10 Best Rock Albums Of 2021

Public Service Broadcasting's defining characteristic has been their strong focus on the concept album. They craft songs around histrionically significant pieces of audio, pulled from sound recording archives and public film stock. As its title indicates, Race For Space (2015) examined the human desire to leave the planet. With audio snippets of J.F.K., the Moon Landing and the Apollo 1 disasters, you were left with highly emotive musical representations, of these moments in history.

This might have been PSB's unique selling point at on time, but they no longer seem to need it. This album is still very much a concept record, but it's far less heavily laced with audio clips. Bright Magic is a celebration of the city of Berlin, and as you can imagine PSB took no liberties with their venture into ambient krautrock.

On an album that at times get very reflective, Der Rhythmus Der Maschinen, stands out, not least because it features J. Willgoose Esq. showing off his guitar chops. His fast paced riffing rips through the heart of the track before we're treated to Berlin native, Blixa Bargeld (formerly of the Bad Seeds) regale us with spoken word lyrics, in his native tongue.

Musically this feels just as accomplished as anything they've done before. Throughout the album themes and melodies pay homage to different moments spanning the Berlin music scene, but the lack of recognisable sound bites doesn't take away from it, for a moment.