New Albums This Week: Tim Hecker, Deftones & more

Tim Hecker – Love Streams (4AD)

Love Streams feels suggestive of a dichotomy between the emotionally pure and the technologically stark; a coexistence of two things whose relationship constantly teeters between awkward codependence and flat-out repulsion. Hecker's 4AD debut is a dense, paranoid and phenomenally pretty exploration of post-millennial wonder that warrants and rewards repeat listens.

Frightened Rabbit – Painting of a Panic Attack (Atlantic)

Ten years on from Sing the Greys, Frightened Rabbit's latest is certainly more polished than their debut, but it’s remarkable how many variables remain constant. Progress has been incremental, but certainly noticeable, with the result of an album made up of excellent songs, with a few great ones chucked in to raise the bar.

Deftones – Gore (Reprise)

Chino Moreno and company return with Gore, and continue to evolve and compel in their 28th year. Easily their most stylistically varied record since 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist, this is an album of relentless twists that turn into reasons to press play.

Future of the Left – The Peace and Truce of Future of the Left (Prescriptions)

Future of the Left's fifth album sees the Cardiff outfit taking potshots at the tedium of 'authenticity' while barrel-rolling between jagged slabs of math-centric post-hardcore and spacious Pixies surf. Read our interview with FOTL's Andrew 'Falco' Falkous, a frontman who – in spite of his famously sharp tongue –  is trying his best to be a nice guy. 

Parquet Courts – Human Performance (Rough Trade)

Human Performance might see Parquet Courts sacrific some of their rickety immediacy, but it's a reasonable trade-off, as they compensate with wise, grass-stalk chewing authority and grubby, plentiful hooks.

Alun Woodward – Music From Battle Mountain (Chemikal Underground)

Written to accompany David Street’s documentary of the same name (a portrait of celebrated cyclist Graeme Obree during his attempts to break the land speed record), Woodward crafts a soundtrack as creative and distinctive as the man that inspired it.