Best of 2021 (part 3)

OK, after last week's all female selection, it's time to give the fellas a look-in. Here's four more excellent records that have lit me up over the past 12 months.

IDLES - 'Crawler'
If you thought all Idles did was make loud shouty politically-correct punk songs, think again, for 'Crawler' sees the band make quite a dramatic shift in their approach. Yes, the shouty punk songs are still there, but you also get dark electronica, discomforting soul and, in Progress, something so haunting and ominous, it sounds like another band entirely. It's arguably their most triumphant attempt at experimentation and production. Trust me, put the headphones on and turn this one up. Stunning, possibly my favourite Idles moment to date.

THE CORAL - 'Coral Island'
The 10th album from our favourite Scousers has drawn comparisons to classic 60s records like 'The Village Green Preservation Society' by The Kinks, and the Small Faces' 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake', and it is a concept record crammed to the brim with the band's trademark psychedelic folk. Telling the story of a fictional seaside town and its people, it features narration from Ian Murrary, none other than the grandfather of the Coral's own Skelly brothers James and Ian. Some cracking songs on this, but then it is The Coral after all.

GRUFF RHYS - 'Seeking New Gods'
It would, of course, be remiss of me not to include at least one album from the Land of Song in my rundown, and there can be no finer ambassador than Gruff, who delivered one of the best solo records of his career. Rather oddly (which itself is perhaps not surprising), it's influenced by Mount Paektu in North Korea and was recorded partly in the Mojave desert and partly in, erm, Bristol... Wherever they come from, the songs on 'Seeking New Gods' are pretty damn infectious.

LIARS - 'The Apple Drop'
You never quite know what you're going to get from Liars. They lurch from style-to-style, often during the same record, with little regard for genre or theme. While that can be said to some extent of their 10th album, it all seems to hold together pretty well and contains some really good songs. It's like dark, synth-infused post punk with traces of Nick Cave and 'Kid A'-era Radiohead thrown in. It's certainly, for me, their most enjoyable record since 2014's 'Mess'.

More next Sunday. Merry Christmas.