | Gonjasufi | | MU.ZZ.LE | | | Two years after grubby San Diegoraised vocalist and patchouli sniffer Sumach Ecks hooked up with The Gaslamp Killer and Flying Lotus to craft his grit-scarred, tape-crackled, re-edit epic A... more |
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 | | The Away Team | | Scars + Stripes | | | The Away Team are classic rap underdogs. The North Carolina duo aren’t a crew for profound musical or lyrical statements. Nope, Sean Boog and Khrysis cobble together low-slung, understated hip... more |
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|  | | Styles P | | Master of Ceremonies | | | Though his beat selection may be found wanting at times, New York’s Styles P has long been a beast on the mic, capable of both poignant street reflection and rugged ghettoism. Unlike most tough-talkers,... more |
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 | | Hermitude | | HyperParadise | | | Sydney beat embroiders Hermitude come out all guns blazing on fourth record HyperParadise. Opening salvo Engage lives up to its name with a big-beat assault of epic proportions.... more |
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|  | | Field Music | | Plumb | | | Travelling 15 songs in 35 minutes is the latest, briskly paced album from Sunderland siblings Peter and David Brewis and their Field Music bandmate Andrew Moore. Moving quickly through a range... more |
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 | | My Best Fiend | | In Ghostlike Fading | | | The debut full-length from five-piece My Best Fiend is expansive in scope, and intimate in sound. From the outset, Higher Palms is a clear statement of intent, matching clear, resonant... more |
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|  | | Caged Animals | | Eat Their Own | | | If bedroom pop is a genre, implying a home-spun manufacture and unpolished quality, then it must be a varied one. It implies tidy and organised records potentially made in neatly arranged flats,... more |
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 | | Sharon Van Etten | | Tramp | | | Recorded in the studio garage of The National’s Aaron Dessner, Tramp documents the life of an artist in flux. Literally written while Sharon Van Etten drifted between various places over... more |
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|  | | Blue Heat | | Irresistible Behaviour | | | From Warrnambool, on Victoria’s south-west coast, the seven piece Blue Heat finished 2011 on a high by reissuing of their award-winning 1996 album fully remastered, with two bonus live tracks.... more |
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|  | | Mary Black | | Stories from the Steeples | | | A pure, sensitive voice – and impeccable taste in her choice of material ever present throughout a recording career that began in 1975 – has made Mary Black a major artist in her native Ireland,... more |
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 | | Ruthie Foster | | Let It Burn | | | Texan singer Ruthie Foster’s mix of gospel, blues, soul and folk made a lasting impression on audiences privileged to see her at 2011’s Bluesfest. Her latest album was recorded in New Orleans,... more |
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|  | | Bryen Willems | | No Band Here Till Friday | | | Willems is a Louisiana native who’s made Australia home, his interest in music ignited since his arrival. Although this is such authentic hardcore honky tonk, you’d have thought he brought it... more |
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|  | | Rattlehand | | Rattlehand | | | Rattlehand are a band from Brisbane who have been making some noise in the past year and receiving some well deserved attention. This is the debut full-length album from six mates – experienced... more |
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 | | Glen Campbell | | Meet Glen Campbell | | | [New extended edition] Doesn’t everyone know Glen Campbell and his mega-hits Galveston, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Wichita Lineman, among others? A unique singer,... more |
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|  | | Skeletonwitch | | Forever Abomination | | | Skeletonwitch has been pulverising audiences for nine years, and the release of their fourth studio album finds the band refining their sound, without sacrificing an ounce of intensity. Repeated... more |
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 | | Scorpions | | Comeblack | | | Germany’s longest running hard rock band, Scorpions are winding down their career after a 47 (!) year long run. Their final studio album, 2010’s Sting of the Tail, was a fine release... more |
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|  | | Lacuna Coil | | Dark Adrenaline | | | Formed in Italy circa 1994, Lacuna Coil were one of the first bands to make a name for themselves in the gothic/metal scene. They soon altered their style to cater to the then emerging nu-metal... more |
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 | | Primal Fear | | Unbreakable | | | 15 years on and Germany’s leading traditional metal band Primal Fear is showing no signs of decay. Unbreakable – their ninth studio album – finds the band returning to their roots after... more |
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|  | | Kylie Minogue | | Aphrodite Les Folies | | | [DVD, Blu-ray] Even dyed-in-the-wool music purists must now defer: Kylie Minogue is bona fide Australian music royalty, inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame by PM Julia Gillard (no doubt... more |
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|  | | Richard Thompson | | Live at Celtic Connections | | | [DVD, Blu-ray] Richard Thompson has forever been associated with the UK folk music of the ’60s/’70s via his work with Fairport Convention, and with his former wife, Linda. Yet here he... more |
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 | | Paul McCartney | | The Love We Make | | | [DVD, Blu-ray] After witnessing 9/11 stuck on the ground at JFK airport, Paul McCartney wanted to help New York. This documentary by Albert ‘Gimme Shelter’ Maysles captures McCartney’s... more |
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