Beyonce
Homecoming: The Live Album
Columbia
Within the first few moments of this nearly two-hour long album from Beyonce - dropped in her signature surprise style along with a Netflix concert documentary - you know it's going to be one of the best musical releases of the year, if not the decade. The singer-songwriter's groundbreaking 2018 Coachella performance overflows with richness, depth, powerful messaging and impeccable artistry.
It's impossible to overstate how incredible Homecoming is. The conceptual show, painstakingly crafted over an eight-month period, was inspired by America's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and is a loving ode to African-American culture. Joined by more than 200 dancers and musicians, Beyonce stuck a not-so-polite middle finger up to the festival's long-held hipster "flower crown" image, flipping it on its head.
In terms of the music itself, Beyonce revisited her extensive back catalogue and breathed new life into it. Miraculously she somehow managed to improve on her already flawless portfolio of hits. The nuances that come with a live performance are outstanding, particularly on Formation, Bow Down, I Care and Deja Vu, thanks to the additions of the orchestra, the intoxicating drum beats, the brass band and clever combining of songs and sounds and special effects. To watch the concert as it was intended is one thing, but to hear it as a live album is a genuine treat. Despite dancing almost solidly for the duration of the show, Beyonce's vocal does not waver once.
Homecoming undeniably proves Beyonce is probably our greatest living entertainer. She was the first black woman to ever headline Coachella, but boy, she was well and truly worth the wait.
Lucy Mapstone
Marina
Love + Fear
Atlantic
Marina And The Diamonds, moniker for Marina Diamandis, is back - but not as you may know her. Love + Fear is the fourth album from the now mononymously known Marina, but she still has all the sparkle.
The 16-track album is split into halves, separating the two different emotions of love and fear. Although an album inspired by the theory of a psychologist - in this case, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - doesn't necessarily sound like the basis for a hit album, it is. The first track Handmade Heaven, written solely by Diamandis, is a soaring success. True is the Welsh singer at her best, a catchy dance track similar to her previous releases.
Fear opens with Believe In Love, showcasing the pop star's vocal ability. The album's second chapter is more melancholic than the first, looking at unrequited love among other forms of heartache. Tongue-in-cheek No More Suckers will have you humming along from the first listen before cinematic ballad Soft To Be Strong brings the album to an emotional close.
Four years from her last album, it feels like Diamandis knows exactly what she wants to say and how she wants to sound. Love + Fear is well worth the wait.
Emma Bowden
The Cranberries
In the End
BMG
The Irish indie favourites took their time to process the death of singer Dolores O'Riordan and talk to her family before proceeding with an emotional farewell album that serves as a fitting legacy.
The remaining band members have confirmed this will be the final Cranberries album, guitarist Noel Hogan telling the Guardian in September: "There is no need to continue."
And while Hogan, his bassist brother Mike and drummer Fergal Lawler pack the required punch, O'Riordan's vocals - supplemented where needed by the band's touring backing singer Johanna Cranitch - are the focal point.
The title of both the album and its closing track has an obvious poignancy, mirrored by the opening trio of All Over Now, Lost and Wake Me When It's Over.
The latter pair are two of the standout tracks on a slightly inconsistent album illuminated by moments of O'Riordan and the band at their finest, with Catch Me If You Can and Got It also shining through.
Tom White
Kiefer Sutherland
Reckless & Me
BMG
Last week rumours of new music from Johnny Depp inspired collective groans across the globe.
There's nothing to raise the hackles like an actor doing music - especially as part of a band such as the Hollywood Vampires, Depp's pompous, lifeless supergroup with Alice Cooper.
Does the world need another cover of Bowie's untouchable Heroes? I'll let you answer that one.
But then comes Kiefer Sutherland, TV bad boy of American counter-intelligence drama 24, with an album of undeniably solid country - and not a whiff of self-importance.
Reckless & Me, Sutherland's second album in three years, continues to mine a rich vein of country, blues and alternative rock.
Maybe this crossover thing could pay its dues.
Talk of faded blue jeans, highways and whisky might make Brits baulk at something so wholesomely American.
But persevere. Reckless & Me rattles through myriad genres at breakneck pace, doing each one justice with impressive musicianship and Sutherland's whisky-soaked voice.
As the lynchpin of the operation, the 52-year-old does well creating a sense of Deep South authenticity.
Open Road is catchy and elegant while Agave, a love song to the Mexico border, is pure fun.
You will want to dislike this record. But give it a chance. Jack Bauer plays the blues like Captain Jack Sparrow never could.
Alex Green
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