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Another month done. We take a look at some of our favourite records to check out that were released in August last month.

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New Indie Kids on the Block: Sextet Londoners heed their place post-BCNR and fill it with soaring melodies and sweeping strings in a confectionary debut of delight. From witnessing them live last year, we take a look at their debut – one of the most highly anticipated records of the year.

For want of a better word, the record is a goddamn beauty. An album blitzed with inventive colour and choreography, the eleven-track art traverses across the bands’ full palette. Only Girl and Nosedive lead from the front with their sweeping refrains that really wane in the Summer heatwaves. Vera’s lush vocals take centre stage on longing ballad Canyons (ticking off the wonderful) while Billy’s vocal lead takes him down the ravaged streets of a mechanised Godzilla (ticking off the weird).

Read the full review here.

“Sometimes when I stare at space, sometimes I feel it looking back at me. And what’s that supposed to mean exactly?”

When we pinned Antony’s debut as mvm’s AOTY last year, we were excited to see what next the Mancunian marvel could spruce up. Now a year later, Szmierek has returned with Decoding Birdsong. While his debut celebrated the magic of discovery, his second here is choosing to believe in the magic. Submerged under suave dance-electronica, the pop poet dances artfully over his words as he tackles luck, loneliness and loss. Here, Antony peels back the layers resulting in his most self-aware, consciously-adept project yet. This time, it’s more than getting lost to the motorway or transfixed by the nightclub lights – It’s converting trauma into beautiful sound.

It jettisons from hopeful Underworld-inspired The Heron to the lush luck-finding flutterings of Bookie’s Favourite – with a beautiful Ellur feature. A supporting slot for Mike Skinner’s northern shows make sense when you listen to the stirring ache of The Seminal. Flight Simulator activates the landing gear with some of his strongest lines as the dynamic pull of Imogen and the Knife take us through a soaring chorus. I count at least fifteen bird references so far, and we’re barely at the halfway mark.

The tale of hope and ambition continues with flourishing two-minute interludes that never take full flight but blend seamlessly into the likes of The First Five Minutes of Magnolia and Commune. Some of the most beautiful takes on this record come with more space. The soft introspective tones of You’re Not Supposed To Do This Forever set reminders to take chances while the emotional piano-heavy closer of Aussie Gold Hunters, sees Antony dig deeper into his greatest fears via one of his most heartfelt monologues. It rounds out an album that is certainly one of the most memorable this year. For Antony, it solidifies him as a complete wordsmith – and confirms that his first wasn’t just pot luck.

We’re certainly not new to this band. Appearing on our artist spotlight segment a year ago, mvm is more than familiar with Westside Cowboy. And what a year they’ve had. Pivotal festival spots at some of the biggest in Europe, a supporting tour with a generation band Geese, now this month sees all that build-up come into fruition with their debut album release.

Clocking in just over half an hour, It Goes On is a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed work from four who are undoubtedy next in line to fill that alternative void that BCNR left. A woven spindle of folk, rock and indie twang, the four from Manchester – Reuben Haycocks, James Bradbury, Aoife Anson O’Connell, and Paddy Murphy – deliver one of the most mature and intimate debuts of the year. While new, their sound does indeed come from an old place of heart and identity. Self-diagnosed under the ‘Britannica’ genre, it harnesses an univocally nostalgic feel to an album that you may have listened to already – maybe in adolescence, maybe in a no-context petrol station.

Although not as urgent as previous EPs would have led to suggest, the lead opener and flashy Pin Up Boys quench the thirst of strong melodies amongst an album with deeper cuts present. A presently British epic, Westside Cowboy continue to traverse the realms of possibility and above all else, originality.

Intimate songstress returns after six years with dazzling third, Lost Weekend. Be it for her voice or for her incisive lyrics, Bridgers is one of the most prolific singer-songwriters to emerge out of contemporary music in the past decade. But something that she is perhaps not regarded most for is her soundscapes. Queen of ambience (and ambivalence), Bridgers has immersed her audiences ever since her first in 2017. Stranger in the Alps appears on many lists for good reason. The darkly deceptive second of Punisher three years later follows suits. So it’s only fitting that her third ultimately does the same.

Lost Weekend is a sixteen-track of world-building soundscapes. Whether its submerged in an ocean of distortion, or losing altitude high in the sky, Bridgers’ sound – production and writing abound – fits alongside the hymnals of Ethel Cain and Fiona Apple as some of the best to ever do it. If you see me with headphones curled up in a ball in the dark, odds are I’m probably listening to these three.

Like most contemporary albums nowadays, the credit listing is longer than an arm. But here, it’s a match made in heaven. Longtime partner Bo Burnham and fellow songwriter compatriot Alex G provide composer influences to most – if not all – works here, as does Cameron Winter (via a Son-John Johnson alias) as he appears on beautiful Kill Me and I Can’t Wait. Other notable stand-outs call to The Governor’s Waltz and Bobby with an Ethan Gruska synth line that takes the limelight. While the first half is certainly stronger writing-wise, the powerful bellows on As Above definitely caught me off guard. While Phoebe is known of her delicate wisps of a voice, it was nice to hear such a contrast – and one she should venture into more. It’s an immediate eye-roll from me whenever I see Jack Antanoff on any record, it’s obvious that he undoubtedly gets the best out of pop’s biggest icons.

The ambient-infused world these songs are seemingly swimming in, is a delight to listen to. While the short tidbits and vignette-like marks in the second half causes the albums’ threading to come loose, it’s still an album that shows Bridgers being brilliant. Is it six-years-wait brilliant? Reddit will be the decider of that.