So these songs are the work of a truly inveterate musician, and it shows вЂ“ Fretwell has such a natural facility for an affecting turn of melody, his simple fingerpicked guitar made eerie by the subtle ambient tones that sit behind it. He hauled himself up and gave music another shot, apparently at the cost of his marriage. Photograph: David Levene/The GuardianДЄ songwritersвЂ™ songwriter beloved of Elbow and Arctic Monkeys, Stephen Fretwell was washing pots in a WetherspoonвЂ™s pub, his music career having flatlined amid fatherhood. Scunthorpe singer-songwriter Stephen Fretwell. To blissed-out, dreamy synth-pop that buoys you along like a lazy river вЂ“ occasionally spiked by classic rap throwbacks and arcade-game electro вЂ“ the four-piece dreamily hymn the joys of food, self-acceptance and protest, nurturing their own laid-back take on pleasure activism. The truly self-assured rarely make a noise about it, and so it is with the third album by Japanese girl group Chai. Dacus reflects on her teenage years вЂ“ of church and bible camp, of budding queer desire amid a culture of shame and damnation, of the fantasies that let her escape these limitations вЂ“ with such tender curiosity that these vignettes feel less like fixed memories than forensic crime scene reconstructions. Some of the yearвЂ™s best musical storytelling lived in the Virginia songwriterвЂ™s third record, her writing newly amplified by subtle hints of pop propulsion and grit that evoked how Elliott Smith expanded his sound. Tracks such as Serf bring in a groove metal sensibility to help it all swing. The moody breakdowns allow the explosive choruses to land all the more righteously, with vocalist Kim Song Sternkopf вЂ“ a survivor of faith cults as a child вЂ“ venting majestically into the mic.

Photograph: Sebastian ApelД«lending the blast beats and acid-gargling glottal mayhem of black metal with the uplifting, even sentimental guitar dynamics of shoegaze, вЂњblackgazeвЂќ has become a vibrant corner of heavy music вЂ“ and Danish quintet MГL became one of its best exponents with their second album.

cult survivor-singer Kim Song Sternkopf (centre) with band MГL.

Ghazals youtube