Baby Seals

★★★ Chaos

TRAPPED ANIMAL. CD/DL/LP

Cambridge punk trio’s snarling debut is packed with spiky tracks like Yawn Porn and Mild Misogynist satirising gender stereotypes and amplifying absurdity. The sludgy title track’s barbed reflection on sexual assault subverts their ‘empower pop’ template for something more darkly resonant. AC

Cassie Kinoshi’s Seed

★★★★ Gratitude

INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM. CD/DL/LP

A saxophonist/composer/ arranger with symphonic heft, Kinoshi’s follow-up to 2019’s Driftglass channels the energy of British jazz’s brave young things into a widescreen suite. With an MVP performance by Shirley Tetteh on guitar. JM

The Blow Monkeys

★★★ Together/Alone

LAST NIGHT FROM GLASGOW. CD/DL/LP

Dr Robert continues his purple patch with this rewarding follow-up to 2021’s Journey To You: his songs about love, loss, history and legacy delivered in his soulful croon, and set to horn and string arrangements that reference The Beatles and Bacharach. LW

Scott Lavene

★★★

Disneyland In Dagenham

NOTHING FANCY. CD/DL/LP

Craig Finn and Golden Dregs help out on eccentric Essex songwriter’s third LP. Tragi-comic Custard and Debbie are Lavene’s stock-in-trade, mixing Baxter Dury-like roughshod poetry with Robyn Hitchcock’s surrealist flair. Flute-looped Little Bird reveals a more delicate balladeer. AC

Céu

★★★★ Novela

URBAN JUNGLE/ONE RPM. CD/DL/LP

After 2019’s Apká! took Brazilian chanteuse Céu deep into digital pop, she and drummer/producer Pupillo team with Adrian Younge (Kendrick Lamar/Wu-Tang) in LA for a live-in-the-room affair, with crisp beats, ornate strings, retro-spangly guitar and sublime singing. Think Black Pumas go Tropicália, and groove! AP

Sunburned Hand Of The Man

★★★★ Nimbus

THREE LOBED. CD/DL/LP

The first family of New Weird America at their most amiable here on (roughly) Album Number 762. Freeform mulch is mostly sidelined for more streamlined psych and communal campfire singalongs. Plenty of beat poetry for the true heads, mind. JM

Fireball Flingaz

★★★★

Giants Of Defiance

INFLAMER. CD/DL

Edgy breakbeats drive Exile and Remark’s tag-team rhymes, pumped-up ageing B-boys exorcising demons over strings, pianos and frantic scratches. While tapping into the urgency of Britcore acts like Hijack and Gunshot, the album’s political pulse is focused squarely on current events. AC

Transmission Towers

★★★★ Transmission One

É SOUL CULTURA. CD/DL/LP

Liverpool machine soul duo Mark Kyriacou and Eleanor Mante’s debut spans jazzy exotica (One), sonic whirlpools (Everything) and lunar escapades (Cosmic Trigger). A fusion of Shabazz Palaces, Sun Ra and wonky space funk, the results are addictive. AC

Oliver Hohlbrugger

★★★★ Nothing’s Changed, Everything Is New

REVIR/MOONFLOWER. DL/LP

Norwegian art rocker’s second LP seeks truth in louche poetry and fourth world ambience. Be it pulsing Bright Lights, VU-rocker Velveteen or the dramatic title track, it’s a mash-up of Coltrane, Brel, Floyd and Tindersti cks. AC

Vanderwolf

★★★

The Great Bewilderment

ANOTHER RECORD LABEL. CD/DL/LP

Max Vanderwolf’s second set of soulful glam-pop features a rumination on political failure entitled Gaza (written in 2016, despite its ominous currency). With reverberant, Floydian guitar by Adrian Utley, it’s a highlight of this eclectic blue oddity. JB

Simon Wells

★★★★ Blankets

CRIME PAYS. CD/DL/LP

Former Snuff guitarist’s lilting cut of The Specials’ Do Nothing conceptually bookends Snuff’s warp speed ’90s version. The rest is mostly folk covers, simply arranged, warm and true. One knotty original (Should’ve Done) stands its ground between such as RT’s precious Beeswing and two by Ted Hawkins. JB

Jim White

★★★

All Hits: Memories

DRAG CITY. CD/DL/LP

The tirelessly inventive drummer – Dirty Three, Xylouris White, most everyone else – goes it alone for a set of fervidly improvised stickswork against subdued keyboard tones. Octopoidal, Milford Graves-style free jazz, miraculously achieving a sort of zen clarity. JM