There’s no attempt to hide the frustration, anger and hurt in Hazel Wilde’s voice as she speaks of a sense of something broken in life, whether its being ‘done with the creatures online’ and entreating her friends outside on Through The Cellar Door, walking the streets in ‘a world of plastic souls’ on I’ll Stall Them or finding solace in a bottle, as she tells of how ‘last night I passed out on the kitchen floor / with a drink in my hand’ in opener Of Dust And Matter. The sound is forboding and dense, but also gloriously expansive, triggering of tremors in the soul and a sort of blue ecstasy of emotion.

Crescendos of brass and drum cacophonies follow tender lilting vocals and gentle flickering piano solos, before breaking out again. It’s an album that sweeps as high as it does wide, and delves deep into the darkness of life and all its grittiness, but never forgets the beauty within.

Potent and powerful, Lanterns have always excelled in the kind of cinematic sounds that they continue to perform on Beings, but as well as being a soundtrack to the wider social and political situation in which they find themselves, it’s personal and reflective – if self deprecating and sometimes painfully self destructive. As she sings about disconnection and brokenness, Wilde connects, her voice embraced by simmering drums from band mate Ol Ketteringham and the brutal luminescence of guest Angela Chan’s work on the violin, cello and viola.

Beings is an easy album to listen to, in that it sounds beautiful and splendid, but also challenging, dragging you through emotional tumult and tender loss, and leaving you much in the same state as the music: raw and battered, hollow and overwhelmed, but striving and seeking.

As Hazel sings on Green & Gold, a song reflecting on a broken relationship ‘this was the part where you picked up and started again’ – because as broken as we are, that’s all we can do.

Daughter – We were lucky enough to see Elena Tonra (aka Daughter) play at the beautiful St Giles in the Fields church in London just before Christmas and she absolutely blew us away. We’d been meaning to catch her for months, but events always conspired, but nothing could have prepared us for one of our gig highlights of the year. On some levels she will be pigeonholed as another ‘girl with a guitar’, but there is much more to her music. We’ve seen it described as ‘dream-folk’ and ‘ghostly’, which isn’t too far wide of the mark, with the kind of subtle soundscapes that the XX do so well adding depth to her music. If we’re honest she had us hooked after one listen of Landfill, but live she really is something special. With a date at Islington Assembly Hall already in the diary for April and many more around the country, we really hope 2012 is her year.
Listen to and buy both her EPs here.
Lucy Rose – Really excited to hear the full album from Lucy Rose. Having done the backing vocal rounds with Bombay Bicycle Club, this year is definitely her time to shine as an artist in her own right. With a voice to melt the heart and some beautifully crafted songs she’s sure to do well this year. Expect a BBC member or 2 on backing as well.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adBPg8Zdp2g]
Alt J – We wrote this on seeing them live a couple of months back… ‘The last couple of years haven’t been short on intelligent, earnest ‘indie’ music, but where say Wild Beasts skirt the fine line of irritating pretentiousness, Alt – J seem more accessible in their own abstractness and imagery, but no less intelligent or intriguing in their performance and sound. On this showing, they’ll certainly be heading for the upper ends of the ‘ones to watch’ lists for 2012.’ – we’ll stand by that…
Social Network here–
Breezeblocks (demo) by alt-J
The Maccabees
Ascending and descending through the depths of all emotions, the title track from latest album Given To The Wild is a departure, brimming with wavering soft ambience, but the gritty guazey guitars, stop start rhythms and dashing assault of psychological similes that made The Maccabees one of our favourite bands remains. ‘We’ve grown up as people and changed as a band,’ guitarist Felix White said recently. ‘We’ve learned for the first time what we really wanted The Maccabees to sound like on record. It’s taken us three albums but we finally achieved that. We’ve discovered what we’re truly capable of and that feels really exciting.’ Sounds it.
Blood Red Shoes

Their Facebook bio may describe them as just ‘another fucking roll’n’roll band’ but we know different. Scuzzy riffs, rip em up guitar work and a blistering pace, Blood Red Shoes consistently deliver behemoths of tunes, and the follow up to Fire Like This and Box Of Secrets won’t be any different. Besides, since when has being a rock’n’roll band been bad? Some narrow minded twit called David A Noebel stated on his spoken word album The Marxist Minstrels back in 1974 that rock’n’roll ‘music is loud, primitive, insistent, strongly rhythmic and releases in an undisguised way the all-too tenuously controlled, newly acquired physical impulses of the teenager. Mix this up with the phenomenon of mass hypnosis, contagious hysteria and the blissful feeling of being mixed-up in an all-embracing, orgiastic experience, and every kid can become ‘Lord of the Flies’ or the Beatles.’ Sounds bloody brilliant doesn’t it?

Ten bands you must hear this year (with handy links so you can start right now)

Fanzine
Low by Fanzine
Lanterns On The Lake
Lanterns on the Lake ‘Lungs Quicken’ 
Grimes
Grimes – Skin 
Soldiers Can’t Dance
Soldiers Can’t Dance – Lego by soldierscantdance
Spring Offensive
A Stutter and A Start by springoffensive
Rachel Sermanni
The Fog by Rachel Sermanni
Young British Artists
Young British Artists – Everything In Front Of You
Ideals
Significant Other by Ideals
The Wave Pictures
The Wave Pictures – Sweetheart 
Gross Magic
Gross Magic – Yesterdays