It would come as little surprise to see Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah picking up more individual awards after the year he’s having, and the Egyptian added to his ever-growing tally with a second Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year award.
Salah has been on fire for Jürgen Klopp’s side this season, with 44 goal contributions in as many games at the time of writing, and while the Africa Cup of Nations might have hampered his progress slightly, he still looks on course to win the Golden Boot for a third time – adding to his two consecutive victories in 2017-18 and 2018-19, the latter of which he shared with Liverpool colleague Sadio Mané and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Salah beat Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne to the award, with West Ham United’s Declan Rice coming third. Salah took home 48% of the votes, with Chelsea striker Sam Kerr receiving the women’s award. Both won their respective awards by a landslide and were praised by FWA chair Carrie Brown, who said: “The fact they have won by such convincing margins underlines just how impressive they have been this season.
“As well as their performances on the pitch, they are leaders and standard bearers of excellence at their clubs and respective leagues. Both Mo and Sam have been outstanding this season, breaking records for both club and country.”
With the Premier League title race looking like it will go right down to the final day, both Liverpool and Manchester City will need to be almost perfect to clinch the league come the end of the month, with the sports betting odds proving increasingly tough to call a winner.
Indeed, Liverpool are still on course to complete a famous quadruple – adding to the League Cup they won in February with the FA Cup, Premier League and Champions League. But if they are to go all the way this season, they’ll need their ‘Egyptian King’ to be on top form.
Since suffering a slight dip in goals when he lost the AFCON final and then failed to qualify for the World Cup with Egypt, Salah burst back into life with a brace at home against Manchester United to remind those outside Anfield just how dangerous he can really be.
The versatility of the winger, who has also occupied more central positions as a false nine, has meant he can provide goals as well as score them, as Salah earned his 14th assist this season as Liverpool eased past Villarreal in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final.
This is arguably Salah in his most complete stage. At 29, he’s a far cry from the player we saw struggle at Chelsea and has been a revelation since returning to England in 2017. His first season may have seen a higher return of goals but the way in which he’s scored them this season and the importance of goals in big moments are what have separated him from the pack and earnt recognition from football writers this season.
Flying Lotus has shared the title song for They Call Me Magic, the new Apple TV+ documentary series about Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Listen to it below.
Flying Lotus released his most recent album was 2019’s Flamagra, following it up with Flamagra (Instrumentals). Last year, he shared his score for the Netflix show Yasuke.
Lady Gaga has shared the music video for ‘Hold My Hand’, her new song from the upcoming movie Top Gun: Maverick. The clip was helmed by director Joe Kosinski and features Lady Gaga along with scenery from the film. Watch it below.
Top Gun: Maverick is set to hit theaters on Friday, May 27.
Arcade Fire, who just released their new album WE, have announced a world tour that will take them across Europe and North America this year. Feist will support the band on their European shows, while Beck will open the North American dates with what a press release calls a “special acoustic performance.” Check out the group’s full itinerary below.
Tickets for all tour dates go on sale to the public beginning Friday, May 13 at 10am local time. Thanks to Arcade Fire’s partnership with PLUS1, £1/€1/$1 per ticket will go to KANPE, which provides support to the most vulnerable communities in Haiti.
Arcade Fire 2022 Tour Dates:
Aug 30 Dublin, Ireland – 3Arena *
Sep 2 Birmingham, England – Utilita Arena Birmingham *
Sep 3 Manchester, England – AO Arena *
Sep 5 Glasgow, Scotland – OVO Hydro *
Sep 8 London, England – The O2 *
Sep 11 Lille, France – Zenith *
Sep 12 Antwerp, Belgium – Sportpaleis *
Sep 14 Cologne, Germany – Lanxess Arena *
Sep 15 Paris, France – Accor Arena *
Sep 17 Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum *
Sep 18 Munich, Germany – Olympiahalle *
Sep 21 Madrid, Spain – WiZink Center *
Sep 22 Lisbon, Portugal – Campo Pequeno *
Sep 23 Lisbon, Portugal – Campo Pequeno *
Sep 25 Bordeaux, France – Arkea Arena *
Sep 26 Nantes, France – Zenith de Nantes *
Sep 28 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Ziggo Dome *
Sep 29 Berlin, Germany – Mercedes-Benz Arena *
Oct 1 Warsaw, Poland – COS Torwar *
Oct 28 Washington, DC – The Anthem ^
Nov 1 Camden, NJ – Waterfront Music Pavilion ^
Nov 4 Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center ^
Nov 8 Boston, MA – MGM Fenway Music Hall ^
Nov 10 Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Arena ^
Nov 12 Chicago, IL – United Center ^
Nov 13 Minneapolis, MN – The Armory ^
Nov 16 Los Angeles, CA – The Kia Forum ^
Nov 19 San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic Auditorium ^
Nov 22 Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena ^
Nov 25 Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena ^
Nov 27 Edmonton, AB – Rogers Place ^
Dec 1 Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena ^
* with special guest Feist
^ with special guest Beck (acoustic)
Arcade Fire are back with a new album, WE, out now via Columbia Records. Nigel Godrich, Win Butler, and Régine Chassagne produced the LP, which was recorded in multiple locales including New Orleans, El Paso, and Mount Desert Island. According to Butler, it marks “the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever.” Clocking in at 40 minutes, the record is divided into two sides: Side ‘I’ explores “the fear and loneliness of isolation,” while Side ‘WE’ enters on “the joy and power of reconnection.” It is the final Arcade Fire album to feature multi-instrumentalist Will Butler, who left the band in 2021 shortly after its completion. The singles ‘The Lightning I, II’ and ‘Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)’ preceded the record. Read our review of WE.
Sharon Van Etten, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong
Sharon Van Etten has released the follow-up to 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow. Out now via Jagjaguwar, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrongwas co-produced by Daniel Knowles and features Van Etten’s touring band of Jorge Balbi on drums, Devon Hoff on bass, and live musical director Charley Damski on synthesizers and guitars. Van Etten’s recent singles ‘Porta’ and ‘Used To It’ do not appear on the LP; in fact, there were no advance tracks leading up to the album’s release. “I wanted to approach this release differently, to engage my fans in an intentional way, in an effort to present the album as a whole body of work,” Van Etten said in press materials. “These 10 songs are designed to be listened to in order, at once, so that a much larger story of hope, loss, longing and resilience can be told.”
Bad Bunny has returned with a new album called Un Verano Sin Ti. The follow-up to 2020’s El Último Tour del Mundo includes 23 tracks and features guest spots from Rauw Alejandro, Bomba Estéreo, Buscabulla, the Marias, and more. It was co-produced by Tainy and MAG, alongside his longtime engineer Beto “La Paciencia.” The Puerto Rican star began teasing the project back in January, confirming the LP through an online ad that listed his Bugatti for $3.5 million.
Warpaint have unveiled their first full-length album in six years. Radiate Like This follows 2016’s Heads Up and includes the previously shared tracks ‘Champion’, ‘Stevie’, and ‘Hips’. After completing foundational tracking sessions with co-producer Sam Petts-Davies (Thom Yorke, Frank Ocean, Skullcrusher), the band’s four members separated due to the pandemic and recorded each of their parts individually. “Making this album was a labor of love,” Warpaint said in a press release. “It is the joyous culmination of four musical minds over the course of a few wild and heart-opening years. We’re thrilled to finally share it with you.”
Belle and Sebastian have released A Bit of Previous, their 9th album and first in seven years, via Matador. The follow-up to 2015’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance was recorded in the group’s hometown of Glasgow after their plans to fly to Los Angeles in spring 2020 were scrapped due to COVID-19. “We did it together, us and the city,” frontman Stuart Murdoch said in a press statement. “This record was the first ‘full’ LP recording for B&S in Glasgow since Fold Your Hands Child, 1999. We clocked in every morning, we played our songs, we wrote together, we tried new things, we took the proverbial lump of clay, and we threw it every day.” The album includes the singles ‘Young and Stupid’, ‘If They’re Shooting At You’, ‘Unnecessary Drama’, and ‘Talk to Me Talk to Me’.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have dropped their latest LP, Endless Rooms, via Sub Pop. After exchanging ideas remotely during Australia’s lockdowns, the band’s five members were able to decamp to a mud-brick house built by the Russo family built in the ’70s (featured on the album cover) to record the album, which they self-produced alongside Matt Duffy. Inspired by the acoustics of the space, Endless Rooms features field recordings of rain, fire, birds, and wind. “It’s almost an anti-concept album,” the band explained in press materials. “The Endless Rooms of the title reflects our love of creating worlds in our songs. We treat each of them as a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities.” The tracks ‘Dive Deep’, ‘The Way It Shatters’, ‘Tidal River’, and ‘My Echo’ previewed the record.
The Words You Spoke Still Move Me is the debut full-length by Ellevator, the Hamilton, Ontario-based trio of frontwoman Nabi Sue Bersche, guitarist Tyler Bersche, and bassist/keyboardist Elliott Gwynne. Out now via Arts & Crafts, the album follows their 2018 debut self-titled EP and was produced by former Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla. “There’s a freedom in the way that he produces and comes up with ideas,” Nabi Sue Bersche said in our Artist Spotlight interview. “I didn’t really know what he was going to suggest next, but it didn’t make me feel too on my toes and impulsive. I knew he was going to get the job done and I knew it was going to be great. There was so much trust there from the beginning. But he was also very willing to experiment, and it worked.”
Sigrid has followed up 2019’s Sucker Punch with her second album, How to Let Go. The Norwegian pop artist wrote the LP at a time when she was contemplating her life in Norway and her life outside of Norway. “They’re two different things,” she explained in press materials. “The chill girl who loves to ski and hike and cook versus the other part of me that’s like ‘let’s go out’, or let’s play massive shows, go on stage and not be scared of anything. I used to be so shy as a kid but then when I’m on stage at Glastonbury for example I love losing myself in it.” She added: “The concept of ‘how to let go’ is the thread that runs through the album and through my life – just letting go of things you say, of people that have hurt you, or situations where I have been stupid. Life is about letting go and moving on. It sounds so simple, but it never is.”
The Ibeyi twins – Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz – have released their third studio album, Spell 31, via XL. Spanning 10 tracks, the follow-up to 2017’s Ash was written, produced, and recorded by Ibeyi, who worked with longtime collaborator Richard Russell. The LP features appearances from Jorja Smith, Pa Salieu, and BERWYN, who appears on a reimagining of Black Flag’s ‘Rise Above’. “It’s a new chapter,” Naomi Diaz said of the album in an interview with The Guardian. “It’s the most balanced between us.”
Sadurn – the Philadelphia four-piece led by vocalist/guitarist Genevieve DeGroot – have issued their debut LP, Radiator, via Run for Cover Records. Following two self-released EPs, Sadurn and Ther and Gleam, the album was made in the band’s makeshift recording studio during the pandemic. “The whole project up to that point had been so lo-fi, so close to the source and unproduced,” DeGroot explained in a press release. “I wanted the band and the new recordings to still have that to some extent. We’re all so close and we were living in this cabin for two weeks making this thing, I think it was sort of the special circumstances that lent themselves to the way the album turned out.” Sadurn previewed the record with the tracks ‘snake’, ‘golden arm’, and ‘icepick’.
Kumoyo Island, the final LP by Japanese psych-rockers Kikagaku Moyo, is out today via their own Guruguru Brain label. Following 2018’s Masana Temples, the band recorded their fifth studio album at Tsubame Studios in Asakusabashi, Tokyo, where they cut their earliest material. “We have come to the conclusion that because we have truly achieved our core mission as a band, we would love to end this project on the highest note possible,” the group wrote on social media. “Since first starting as a music collective on the streets of Tokyo in 2012, we never, ever imagined being able to play all over the world for our amazing audiences. It is all because of you that this was ever possible…and to this we are eternally grateful.”
Brooklyn dance-punk outfit !!! have shared their ninth studio album, Let It Be Blue, via Warp. The follow-up to 2019’s Wallop features production from Patrick For as well as guest appearances by Sink Ya Teeth’s Maria Uzor, Angelica Garcia, and Meah Pace. “On this record we were looking for basic minimal arrangements – sub-bass, drums and vocals mostly – and that approach is what finally let us support the vocal parts in a way that worked,” the band said, commenting on the single ‘Storm Around the World’. “The final piece was the beat that our producer Patrick Ford made that felt somewhere between programmed, sampled and played, a blurriness that is another feature of this album, Let it be Blue, which was mostly built on computers but doesn’t always sound or feel that way.”
Other albums out today:
Sunflower Bean, Headful of Sugar; Jack Harlow, Come Home The Kids Miss You; Hater, Sincere; Pink Mountaintops, Peacock Pools; Saâda Bonaire, 1992; Otoboke Beaver, Super Champon; Soft Cell,*Happiness Not Included; Yawners, Duplo; Praise, All in a Dream; Terror, Pain into Power; Simple Plan, Harder Than It Looks; Hüma Utku, The Psychologist; Three Days Grace, Explosions; Halestorm, Back From the Dead; Adrian Copeland, If This Were My Body; Puppy, Pure Evil; Suki Waterhouse, I Can’t Let Go; C Duncan, Alluvium; Daou, Sanctuary; flor, Future Shine; Serpente, Dias da Aranha; Maria Chiara Argirò, Forest City.
“’I LUV MY BRAIN!’ was one of the first songs I wrote for the mixtape,” ELIO explained in a press release. “It’s a self love song about my brain and the way it works. It’s about learning to appreciate my brain for all that it does and allows me to do while also acknowledging that it can be a bit difficult a lot of the time. I’ve had a constant battle with my thoughts and my feelings because they set me back in so many things but they also allow me to be creative in so many ways. I really wouldn’t be where I am without it being the way that it is – sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes that’s a bad thing, but I think I’m getting to the point of accepting it.”
Having completed her first headline US tour, ELIO is set to embark on a support tour with Charli XCX across Europe later this month. Revisit our Artist Spotlight interview with ELIO.
ELIO’S INFERNO Cover Artwork:
ELIO’S INFERNO Tracklist:
1. inferno
2. TYPECAST
3. new and improved
4. SUPERIMPOSE
5. 9 Lives
6. Vitamins
7. Read the Room
8. I LUV MY BRAIN!
9. Godly Behaviour
10. Off my chest
Kasabian have announced their first new album since the departure of former frontman Tom Meighan. The Alchemist’s Euphoria arrives on August 5 via Columbia Records. The first single is ‘SCRIPTVRE’, which was written by the band’s Serge Pizzorno, who also produced the track with Fraser T Smith. Check it out below.
“‘SCRIPTVRE’ is about rewriting the story you tell yourself,” Pizzorno said in a press release. “Editing your own script.” Of the album, he added: “One thing about this record I feel over the other ones, is it definitely feels like a body of work that belongs together. It was a beautiful moment in mastering hearing it as a piece. I think it really holds up in our seven albums….The Magnificent Seven.”
Wolf Alice performed a cover of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s ‘Sense’ on triple j’s Like a Version. Watch it below.
‘Sense’ is taken from the 2015 album Paper Mâché Dream Balloon. “It’s a beautiful song. It’s quite different from a lot of their other stuff. It kind of feels like an old, classic song, doesn’t it?” lead singer Ellie Roswell said ahead of the performance. “We’ve met them a couple of times at festivals and they always put on a great show.”
Bassist Theo Ellis added: “I think they’re such a prolific band and so talented that they can have these hidden pop gems, in my opinion, that it’s really clever. If you put that in a different style of production and had a modern pop star singing it, I think it would be a chart hit. I think exploring that is one of the funnest aspects of doing this cover.”
Just yesterday, Wolf Alice announced their Blue Lullaby EP, featuring lullaby renditions of songs from their latest album Blue Weekend.
..And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead have announced XI: Bleed Here Now, their first new album in two years. The follow-up to 2020’s X: The Godless Void and Other Stories is set for release on July 15 via Dine Alone. The announcement comes with the release of the record’s first two singles, ‘No Confidence’ and ‘Salt in Your Eyes’, which you can hear below.
Trail of Dead’s 11th studio album was produced by the band’s own Conrad Keely and Jason Reece alongside Charles Godfrey, who co-produced their last LP. It features guest appearances from Spoon’s Britt Daniel (‘Growing Divide’), Amanda Palmer (‘Millennium Actress’), the Tosca String Quartet (‘Our Epic Attempts’), and others.
XI: Bleed Here Now Cover Artwork:
XI: Bleed Here Now Tracklist:
1. Our Epic Attempts
2. Long Distance Hell
3. Field Song
4. Penny Candle
5. No Confidence
6. String Theme
7. Kill Everyone
8. Growing Divide [feat. Britt Daniel]
9. Pigments
10. Golden Sail
11. A Life Less Melancholy
12. Taken by the Hand
13. Contra Mundum
14. Darkness Into Light
15. Water Tower
16. Sounds of Horror
17. Protest Streets
18. The Widening of Gyre
19. Millenium Actress [feat. Amanda Palmer]
20. Salt in Your Eyes
21. English Magic
22. Calm as the Valley
Doja Cat has returned with a new song called ‘Vegas’, which she debuted at Coachella 2022. It’s her contribution to the soundtrack for the Baz Luhrmann-directed ELVIS biopic, which arrives June 24, and interpolates Elvis Presley’s hit ‘Hound Dog’. Check it out below.
ELVIS Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is out this summer via RCA. The film stars Austin Butler as Elvis Presley and Tom Hanks as his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, featuring Yola as Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Doja Cat’s most recent album, Planet Her, dropped last year.
Arcade Fire are back with a new album, 
Sharon Van Etten has released the follow-up to 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow. Out now via 
Bad Bunny has returned with a new album called 
Warpaint have unveiled their first full-length album in six years. 
Belle and Sebastian have released 
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have dropped their latest LP, 
The Words You Spoke Still Move Me
Sigrid has followed up 2019’s Sucker Punch with her second album, 
The Ibeyi twins – Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz – have released their third studio album, 
Sadurn – the Philadelphia four-piece led by vocalist/guitarist Genevieve DeGroot – have issued their debut LP, 
Kumoyo Island
Brooklyn dance-punk outfit !!! have shared their ninth studio album, 
