BLAIR MORGAN

There was a moment in the early "noughts" when it seemed as though indie guitar music was about to save everything.And now, roughly a quarter of a century later, three of those acts ,or in Brandon Flowers' case, one of the principal creative forces behind one of them ,have new albums. The Strokes have Reality Awaits. Interpol have This Mirror Weighs a Ton. And Brandon Flowers, stepping outside The Killers again but carrying much of that band's identity with him, has released

I first found Peter Case by accident, which still seems the right way to find him. It was the mid-1980s, and I was reading the album review section in the Christchurch Star, the Christchurch evening newspaper . The review was about R.E.M's Life's Rich Pageant , the follow up to Fables of the Reconstruction, an album that raarely left the turntable. For the second review following REM it was mentioned a great opening act for REM would be Peter Case.

August 2019. Justin Townes Earle, promoting what would be his last album The Saint of Lost Causes, stood alone on stage in Ōtautahi Christchurch, midway through a set that would barely stretch beyond an hour.

These are simply the albums that mattered to me in 2025. Check out the accompanying Spotify playlist too.