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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Katie Hawthorne, Jason Okundaye, Alexis Petridis, Laura Snapes and Kate Solomon

Soul-baring ballads, alt-rock fury and neon-lit techno: five-star albums you may have missed this year

Clockwise from top left: Anthony Naples; Madison Cunningham; Sarz; Annahstasia.
ICYMI … clockwise from top left: Anthony Naples; Madison Cunningham; Sarz; Annahstasia. Composite: Jenny Slattery; Sean Stout; Getty Images; Tatsiana

Annahstasia – Tether

Towards the end of Tether, there is a song called Silk and Velvet; its sound is characteristic of Annahstasia’s debut album. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar and her extraordinary vocals – husky, expressive, elegant – are front and centre. The arrangement is subtle but not drearily tasteful: arching noise that could be feedback or a distorted pedal steel guitar, which gradually swells into something climactic before dying away. The lyrics, meanwhile, concern themselves with selling out: “Maybe I’m an analyst, an antisocial bitch,” she sings. “Who sells her dreams for money.”

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