Anna von Hausswolff – Dead Magic

This thing is just mesmerising. There’s an ongoing debate in AVH’s home country of Sweden as to how exactly to classify her music. It’s dark and heavy, layered with these cinematic organ drones and stretched with some impassioned vocals. It’s melodic but it’s avant garde at the same time. As much pop as it is doom metal. Luckily, unlike the Swedish Grammys, we don’t have to classify it. We can just tune in and let it sweep us away on a powerful and hypnotic journey.

Camp Cope – How To Socialise & Make Friends

A little rock and roll gem here coming straight outta Melbourne. Camp Cope offer a lot of that 90s throwback grunge trio to their sound but there’s also a distinctly 2018 level of vitality to it. A fiery feminism coupled with a disarming vulnerability, lead singer Georgia Maq is most definitely a songwriter to keep an eye on. Tell you what, there’s a little bit of their fellow Melbournian Courtney Barnett in this too, particularly if you’re not turned off by an Aussie accent in a song. Trans-Tasman bias aside, of course. Good stuff.

Titus Andronicus – A Productive Cough

Titus Andronicus goes classic rock. A big, sprawling event of an album covering 47 minutes across only seven songs and also covering Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone (styled as (I’m) Like A Rolling Stone and directed by/at lead-man Patrick Stickles himself). Ambitious, sure. It ain’t bad either. Stickles has always had that Springsteenian Epic about him even at his punkiest and this is him fully indulging in it. Conspicuously after that ‘live in studio’ feel and with a couple poor choices in there (the hype man on Real Talk, really?), Andronicus still sounds best at its most ragged and shambolic… but there’s plenty of that here too. It was inevitable that this album would happen eventually and it’s far better than it could’ve been. The record peaks with Above The Bodega.

Bishop Nehru – Elevators: Act I & II

Look here, an official solo debut from The Bish! He’s been around a bit for a young fella, coming up as a prodigy of MF Doom before a brief spell on Nas’ label. So here’s a funky one. Stylised as “a rap Pet Sounds”, it’s safe to say he missed that mark but there’s still heaps to like here. Nehru digs an old school east coast beat and he knows his way around a bar or two, an insightful writer with plenty to say. Elevators is split into two side: Ascension and Free Falling. Act I produced by Kaytranada and II by MF Doom. The first side is much better, tbh. No Idea is a jam and Get Away is equally great. Lots to like, lots more to come.

Soccer Mommy – Clean

“I wanna be that cool,” sings Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy on the track ‘Cool’. Kind of an odd thing to be hung up on when you named your band ‘Soccer Mommy’. Presumably known as Football Mummy in Europe. But if the name’s not cool then the sound gets a lot closer. A real 90s alt rock thing going on - apparently that's all the rage now? - alternating between solo slow-strum electric guitar songs and full band, bouncy bass, efforts… Liz Phair is the obvious comparison. The likes of Your Dog, Scorpio Rising and Last Girl are worth a fair few repeats. The full band songs are the best songs.

Nap Eyes – I’m Bad Now

Canadian folk rock of the indie variety, but don’t let that discourage you, this isn’t Montreal Mumford & Sons. It’s a subtle and clever set of songs, ruminating on the binaries of good and evil as we’re fed them. Philosophising in the deep end of the swimming pool. The singer’s got this pretty mean Dylanesque whine/drawl going and there’s a lot of jingle-jangle here but the rhythm section hits surprisingly hard. That bass player needs a pay-rise. The whole set does the trick but White Disciple and Boats Appear, the two last tracks, are the clinchers.

Superorganism – Superorganism

Superorganism is what happens when The Eversons, a kiwi indie band based out of London, get mixed up with a Japanese-American teenaged singer, a couple kiwi soul singers and a Korean singer based out of Sydney. Definitely a super organism, that’s for sure. Their debut album is trippy and electric and crazy and catchy all at once. Plus it comes with two absolute banger singles: Something For Your M.I.N.D. and Everybody Wants To Be Famous. A real communal feel to the tunes, although the star of the show is definitely vocalist Orono Noguchi. Very artsy, very creative… damn, they’re all in, mate.

JPEGMAFIA – Veteran

Cheating slightly with this one because it came out in January but it’s so underground it almost slipped right by. Baltimore based producer & MC, JPEGMAFIA (great name) is what the future sounds like, hopefully. Real innovative stuff, these wild beats and wicked bars… this is punk rap. That’s what this is. He even wishes Morrissey dead on one song, which is punk as hell. Not to mention the quick jabs at alt righters and a song named ‘Macauley Culkin’. Anarchy!

Astral Blue – Out of the Astral Blue

Not everyone spends their spare time on the hunt for new and groovy psychedelic rock and roll to blast their minds into new and vast pastoral spheres with but for those that do, this one’s rather tasty. Got some prominent organ and a prominent cosmic bend (clue’s in the name). Got that 60s pre-proggy feel as well. This lot love a long instrumental break and they’re fairly keen on their tempo shifts, plus everyone but the drummer takes a turn on vocals. Oh and it’s independently released as well. Suggestion is you take the band’s advice and: “Listen loud, all the way through”.

Support your mates at The Niche Cache with a big ol' smacker on an ad