New (To Me) Music - January

Gayle Ramage
Jan 22
5 min read

Updated: Aug 5

This year I'm making an effort to listen to more new-to-me music, whether it's from a band/artist I've never heard before, artists I'm aware of, or music from an artist I already enjoy but haven't kept up with their output for whatever reason.

So, near the end of each month, I'm going to post about the albums I've listened to. They won't exactly be reviews. There are far cleverer people out there who have already written full-depth analyses of these. Think of them as expanded listicles (that’s the first time I’ve ever written the word… and I’ve just realised what it means). I’ve also added my highlights of each album, so do check those out if you’re looking for some new-to-you music, or let me know your highlights from these albums if you’ve already listened to any of them.

Franz Ferdinand - The Human Fear (2025)

A band who hail from my part of the world - Scotland. I don't know a huge amount about them, other than they came to prominence with the 2004 banger, Take Me Out, and their frontman is Alex Kapranos. So, when I saw they'd released a new album this month, I thought I'd have a listen.

Prior to this, I recently saw the music video for their latest single, Audacious, the opener to the album and a song which harks back to Take Me Out with a slower tempo in the chorus . I find that usually I have to listen to albums a few times for the songs to click with me, and I found myself having to give this album a second listen. There’s a mix of genres here: Cats has a country-like tinge to the music, where a song like Hooked offers a heavy synth sound, and Black Eyelashes employs an Eastern European flavour. I enjoyed the diverse sounds and will happily return to the band’s discography again to hopefully enjoy another pick.

Highlights: Audacious - Everydaydreamer - Build It Up - Tell Me I Should Stay

Badly Drawn Boy - Banana Skin Shoes (2020)

There's a lovely warm feeling you get when you listen to an album and immediately adore what you're hearing with every track. This is what happened with the latest Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) release, his first studio album in ten years. I'll admit that I gave this a listen partly because of my new Toppermost article, and also because I've been enjoying familiarising myself with Badly Drawn Boy's back catalogue over the past few months. From the quirky title track opener to the understated I'll Do My Best, there's so many delights in these 14 tracks. Arguably, the best Badly Drawn Boy album since The Hour of Bewilderbeast.

Highlights: Fly On The Wall - Is This A Dream - Colours - Banana Skin Shoes - Notes to Self - I’m Not Sure What It Is - You and Me Against the World - I Need Someone To Trust - I’ll Do My Best

Elvis Costello - Trust (1981)

I started listening to Elvis Costello through his association with Squeeze, and although I've made a small dent in his lengthy back catalogue, I've not heard everything yet. Of what I've listened to, I prefer the early energy of My Aim Is True, an album I bought on vinyl from a local record fair). From A Whisper To A Scream - a great little rocker - was the only song I knew from the album, it being a duet between Costello and Squeeze’s Glenn Tilbrook (the result of Tilbrook recording guide vocals for The Attractions while Costello was unwell - Costello liked the vocal so much he kept it and turned the song into a duet between the two).

Highlights: Clubland - You’ll Never Be A Man - Strict Time - From A Whisper To A Scream - Fish ‘N’ Chip Paper - Big Sister’s Clothes

Lime Cordiale - Enough of the Sweet Talk (2024)

A friend in Australia first told me of Lime Cordiale a few years ago when the band collaborated with Idris Elba on their 2022 collaboration, the Cordi Elba EP, so I've been dipping in and out of their music ever since. With Enough of the Sweet Talk, there were already seven(!) singles released before the album was available, though I’m only really familiar with two - Facts of Life and Country Club, both released in 2022. The band, fronted by brothers Louis and Oli Leimbach, write fun guitar-led pop songs and though they have gigged over here in the UK, they’re not particularly well-known yet. Nestled within the 17 tracks is the song Colin, a tribute to former Men At Work’s frontman Colin Hay who features on the track. As Oli Leimbach told the NME in November 2022, “It’s not about Colin but he started the creation of the song, so we asked him to finish it by singing the final chorus.” The album is also interspersed with “cue” tracks, five short pieces of lo-fi music with someone talking in the foreground about life and relationships.

Highlights: Pedestal - The Milkman - Facts of Life - Enough of the Sweet Talk - Colin - Imposter Syndrome - Country Club - Cold Treatment

The Divine Comedy - Fin de Siecle (1998)

I was well aware of The Divine Comedy during the 1990s when I was a teen, and enjoyed many of their songs - Something For The Weekend, Everybody Knows, Generation Sex, to name but a few - though I'd never bought the albums (my £3-an-hour weekend work at my local newsagents meant I had to pick and choose which albums I could buy). So, I never got round to experiencing anything more than the singles I heard on the radio or saw on MTV and VH1. I’d seen the cover of Fin de Siecle many a time, so I thought I’d choose this one to pop my Divine Comedy cherry. There is one song, Eric the Gardener, which lasts over 8 minutes, though there’s a warm, hypnotic aspect to the song so you don’t really notice the time that much. The album’s production is fantastic. Props to producers Jon Jacobs and Neil Hannon, the latter of course being the mainstay of the band.

Highlights: Generation Sex - Thrillseeker - Commuter Love - Eric the Gardener - National Express

CMAT - Crazymad, For Me (2023)

CMAT was a name I'd heard before but couldn't tell you whether they were a band or soloist, where they were from, and what genre of music they played. I was watching Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny show on Hogmany night (or New Year's Eve) when I saw that CMAT was performing. A red-haired, Irish singer-songwriter, she opted to begin her performance lying face-down on the floor as Jools introduced her. The song was Have Fun, which acts as the closer for Crazymad, For Me. I enjoyed the quirky performance as well as the song, so I made a note to listen to the album.

Highlights: California - Such a Miranda - Have Fun

Have you heard any of these albums before? What did you think? Leave a comment below!