The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

Tag album

REVIEW: Waxahatchee – ‘Ivy Tripp’ (Wichita / Merge)

by Ed Biggs Since her 2012 debut American Weekend, Alabama-born New Yorker Katie Crutchfield has quietly become one of the most compelling solo performers of the new decade. The home-made acoustic qualities of that debut were electrified on the following year’s excellent Cerulean Salt, but until now Waxahatchee material has always been able to be performed with minimal help from others. Ivy Tripp is, by contrast, a lot less single-minded

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REVIEW: Drenge – ‘Undertow’ (Infectious)

by Ed Biggs Drenge’s self-titled 2013 debut absolutely dripped with aggression and ennui. The Loveless brothers’ directed their boredom at their formative teenage years spent stuck in grey rural Derbyshire. But as impressive as that racket was, it risked pegging them as a one trick pony, as many similar bands in the recent past who have relied so much on stripped-down volume have struggled to project in other directions and on other

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REVIEW: Circa Waves – ‘Young Chasers’ (Transgressive)

by Matthew Langham It’s been a whirlwind two years for Liverpool’s Circa Waves. An opening slot on Glastonbury’s Other Stage and build-up of a now very large fan base has now left the four-piece in a strong position in the first quarter of 2015. Their debut record has been a long time coming – fifteen months since the word started getting out – and it makes no bones about its

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REVIEW: Lower Dens – ‘Escape From Evil’ (Ribbon Music)

by Ed Biggs The third album by Baltimore’s Lower Dens promises to see Jana Hunter move them away from subjects like evolution, chemistry and science fiction towards affairs of the heart and soul. 2012’s Nootropics, while it took a while to penetrate, grew into one of the most rewarding albums released in the last five years to revisit, a mix of post-rock and pop that left plenty of space for

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REVIEW: Sufjan Stevens – ‘Carrie & Lowell’ (Asthmatic Kitty)

by Ed Biggs In a career spanning fifteen years, American auteur Sufjan Stevens has made six-disc Christmas albums, started and abandoned a series of albums about the 50 U.S. states, made experimental electronic records, collaborated with rappers, and even had a residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Yet for all this, we’ve never really gotten to know him very much. However, this might be about to change with his

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REVIEW: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – ‘Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress’ (Constellation)

by Matthew Langham ‘Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress’ is the fifth release by Canadian post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The release marks the bands first single LP length since their 1997 debut and their second album since returning from their decade-long hiatus. Though the album is four tracks long, it sprawls across forty minutes and can be seen as three movements. The first movement being a slow builder, followed by

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REVIEW: The Prodigy – ‘The Day Is My Enemy’ (Take Me To The Hospital / Cooking Vinyl)

by Ed Biggs When The Prodigy returned in 2009, they had been missing in action for so long that almost anything they put out would  have been well-received. A new generation of ravers had grown up in their shadow, in a world where their collision of punk, house and electro was the starting point for a number of up-and-coming acts in the noughties. Invaders Must Die, while not a match for anything

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REVIEW: Courtney Barnett – ‘Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit’ (Mom + Pop / Marathon / Milk!)

by Matthew Langham and Ed Biggs Following on from the word-of-mouth success of her 2013 double EP A Sea Of Split Peas, it’s quite hard to believe that Sometimes… is Courtney Barnett’s debut album. Already, she has gained a significant following on the back of her EP which included tracks, ‘Avante Gardener’ and ‘History Eraser’. The former track documenting an unfortunate day in which she had an allergic reaction whilst

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