Nite Songs

  Getting close to the top of the chart now as we head into the Top 20. Needless to say that anything in this bit you've missed, you really should investigate pronto... *** 20. GULP - "Beneath Strawberry Moons" A genuine unexpected triumph of an album - Gulp's third effort sounds like some sort of cross between the icy electronica of New Order and the laconic psychedelia of Mazzy Star with maybe a hint of All About Eve and Ooberman at their most melancholy. Featuring Super Furry Animals man Guto Pryce, this is another great album which seems to have undeservedly sailed under a lot of people's radars. *** 19. BENEFITS - "Constant Noise" Honestly, I'm not sure if Benefits actually could  have pulled the same trick twice following on from their debut album  Nails  last year. That record was so brutal and uncompromising, veering into pure white noise in places, that it really was the sort of thing you could only really listen to once. However, here's...

  So here we go, part 2 of the end of year rundown as we reach the Top 40. Cue up one of the old Top of the Pops themes if it helps with the atmosphere for this bit. Anyway... 40. PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS - "Viscerals" ( Bandcamp ) Unquestionably the heaviest album on this list, it's easy to get put off Pigs x7 (as I will refer to them here to save space) by the hipster-ish name but lurking within Viscerals  is a brutally heavy guitar assault with Sabbath-heavy sludge-metal riffs on tunes like Reducer , Crazy In Blood  and Hell's Teeth  which sink their teeth into you and refuse to let go. Slightly terrifying on your first listen, oddly addictive by your fourth. *** 39. RIZ AHMED - "The Long Goodbye" ( Bandcamp ) Best known for his role in the excellent film Four Lions , The Long Goodbye  proved that Riz Ahmed is a hell of a talent as a musician as well. A furiously angry diatribe from the point of view of a British Muslim which compares his relati...

  Blimey, now THERE'S a name I hadn't heard in a long time. I was sort of semi-aware of Throwing Muses in the early '90s as they were a frequent presence on the ITV Chart Show indie chart rundowns with underappreciated gems like Counting Backwards  and Shark . The group briefly disbanded in the late '90s but reformed in the early years of the millennium with Kristin Hersh marshalling the band on ever since with Sun Racket  being the group's first album since 2013's Purgatory/Paradise . The surprising thing about it is that (admittedly talking as someone who last heard the band in the mid-'90s) that the group's sound has emerged away from their indie-grunge sound into almost dream-pop style territory. Despite the spiky aggression of opener Dark Blue , the languid Bywater  with its lyrics of nightmarish visions is more of a template for what lies ahead on the dreamy likes of Milk At McDonalds , Kay Catherine and the fuzzed-up squall of Bo Diddley Bridge b...