Sinister crayon: coming soon

This week's pre-order recommendations are led by Banquet Rock, a lovely new collaboration between Spencer Cullum, Max Kinghorn-Mills (Hollow Hand), Erin Rae and friends. Recorded over just four days in a 16th-century building on the Isle of Wight, it's a wonderfully loose and colourful collection of songs drawing on 70s British folk, acid-folk oddities and vintage children's television soundtracks. There's pedal steel, pump organ, Rhodes piano and plenty of beautifully intertwined vocals, with a warmth and playfulness that makes the whole thing feel very special. Think Pentangle, Kevin Ayers and Kacy & Clayton. We've got it on moonstage sage coloured vinyl.

The Flaming Lips return with The Teardrop Throbs, their first studio album since 2020's American Head. Expect the usual mixture of lush psychedelia, sweeping arrangements and Wayne Coyne's distinctive songwriting. We've got the indies-only opaque blue vinyl edition. There's also a welcome reissue of Butthole Surfers' Humpty Dumpty LSD, originally released in 2002, collecting 19 tracks of deranged mid-80s psych-punk across two LPs.

A particularly exciting one is Joe Henderson's At The Lighthouse: If You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're Part Of The Problem, an absolutely killer live recording from 1970. Henderson was one of the great tenor saxophonists, and this is him at his most adventurous, backed by a superb band including Woody Shaw, George Cables and Lenny White. The playing is fiery, exploratory and full of energy, moving between hard bop, modal jazz and the freer territory that was opening up at the time. A brilliant record, and this expanded 3LP edition adds five previously unreleased performances. Well worth investigating if you don't already know it.

And finally, R.E.M.'s The Black Sessions Revealed captures a 2001 Paris performance, with 17 songs spanning Revealand earlier favourites, including 'Losing My Religion' and 'Man On The Moon'.

→ Recommended

Iron Maiden were on an incredible run in the early 80s, and 1984's Powerslave is arguably the peak of it. Opening with the one-two punch of 'Aces High' and '2 Minutes To Midnight', it's packed with everything that makes Maiden so great: galloping basslines, twin-guitar harmonies, Bruce Dickinson's soaring vocals and some of their best songs. The title track is fantastic, but it's the 13-minute 'Rime Of The Ancient Mariner' that really takes things to another level. One of the great heavy metal albums, and a record that sounds every bit as good over 40 years later. UK first pressing right here.

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