It’s time for the grand finale of this year’s Listmas celebrations, and as ever we’ve saved the best for last. When we think back on 2024, it will be these records that will be forefront in our minds. These are the records that soundtracked all the ups and downs of the past twelve months. That provided companionship on quiet nights and offered a safe haven when the world got a bit too hectic. So let’s dive right in to the main event: Belwood’s best albums of 2024. Continue reading →
While our Listmas celebrations as a whole aim to reflect on what the past year has given us, our annual EP list is often more about looking forward into the years ahead. It’s about the promise heard in these collections, and the excitement they instil in us for what the road ahead may have in store from the acts which crafted them. Listening to a great EP often feels like a fateful first meeting, hearing your next favourite artist before you even realise it. Perhaps your next fav is just waiting to be discovered in this very list, so let’s dive right in to the best EPs that 2024 had to offer. Continue reading →
You join us now as we kick this year’s Listmas celebrations up a gear by delving into our favourite songs of 2024. Be they chart topping singles or overlooked deep cuts, these are the tracks that had me coming back time after time. The songs that have been on repeat in my head for months on end. The tracks with the most astonishing “wow” moments which left me speechless, as well as those that had me singing along the loudest. Without further ado, let’s look back on the best songs that soundtracked 2024. Continue reading →
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then imagine the kind of story you can tell with thousands of them in motion. With that philosophy in mind, a truly great music video can elevate a song to new heights, and sometimes even transcend beyond the song itself to become an iconic work of art in its own right. Whether echoing big budget cinema, or built from the ground up with nothing but ingenuity and elbow grease, there’s been no shortage of memorable visuals this year. So, before we delve into our favourite music of 2024, let’s take a moment to celebrate the best videos of the past twelve months. Continue reading →
Here’s wishing you all a belated Merry Christmas and a very warm welcome to this year’s Listmas celebrations! That’s right, it is time once again for us to look back at all the highest highs that the music world has brought us in the past twelve months. This latest edition of our end of year extravaganza begins as ever with a look at our favourite album artwork. It’s my favourite list to compile, and in an age of soulless AI abominations it feels more important that ever to celebrate the boundless creativity of hard working artists. Here are the covers that most caught our eyes, lingered in our minds, and ignited our imaginations in 2024. Continue reading →
Christmas is a time of togetherness. A time when we show our appreciation for those we love, a time to look back on all the twists and turns of the past year which led us here, and a chance to slow down, enjoy life in the moment, and simply be. That kind of celebration of connection is captured wonderfully in Gabrielle Aplin’s new track ‘Go Be Free’. Rekindling the bittersweet introspective folk of her English Rain era, this latest track ponders on the circles of life and our place in the natural world around us. “Starlings float upon the air we breathe” has to be one of the most affecting reflections I’ve ever heard on how we’re just one small piece of a far bigger picture. The whole track plays as a gorgeous musing on how the things we lose come back to us in the end, in some form or another. How we make peace with the leaves falling in autumn, as we have faith they’ll return in spring. ‘Go Be Free’ feels like Gabrielle at her absolute best; the most wonderful early Christmas present I could have asked for.
“You look so pretty when you cry, Makes them wanna break your heart to watch you die inside” – talk about opening lines that hit like a freight train. But as anyone who has had their heartstrings plucked by the band’s magnificent debut album can attest, London dream pop outfit Bleach Lab have an uncanny knack for that sort of thing. Taking the dark empty feeling gnawing at your insides, finding the right words to describe that sensation which walk the line between beautiful and devastating, and ultimately delivering them adorned in effervescent melodies bright enough to banish the gloom. The band’s superb new single ‘Drown’ sees them detail the daunting prospect of trying to break the cycle of a toxic relationship. Clinging on to the person that keeps on hurting you, convincing yourself that the heartache is worth the highs. Scared to take the plunge into a world without them, and deciding that the pain is better than feeling nothing at all. From its driving rhythm section and dreamy haze, to Jenna Kyle’s stunningly bittersweet vocals, ‘Drown’ is yet another triumph from one of the most emotive and assured new bands around.