aya - hexed! (2025) Album Review

There are commonalities with Hollywood and TV in recent years. Having not one single original idea and remaking something no one asked for, to a terrible standard and for some reason, cynically using an existing fan-base but rubbing that fan-bases noses in it by race/sexuality or gender swapping a lead character. There's also a more vile and insidious trend going on here where only one person always seems to pay the price.

Director Steven Soderbergh's latest is a classy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy variant, expertly made and with an impeccable cast, exceptionally led by Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. The odd improbabilities aside.

I do love Germany's DJ Koze, and ranked both his previous long form behemoths, Amygdala (2013) and Knock Knock (2018) as my second best albums of those respective years. The same cannot be said for his third. A beautifully produced and effortlessly classy affair, that is almost never compelling, sadly.

I think this is an all time first for me, an album where I hated the first half and actually liked the second half. The "UK Bass" artist has one of the most acclaimed albums of the year, I suspect in large part to music critics rating anything that mentions gender or sexual identity higher than it deserves. The first five tracks of yelping vegan Death Grips are interminable, yet the next five are vastly better.

The most mind-blowing album I've heard in years. This psychedelic journey through a club apparently owned by Cthulhu, by Bolivian-American siblings, encourages you to invent a new genre at every turn. A colossal monolith of dayglow noise that is, in an already exceptional year for albums, my new reigning album of the year (sorry Deafheaven/Darkside).

This years brightest new indie attack, levels with octopus armed percussion and a sound like no one else. Music to attune to (like Trout Mask Replica) before all its glories are revealed.

This latest and most rote Stephen King adaption has 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. How. Following on from last years tepid, flat and overrated Long Legs, the same director is getting kudos for an even worse film. Far far worse. It's utter garbage.

The superb Deafheaven, always welcomed by the COMPLETELY REASONABLE gatekeepers of Death Metal, sound reborn on their masterpiece sixth album. The only questions being, is it their best release yet? (possibly) and is it my album of the year so far? (yes).

Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, was expected to follow his last collection with a return to the his perfectly sculpted run of albums, so why does this feel more like another disjointed collection, when compared to his best work?

Or more accurately an EP review of a minor, yet still excellent collection of music the esteemed Canadian electronic composer has made for films.