Will The Cure’s Songs Of A Lost World finally arrive in 2024? Six new songs have been played live, with the titles of And Nothing Lasts Forever, Endsong and I Can Never Say Goodbye relating to waiting, finality and indecision: Robert Smith has indicated that performing the songs has made him want to re-record them. “It’s taken me a long time to sing it, because a lot of the songs are difficult to sing,” Smith reported at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2022. “It doesn't have very much light on it. Unfortunately, it’s pretty relentless, which will appeal to the hardcore of our audience, but I don’t think we’ll be getting any number one singles off it. Emotionally, it’s been quite harrowing.”
Following last year’s collection of B-sides and rarities, Will Of The People, a new Paul Weller studio album is scheduled for spring. Weller’s last album was 2021’s eclectic Fat Pop Vol. I, and while’s the Modfather’s late career purple patch has been impossible to second guess so far, we might well be seeing volume two. “I’m keeping my options open for a second” Weller told MOJO of a possible follow up.
St. Vincent is releasing her new "post-plague" album this year. Speaking exclusively to MOJO, Annie Clark describes the record as "darker and more hardcore" than 2021’s Daddy’s Home. “It sounds urgent and psychotic, in equal parts the most caustic sound and also, I think, the most sonically blooming,” says Clark. “It’s high stakes and intentional.” Read MOJO's interview with St Vincent about the album in full HERE!
A new Pearl Jam LP, Dark Matter, produced by Andrew Watt, is due this spring following the band’s US and European tours. Following drummer Matt Cameron’s assertion that the album was “mastered, mixed and ready to go”, guitarist Mike McCready told Classic Rock that Watt had pushed the band back towards the classic grunge sound of their earlier albums. “It’s a lot heavier than you’d expect. There’s the melody and energy of the first couple of records. Andrew pushed us to play as hard and melodic and thoughtful as we’ve done in a long time. I feel like Matt Cameron’s drumming has elements of what he did in Soundgarden,” said the McCready. “For better or worse, you’re gonna hear a lot more lead guitar from me, stuff I haven’t done in a long time.” The lead single and title track would certainly bare out those claims...
SIX YEARS after winning MOJO’s Album Of The Year award for his 183-minute existential epic Heaven And Earth, jazz sax seer Kamasi Washington is back with something completely different. While it’s relatively svelte at 80 minutes (“a two-course meal,” he jokes to MOJO), the as-yet-untitled opus is also the tenor saxophonist’s most deeply felt too, inspired by a new arrival in the Washington household. “I became a father while making this record and within that I felt the greatest joy, but also the greatest levels of apprehension,” he tells MOJO. “There’s a lot of duality. It’s my most grounded record in my most grounded state, where I’m really seeing the beauty in the world, the light in the darkness, through a different lens. It was difficult to make because it was so personal.” Find out more about the project in MOJO’s exclusive interview with Washington.
The first Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds album in five years is coming in 2024. “The songs are sounding great,” reported Cave last year. “I won’t really know until I get the Bad Seeds into the studio and we actually make the album. But it is feeling very good, very positive.” Read MOJO's full report on what we can expect the HERE!
Recorded in Margate and Normandy, The Libertines All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade, their fourth LP in just 22 years, arrives in March. It’s been preceded by the single Run Run Run and Night Of The Hunter.
With his musical Standing At The Sky’s Edge starting a West End run in February, Richard Hawley releases his ninth solo LP next year. “I’m still drawing water from the well,” he says. “The bucket hasn’t hit the bottom yet, not by a fucking long chalk. I just wrote a song, I’m sure it’s the best thing I’ve written, ever.”
Julia Holter releases a new record in 2024. Co-produced by Holter and Kenny Gilmore, it was recorded in LA in 2023: she’s described “re-routing the neural pathways, pushing out into the unknown, playfulness and chaos.” Sun Girl, the first track to be taken from it certainly seems to be doing just that...
Elbow’s tenth LP is released in March. Singer Guy Garvey references “gnarly, seedy grooves that pulled some very dark memories and humour.”
“People Might Think, ‘What Is This, A Cult?’” Elbow interviewed
Following 2022’s Dear Scott (which was voted MOJO’s album of the year) Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band’s Loopholes arrives in 2024. It was produced by Bill Ryder-Jones, who’s own Iechyd Da arrives this month.
Yard Act’s second LP, Where’s My Utopia?, is released in March. Expect a much-expanded sonic range. “The main reason that ‘post-punk’ was the vehicle for album one was because it was really affordable to do,” says singer James Smith.
Dee C. Lee's first LP in 28 years, Just Something, arrives in spring. Fellow ex-Style Councillor Mick Talbot co-writes and plays: songs include Back In Time, Trojan Horse and Everyday Summer, written by her daughter Leah Weller. Read MOJO's interview with Lee in full HERE.
Following last year’s storming 1982, A Certain Ratio are finishing a new album with Fontaines D.C./Kae Tempest producer by Dan Carey. Hurray For The Riff Raff release The Past Is Still in February. Guest on the record include Bright Eyes leader Conor Oberst. He hasn’t released an LP since 1990, but in November Lee Mavers of The La’s was pictured online in direct-to-disc Chesterfield studio the Groovefarm Analog Recording Co. A comment read: “Always a pleasure when Mr Mavers and co swing by…”
