Author: acute.pop

[album] Legss – Unreal

acute.pop

Years of sharp EPs and standout singles by Legss only hinted at what was coming. Unreal arrives like something very special—a grand debut in spirit, more a bold new beginning than a continuation. From the first track, it’s clear how much care, hard work and ambition fuel this record: the sound is broader, richer, and more adventurous than anything they’ve attempted before.

Where earlier releases invited comparisons to fellow post-punk and art rock outfits (who started at the same time as Legss), Unreal finds the four-piece stepping fully into a voice that’s clearly their own. The album roams widely, shifting from intricate, almost cinematic textures to bursts of jagged energy, yet it never feels scattered or forced.

Lyrically, it’s clever and piercingly relatable, threading themes of social anxiety, miscommunication, and the uncanny edges of everyday life (“The tragic and the comic. The unreal”, as stated by the group). It’s heavy and personal without turning dour, balancing weighty ideas with sharp wit and memorable phrasing (“Sleepers, Awake” is an easy standout on the record in this sense).

Most striking, though, is just how beautiful the whole thing sounds. The production is lush but never slick; each listen reveals new layers while preserving the raw nerve that has always defined the band. “Eversince” is the best example of this, easily one of the most gorgeous-sounding songs released this year. For a group long marked as promising, Unreal is a true revelation.

Listen below and buy the LP here.

[video] Hilary Woods – Endgames

acute.pop

Hilary Woods has announced her new album, Night CRIÚ, due out October 31 via Sacred Bones Records.

Woods live in Bologna’23

The record’s first single, “Endgames”, arrives alongside a self-made video that showcases Woods’ unique analogue film practice. Working with 16mm and Super 8 film, she hand-processed her own footage in the darkroom, layering it with archive clips, home videos, profile photographs by Joshua Wright, and her own drawings directly onto celluloid. The result is a deeply personal visual language that mirrors the song’s emotional weight.

The single is a haunting, beautifully restrained piece that lingers long after it ends. In both sound and vision, it reflects on the unspoken bonds that tie us to one another, opening a door into the shadowy, luminous world of Night CRIÚ.

Speaking about the LP, Woods shared: “Each record is a life buoy, a raft, a snapshot, a marker in the sand, a date that requires me to meet it. Making records is a way of being”.

Watch below and pre-order the album on Bandcamp.

[live] Anna von Hausswolff announce EU / UK tour dates

acute.pop

Swedish musician and composer Anna von Hausswolff has announced a new tour, set to follow the release of her upcoming album Iconoclasts (out October 31 via YEAR0001, pre-order it here).

The tour begins in Copenhagen on December 4 and will continue into early 2026, with stops in Oslo, Stockholm, Berlin, Bristol, Manchester, London, Antwerp, Paris, and more. Pre-sale sign-up is now open — register through this link.

There will be two dates in Italy, as follows:

February 11 – Santeria Toscana 31, Milan
February 12 – Locomotiv, Bologna

Check out two tracks from the record below.

[song] John Maus – Pick It Up

acute.pop

At the end of September, we’ll get Later Than You Think, a new album by John Maus. Set to be released on Young, it is described as a collection exploring themes of justice, confession, rebirth, transformation, and spiritual warfare.

Maus live in Turin’24

We have already heard some brilliant songs from it, and with his latest single, “Pick It Up”, he keeps the momentum going.

With it, John takes a surprising detour from the urgency and pulse that defined his earlier released tracks. It unfolds as a slow burner, letting atmosphere take the lead over rhythm. Its layered synths and restrained pacing give it a drifting, almost weightless quality, while Maus’s vocals feel more vulnerable than usual—less commanding, more fragile, exposing a side of him rarely seen.

The song carries an understated beauty, its emotional pull lying not in grand gestures but in the subtle textures and quiet ache at its core. It’s a deeply atmospheric piece that lingers, marking one of the most affecting moments in his catalogue so far.

Listen below and pre-order the record here.

[album] Lathe of Heaven – Aurora

acute.pop

Listening to Aurora by Lathe of Heaven feels like stepping into a dimly lit goth club, where time no longer matters and the past merges with the present. The post-punk four-piece doesn’t just reference their influences—they reshape them, creating songs that are at once melodic and aggressive, dreamy and dangerous, yet somehow entirely organic.

A strong romantic feel runs throughout the album, amplified by poetic and heavy lyrics that read like fragments of nocturnal dream journals, but the music never drifts into softness; there’s always a volatile edge just beneath the surface. The title track (which is set in a dystopian future where Earth is long abandoned due to nuclear fallout) feels like the record’s beating heart—an expansive, deeply affecting piece that manages to be both urgent and elegiac.

Together, all these qualities make Aurora something really-really special: an album that channels the ghosts of the past while speaking with startling clarity to the present, glowing with a natural intensity and musical beauty from beginning to end. To arrive at a sound this confident, cohesive, and emotionally charged so early on is rare, and it marks Lathe of Heaven as one of the finest bands around.

Stream below and buy the LP here, out now via Sacred Bones Records.