Alex Kapranos en co hebben de afgelopen jaren haren noch streken verloren. Acht jaar naAlways AscendingzietFranz Ferdinander nog net zo kwiek uit als in 2004. Sterker nog, opThe Human Fearklínken ze zelfs alsof ze net pas van de band zijn gerold -- nog boordevol branie en goede ideeën. Stoutmoedig is het sleutelwoord. De Schotten schudden nogal wat grootse refreinen uit de mouw, maar spelen ze nooit recht door zee. Wat dat betreft leren ze nog altijd van hun FFS-genoten Sparks, evenals The Specials, Madness en Queen, jawel. Onder het hitgehalte schuilen liedjes over bindingsangst en (on)afhankelijkheid, en op 'Black Eyelashes' confronteert Kapranos zijn Griekse identiteit. En dat allemaal in 35 minuutjes.CD/LP

If anyone calls Future Classic’s name home, it’s SOPHIE . The late producer died in a tragic accident nearly four years ago and released just one album, 2018 ’s Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides , but she’s as dearly missed as ever. Charli XCX, St. Vincent, Caroline Polachek, and AG Cook have all released musical tributes; a planet has been named after her; and the hyperpop pioneer’s influence is everywhere in 2024.

Now finally there is the second album, SOPHIE , which was already largely finished before her death. Four years later it sounds anything but dated - not a given in the current pop climate. With a well-considered mix of ambient, techno and genuine pop, the loss is well received, certainly also because the always so closed Scot makes himself quite visible here - albeit mostly through guest artists such as Kim Petras, Nina Kraviz and Hannah Kingdom. CD / LP

With Bitterzoet (2020), the genesis of Eefje de Visser the Popstar was complete, but after a whopper of a tour - complete with light show and choreography - she still picked up the acoustic guitar. For the first time in years. Instead of pop in the now, she suddenly looked for a timeless kind of intimacy - à la Joni Mitchell, Fleetwood Mac and Weyes Blood. That doesn't change the fact that Heimwee continues to groove, wave, flicker and sparkle. This is still an album that makes itself big and then embraces you intimately. The melancholy is, as is often the case with Eefje, in the theme. She is getting older, has a family, has doubts, sees time passing by. Enough to ponder and then quietly dance away. CD / LP

When Nick Cave says an album is “joyful,” that’s relative. And compared to the most recent Bad Seeds albums, Skeleton Tree (2016) and Ghosteen , there’s a lot of joy. Wild God isn’t a party record, but after all the grief and sorrow of Cave’s past years, he seems to have learned that there’s still so much beauty in life. Despite or perhaps because of the misery.

The band is complete again, perhaps more complete than ever with the addition of the necessary choirs, orchestral arrangements and, lo and behold, Colin Greenwood. Often the songs are surprisingly simple and modest - until the whole thing explodes in euphoria. As an inimitable, sardonic and sometimes grotesque songwriter, Cave is in top form: he is "amazed by love, amazed by pain, amazed to be back in the water again." CD / LP

A band that sets the tone with every album usually has to take a left turn again - or risk repeating itself. Every chapter in the five years that we have known Fontaines DC has subsequently been followed by countless copycats. The assignment for Romance was clear: the Irish had to get rid of the doom & gloom of Skinty Fia (2022), which quickly came to dominate the entire post-post-punk scene. They have succeeded. Grian Chatten & co rock in all the colours of the rainbow. His songs are as we know them, but surrounded by experiments, bells and whistles. A jangle pop guitar on 'Favourite'; boy band-ready backing vocals on 'In The Modern World'; towering choruses on 'Here's the Thing' and the grungy 'Death Kink'; and of course those quite literally breathtaking trip hop influences on 'Starburster'. Hot on the heels of dozens of lesser bands, the band manages to make countless feints on one album. Try doing this with us. CD / LP / Cassette

Post Malone told radio icon Howard Stern in the summer of 2022: "There's nothing stopping me from sitting down in my studio in Utah and just recording a country album. I'm allowed to do that. I'm human. If I get another year to myself, maybe I'll make a fucking country album ." Two years later, F-1 Trillion is here and it feels like the most logical step the American rapper/singer could have taken. More logical, in any case, than Beyoncé's country album earlier this year. Cowboy Post also brings in a dizzying guest list with, brace yourself, Tim McGraw, Hank Williams Jr., Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, Luke Combs, Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen and more. A real who's who of the current country pop scene. CD / LP

Cassandra Jenkins shares a craft, a hometown and a scene with Big Thief vocalist Adrianne Lenker, but above all, both singer-songwriters seem to be on the same spiritual and natural wavelength - far removed from the rest of the world. Like no other, they both see the beauty of the world, the universe and fellow human beings.

The difference is in the sound and the songwriting. Where Lenker draws on John Prine and Townes Van Zandt, Jenkins's tactile, observational lyrics on her stunning third album, My Light, My Destroyer, are reminiscent of Bill Callahan, David Berman (Silver Jews) and Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes), but with a not-so-subtle Buddhist slant.

After her sometimes almost ambient-like breakthrough album An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, this is unmistakably an indie rock record. Beautiful pop songs supplemented with horns, horns, synths and the occasional load of noise. With open arms and eyes she sings about the earthly (the reptiles in the pet shop around the corner, the flower shop where she once worked) and the extraterrestrial (Greek mythology, the northern lights). The whole world on one album, hand in hand. CD / LP

You're forgiven if, even as a fan of the better jazz rap, you've forgotten the name Lupe Fiasco for a while. But the musician and producer from Chicago, who has been keeping his distance from well-trodden hip-hop clichés for two decades, does everything he can to be remembered on Samurai . His "most personal record" is an ode to his father, who was both a Black Panther and a karate instructor, and creates interfaces between Afro-American and Japanese culture. He does this, as we've come to expect from Fiasco, with deeply metaphorical and poetic lyrics and boom-bap-like productions that regularly remind us of the legendary J Dilla. Unique -- and as agile as a swordsman. CD / LP

Johnny Cash 's legacy is now inextricably linked to Rick Rubin's American Recordings . The songs are bare, dark and intimate, far from the lavishly produced 80s kitsch that preceded them. Songwriter , Cash's first posthumous album in ten years, feels like an alternative timeline. Cash recorded the songs on Songwriter a few weeks before he first met Rubin. Some ('Drive On', 'Like a Soldier') eventually ended up on the first American Recordings album. Most did not. But this material is by no means subordinate. Son John Carter and regular engineer David Ferguson re-recorded the music with a full band (including Dan Auerbach) - with just enough fuss to make the songs shine. While Cash sometimes sounded on the verge of death in Rubin's hands, here the Man in Black is alive and kicking - full of love and humor. CD / 2CD / LP

Idealism can be fun too. The two rappers who join forces in Iceland are already known for their radical music and politics: Sef especially since his last album, Ik Zou Voor Veel Kunnen Sterven Maar Niet Voor Een Vlag ; Abel mainly as the frontman of the activist punk band Hang Youth. In Iceland, the two very different styles of the two pleasantly get in each other's way. Faisal's schizophrenic production also keeps things on edge: sometimes a ballad with a calm sea in the background, sometimes screaming sirens and creaking, atonal beats. Especially lyrically, Abel and Sef seem to be made for each other: they sing about a political system that is destroying the Netherlands, sometimes with deep metaphors, sometimes quite directly. 'We're going to do it,' they promise us, 'save the whole world.' They are two scorpions in a bottle; two gladiators who should be fighting each other, but still decide to attack the emperor.

Yes, Hang Youth may be the most urgent punk band in the Netherlands, but lyrically and musically Ploegendienst in 2024 stands alone. Nobody does it like Ray Fuego. Surrounded by three skilled marksmen, he is less than pissed off on DSM-5 , but also... quite introspective. It is not without reason that the Amsterdammers named the album after the diagnostic manual for mental disorders. DSM-5 is teeming with "fighting, falling, different people", people who spit in each other's coffee, turn their backs on each other - and Fuego is one of them. Music about people who don't always like each other by people who don't always like each other. The tension between them is audible. And oh yeah, also nice: label mate Spinvis wrote two songs for DSM-5 and sings along to a joke. LP

Charli XCX still isn't quite where she belongs. Among the stars, like when she shared the Barbie soundtrack with Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Sam Smith? Or would she rather be in the emotional underground, in the regions of unruly producers like AG Cook and Danny L Harle. Her sixth album Brat will keep her right in the middle. Songs like '360' and 'Von dutch' feel like hits, but will do especially well in clubs and boiler rooms. She herself calls Brat "her most aggressive album yet", but also her most candid. At the end of this hyperpop rollercoaster, you'll feel like you've been tagged along for a night out. Maybe you're best friends now - or maybe she'll never text you back. CD / LP

The hardest work is done: Pakistani-American singer Arooj Aftab has invented her own genre with Vulture Prince (2021). A shadowy mix of minimalism, post-classical, traditional Hindustani music and jazz, which she can build on with her new album Night Reign . Not that there is anything lazy about this album: Aftab tries plenty of new things, sings her own English lyrics for the first time, alongside interpretations of 18th-century Indian poetry, a sweet jazz standard and a dull love song that she once wrote as a teenager but has now given a fascinating twist. Like no other, Aftab sings about the night - here literally. The night in all its mysticism, romance and all its menace. CD / LP

What once started as the solo project of Beach Fossils guitarist Zachary Cole Smith has grown into a live favorite with quite a cult reputation. While Is The Is Are (2016) and Deceiver (2019) sound a little better with every passing year, DIIV is back and the shoegaze group is reinventing the wheel once again. What immediately stands out on Frog in Boiling Water (what a title!) is that DIIV has worked completely organically and democratically as a group for the first time. This is a team effort. But it is also DIIV's most twisted, experimental, schizophrenic album to date. A waterfall of synths, then an industrial drum loop, followed by beautiful vocal harmonies. The true DIIV fan will only be able to appreciate this left turn; fans of Alex G, Slint, Sonic Youth and Elliott Smith on a stormy day would do well to join in. CD / LP

Don't expect a small task from Beth Gibbons . With Portishead she has released three albums since 1994; one under her own name with Rustin Man in 2002, one with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019; and now, at the age of 59, her solo debut: Lives Outgrown . It is a subcutaneous magnum opus, on which Gibbons sings about the changes in her life and her body in recent years. Menopause, broken relationships, death. With the help of Lee Harris (Talk Talk) and James Ford (who pulls off tricks similar to those on recent albums by Arctic Monkeys and Blur), the tension is palpable - and perfect. Lives Outgrown is as stylish as it is tempestuous; a warm living room that slowly seems to catch fire. A bit of PJ Harvey, a bit of Radiohead, but with that one-of-a-kind voice. CD / LP

Mdou Moctar recorded his sixth album Funeral for Justice after two months of incessant touring - and it shows. Fatigue has not yet set in and instead the Nigerien guitarist + band is in top form. From the cannon salvo on the opening track, the band thunders forward in that recognizable, hasty 'assouf' sound, which makes Tinariwen seem like a snail's pace in comparison. It will also have to do with the political message of Funeral for Justice , recorded in the fall of 2022. Moctar seems to want to single-handedly drive the neo-colonial ruler, France, out of his native country. Thanks to the military junta that has since taken over, he has now succeeded. But there is more that Moctar is fighting for - and even more that he mourns. Raw emotion - and raw guitar violence - lies on the surface here. CD / LP

Prosperity is rarely good news for many a singer-songwriter. But leave it to Samuel Ervin Beam of Iron & Wine to capitalize on a period of carefreeness. Light Verse is his first album of original material in seven years and his most inspired album in much longer. The melodies are light-footed and catchy, but the power of Light Verse lies in the details. With the rustic charm of a saloon pianist, Beam secretly fills the space with a hundred thousand frills. A string quartet, a piano riff off the cuff, a creaking door, Fiona Apple. You won't be bored for a moment. CD / LP

Touring has become a priority for Pearl Jam . The band did not release a single album for seven years. Now, after two years of Gigaton , there is actually a new one: Dark Matter . As it turns out, Gigaton was just a warm-up. Because with the young star producer Andrew Watt (of Hackney Diamonds , Miley Cyrus' Plastic Hearts and the last Eddie Vedder solo album) in house, the late fifties have now really rediscovered inspiration. (As far as the album cover is concerned , Dark Matter is undeniably creative and hideous.) The energy was still there, but it was mainly in the live shows. Watt also managed to translate this to the studio. Rick Rubin's Shangri-La that is, where the band recorded the album in just three weeks. Short enough to make the fun in the studio palpable. Obscure matter, a pleasure. CD / LP / Bluray

"This ain't a Country album. This is a " Beyoncé " album," said the world star a few days before the release of her eighth album - and the second in the trilogy that started with Renaissance . But it is clear that Beyoncé was certainly inspired for Cowboy Carter by a genre that has been dominated by men in recent decades - or at least by white Americans. Beyoncé is now appropriating the genre and doing so with a dizzying list of guest artists, cameos and producers (Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Nile Rodgers, Gary Clark Jr., Adam Granduciel, Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, etc.) , an explicit spotlight on lesser-known black country musicians and even some covers, namely The Beatles' 'Blackbird' and a (substantially rewritten version of) Dolly Parton's 'Jolene'.

It's quite a departure from the queer disco of Renaissance , but make no mistake: it's not all banjos, fiddles, lap steel and yodelling. In fact, Beyoncé also incorporates R&B, funk, blues, opera and flamenco into this overwhelming hodgepodge that is rock solid and never boring for a second. CD / LP

For almost twenty years and four albums, Vampire Weekend has never failed to deliver - and yet every album feels like they have something to prove. Maybe it's because the New York band is so unashamedly nerdy and uncool. Ezra Koening is approaching forty, but on Only God Was Above Us he seems to have eternal youth. The trio sounds as playful as ever and perhaps more New Yorker than ever. 'Capricorn' has more layers than the Empire State Building. 'Gen-X Cops' is actually somewhat reminiscent of The Strokes' debut. It indicates a 'rawer' sound. As if they immerse you in the cacophony of the New York City Subway - a multicolored, noisy, endless collection of eccentrics everywhere you look. Only God Was Above Us is a packed slow train in which four ghetto blasters simultaneously play Run-DMC, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads and Philip Glass - and that is a positive thing! CD / LP

How refreshing was the debut of Bob Uit Zuid , two years ago. And while the Amsterdam rapper mainly drew on sounds from yesteryear. The sound of yesteryear is now a thing of the past for Bob. On Heilig he exchanges the fat guitar sound à la BlakRoc for a lighter, lusher sound, supported by a double bass, organs, the necessary horns and on 'Applause' the polygonal voice of Philip Bloemendal. A little bit of Enter the Wu-Tang , a little bit of Vinticious Versions , a little bit of House of Pain, mostly a lot of Bob. In addition to the late Bloemendal, there are also live features from Zwangere Guy and Willem Smit from Personal Trainer. Set it to traffic mode in your Volvo. CD / LP

Just like her previous solo album, songs , recorded in the solitude of spring 2020, the piecemeal studio process on Bright Future is an instrument in itself. We hear the tape being rewound, we hear Adrianne Lenker chatting with her occasional band for a while, before she belts out another simple yet heartbreaking or warming song. The Big Thief singer continues to refine her craft with every album and as a listener it feels like that is happening right in front of you on Bright Future . Most of the songs are also first or second or third takes, nothing more than that, of songs that have been played in completely different versions before or since. The instruments were constantly exchanged and the 'end result' feels like a coincidence, anything but definitive. Even more than on masterpiece Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, Lenker shows here that there is nothing as disarming as completely opening yourself up in your music. CD / LP

While other pop artists are beginning to embrace country music (see the upcoming Beyoncé LP Cowboy Carter ), Kacey Musgraves is taking a step back. Deeper Well is significantly folkier than predecessors star-crossed and Golden Hour . Like a walk in the woods after the first downpour in months, Musgraves is particularly receptive to the fine details and fresh air in her immediate surroundings. Deeper Well breathes in and out calmly. There are no real hits or standouts here, but that is precisely what makes it a wholesome listening experience. Are you going to get lost with me? We meet where Emmylou Harris, Taylor Swift à la folklore and Margo Price intersect. CD / LP