The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

Category Reviews

REVIEW: ScHoolboy Q – ‘Blank Face’ (Interscope / Top Dawg)

by John Tindale It has been a tough time for Top Dawg Entertainment in recent years. Yes, there has been the unrivalled success of Kendrick Lamar and his classic To Pimp A Butterfly, but on the whole, the label’s reputation and visibility has certainly dropped from its peak buzz back in 2012. Jay Rock’s 2015 album 90059 remains painfully underrated and Ab-Soul’s These Days was passable at best, but in ScHoolboy

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REVIEW: Roisin Murphy – ‘Take Her Up To Monto’ (PIAS)

by John Tindale “I always believed I had the potential to be a pop star,” Roisin Murphy quipped on her return to music after eight years away with the excellent Hairless Toys, the follow-up to possibly the most underrated album of the noughties in Overpowered. But, as is the case with many stars, Murphy never seemed to transcend popular culture, in just the same way as her similarly underrated group Moloko

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REVIEW: Biffy Clyro – ‘Ellipsis’ (Warner Bros. / 14th Floor)

by Ollie Rankine It’s slightly amusing to have an external view of the differing blend of continually simmering opinions amongst the ever-growing fan base behind Scottish heavyweights Biffy Clyro. Whilst the battle still rages on between the pre-Puzzle militants and post-Puzzle revolutionaries, the bizarre state of affairs within Biffy-enthusiast civil war may be about to hit overkill with the addition of their seventh studio album, Ellipsis.

REVIEW: The Avalanches – ‘Wildflower’ (XL)

by John Tindale Way back in November 2000 – which, from the point of view of 2016, is so long ago it may as well be ancient history: before 9/11, and when Napster was still a thing and iPods weren’t – Australian music collective The Avalanches released their first full-length LP Since I Left You, which was one of the most creative and original albums of the decade. Constructed with painstaking

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REVIEW: The Julie Ruin – ‘Hit Reset’ (Hardly Art)

by Ed Biggs As the prime mover behind riot-grrl poster band Bikini Kill in the ‘90s and then the electro-pop influenced cult heroes Le Tigre, Kathleen Hanna’s status as an alternative music legend has long since been secured. Having spent many years in the late noughties off the grid, recovering gradually from the debilitating condition Lyme disease, Hanna was musically reinvigorated with the release of 2013’s album Run Fast with her

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REVIEW: Aphex Twin – ‘Cheetah’ EP (Warp)

by Ed Biggs Just like English buses, you wait for what seems like forever for new Aphex Twin material to be released, and suddenly loads come along at the same time. Having dropped the impressive album Syro, his first original material in 13 years, in September 2014, the quixotic and imcomparable Richard James has now released his second EP in 18 months.

REVIEW: Bat For Lashes – ‘The Bride’ (Parlophone)

by John Tindale When Bat For Lashes released a collaborative single with Toy, a cover of Iranian psychedelic cult hero Amir Rassaei’s ‘Aroos Khanom’ back in 2013, a track that translates as ‘The Bride’, not many people will have realised this was the beginning of a new album cycle for Natasha Khan. But from the odd early formation The Bride, the fourth LP from the Londoner is perhaps her most effervescent

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REVIEW: Blood Orange – ‘Freetown Sound’ (Domino)

by Ollie Rankine Although a significant degree of social progress has been achieved since the mid-20th century civil rights movement for black Americans, 2016 still bears witness to countless acts of unthinkable and unthinking prejudice and discrimination. It seems fitting that Devonté Hynes’ racially charged third record under the name Blood Orange follows up his 2015 track, ‘Do You See My Skin Through The Flames’, which was incidentally released during the height

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REVIEW: Metronomy – ‘Summer 08’ (Because)

by John Tindale In the summer of 2008, everything was just beginning to blossom for Joseph Mount, the figurehead of Metronomy. After hinting at an eclectic greatness in debut effort Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe) it was in 2008 where Mount was able to establish his bedroom Metronomy project as one of the most needed acts in the UK with Nights Out an album equal parts chaos and pop

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REVIEW: Hot Hot Heat – ‘Hot Hot Heat’ (Kaw-Liga / Culvert)

by Ed Biggs Back in 2003, while the music world was still feeling the reverberations of the Strokes and Stripes reigniting popular interest in all things guitar, came what should have been one of the epochal indie hits of the decade. ‘Bandages’, a giddy, intoxicating whirlwind of angular guitars and new-wave keyboard riffing by Canadian bright young things Hot Hot Heat, would surely have become a huge Top Ten hit for

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