The 10 albums we couldn't stop playing last month

The album releases slow down as we wind toward year's end, but there's still plenty of big records to dig into, as October proved. Here are 10 great albums released this month. Want more? Catch Shortcut on ABC listen for the full rundown. The Avalanches — No Bad MemoriesSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeAfter three albums of sample-heavy, guest-packed music, the Australian music wizards return to mine magic from forgotten sources. (Supplied: Universal Music Australia)Finding inspiration in the nostalgic pull of obsolete technology and advertising, No Bad Memories is a 31-track fantasia where feel-good dance music and all-star pop collabs are spliced with overlooked samples and jingles both real and imagined.It's a kaleidoscopic collage where anything is possible: a Carly Simon deep cut rubs shoulders with Mike Patton voicing fictional video game commercials. Forgotten TV themes and Nokia start-up sounds are threaded into fizzy rhythms, and Jamie xx and Karen O sit alongside emerging talent like John Galcier and Portraits of Tracy.For some, the hyperactive pacing and experimental bent might be easier to admire than listen to. For the rest of us, it's a playful, purposeful critique and celebration of consumer culture. Another dizzyingly original entry into an esteemed discography and the kind of technicolour sonic tapestry that only The Avalanches could've woven.For fans of: Jamie xx, Barry Can't Swim, GorillazAl NewsteadFontaines D.C. — Dopamine ChamberSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeFontaines DC's Dopamine Chamber comes just before they headline the Laneway Festival around Australia next year. (Supplied: XL Recordings)Ireland's Fontaines D.C. found themselves a festival-headlining, stadium-filling rock band leading up to the release of fifth album Dopamine Chamber. But fame hasn't brightened their perspective: these 11 tracks are gloomy as ever. The dourness feels extra profound thanks to its icy synths and Grian Chatten's morose takes on life and love. The most striking moment is Where Is Gone?, Chatten and Rosalía joining Lee and Nancy and Nick and Kylie on the Mt Rushmore of seductive, spooky duets.While long-time fans may miss some of the excised menace, Dopamine Chamber is proof that the cream does sometimes rise.For fans of: The Cure, Nick Cave, Joy DivisionDan CondonTroye Sivan — She's The BestSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeTroye Sivan's fourth album honours the women in his life who he can always turn to in need. (Supplied: Interscope Records)Troye Sivan's fourth album explores the liminal spaces between the club, touring and the limelight of celebrity.Written after ending his huge tour with Charli xcx, She's The Best follows Sivan entering his 30s, a time of self-discovery and re-evaluating priorities.While Sivan saw this collection of songs as "uglier" than his previous innocent pop hits and slick club heaters, there's no denying the maturity in its production, experimentation and lyricism.We've seen Sivan grow up in front of our eyes, and now he's entering a new chapter … with a little help from Madonna and Sir Ian McKellen.For fans of: Charli xcx, Lorde, Tove LoCourtney FrySampa The Great — Nu ZamrockSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeBorn in Zambia, raised in Botswana and starting her music career in Australia, Sampa The Great's latest pays homage to her Zamrock heritage. (Supplied: Loma Vista Recordings)Sampa The Great's third album was shaped by the discovery her blood uncle, George Kunda, was a founding member of pioneering Zamrock band WITCH, who fused psychedelic rock and African rhythms in 1970s post-colonial Zambia.Nu Zamrock merges the titular genre and her poetic hip-hop and soul fusion to stunning effect. Fuzzy guitars and syncopated grooves score Sampa's stylish, tough-talking bars as she spruiks her spiritual potency and distaste for industry condescension.The sound softens in the back half without sacrificing strength, including a surprise collab with the chandelier-rattling Sia and the hard-earned tenderness of Gone and I Can Love. Sampa The Great, once again, lives up to her name.For fans of: Lauryn Hill, Little Simz, WITCHAl NewsteadQueens of the Stone Age — PerfecthSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeEmbracing imperfection in sound and subject matter, Perfecth is Queens of the Stone Age at their most fascinatingly strange. (Supplied: Matador Records)After giving their material a gothic, unplugged makeover for Alive at the Catacombs, QOTSA continue to successfully skewer their signature sound on album nine.Witness the mellow, spacey strum of Easy Street and folksy From The Cliff, or Insignificant Other channelling the bittersweet swagger of '70s Fleetwood Mac.From the eerie Mono to Sunday's Bowie strut, Perfecth is a grab bag that finds strange "new ways to do the old things", as frontman Josh Homme recently put it.When most rockers of their vintage are content to rehash what works, QOTSA should be applauded for taking a risk with what is their most fascinating, stylistically diverse listen since 2013 blockbuster Like Clockwork.For fans of: Arctic Monkeys, Iggy Pop, The KillsAl NewsteadSycco — Look UpSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeSycco gets personal on her second album. (Supplied: Future Classic)After J Award-winning debut album Zorb, Sycco brings us into her next chapter with soft synths and a compulsion to process complex feelings into breezy songs."This album feels private, as if I'm hiding under a desk singing these songs because they feel so vulnerable," the 24-year-old said recently.You'll recognise the emotional uncertainty running through All That I've Been Feeling. On the flip side, Wait Up finds her scared of falling too deep too quickly.Largely gentle and often unpredictable instrumentation, akin to both left-field modern R&B and the 70s soft rockers it borrows from, suits her themes of love and confusion. I've Loved And Lost is like a handshake between billowy-shirted yacht rockers and modern bedroom producers. The results are warm, vulnerable, and deceptively unpredictable. For fans of: Mk.gee, Frank Ocean, The Doobie BrothersDan CondonWishy — Nature's PillSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeThe second album from the Indianapolis band candy-coats songs about heartbreak and despair into radio-friendly fuzzy rock. (Supplied: Winspear)Euphoric and upbeat indie pop saturates Nature's Pill, the second album from Indianapolis band Wishy. While it reads like a well-trodden path on paper, the unmistakable nostalgia of late '90s, radio-friendly rock vibrating out of this album is palpable.For a band that formed in 2021, they deliver a sound that harks back to a much simpler time.With shared vocals between Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites, there are glimmers of everything from LEN to The Dandy Warhols, including the candy-coating of emotionally charged lyrics that sound sweet but cut deep.It makes you ask: what if fuzzy grunge and shoegaze continued its trajectory without disruption?For fans of: feeble little horse, Water From Your Eyes, They Are Gutting A Body Of WaterCourtney FryHAAi — DIGITiSESpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeHAAi's third album is billed as a bigger, ravier sibling to its 2025 predecessor Humanise. (Supplied: Mute Artists Ltd.)London-based Australian producer HAAi describes DIGITiSE as the "ravey big sister" to last year's excellent HUMANiSE.Naturally, it's a harder-edged, higher BPM listen. One where every sweaty pulse and peak has been fine-tuned during DJ sets.Flexing her club curator muscles, HAAi steers you through nocturnal trance (THANK U), glitchy vocal phrasing (the title track), and subterranean beats towards moments of euphoria (Ignition).Even at its heaviest and most abstract, you can feel the fingerprints and intentions of a flesh-and-blood human operating the machinery; an inventive artist showcasing masterful electronic range.For fans of: Logic1000, Jon Hopkins, Sofia KourtesisAl NewsteadMeshell Ndegeocello — SynonymSpotify | Apple Music |YouTubeMeshell Ndegeocello enlists an enormous cast of guests for her stunning new covers album Synonym. (Supplied: Blue Note Records)An album of reinvented classic pop songs isn't a revelatory idea. But Meshell Ndegeocello makes the stale cover album concept feel nourishing on Synonym.Anohni's sparse take on I Got You Babe is her most playful moment in some time, and you likely weren't expecting Cat Power to deliver a reggae version of Human League or Willow Smith to turn in an emotional Temple of the Dog cover.Great songs, imaginative arrangements and performers who know exactly when to reinvent and when to hold back. Sometimes you need to sit back and let the experts take the wheel.For fans of: Joni Mitchell, Thundercat, Patty GriffinDan CondonDan Sultan — Little MiraclesSpotify | Apple Music | YouTubeThe cover of Dan Sultan's new album was photographed by his wife, Bronnie, while walking through a Paris park. (Supplied: Mushroom Music)It'd take something special to top Dan Sultan's ARIA and NIMAs winning self-titled 2023 album. But then, he met Guy Chambers, UK hit-maker to Robbie Williams and Tina Turner. Together, the "kindred spirits" knocked out Little Miracles in three weeks.Charged by a shared passion for classic song-craft, these unashamedly big, major-key tunes effortlessly mix the Arrente/Gurindji artist's signature blues, rock and soul with distinctly British flavours: McCartney, Elton John, and Stones (both Rolling and Roses).Sultan soars over canyon-sized guitars and choirs on the arena-ready Forgiveness, takes us to church on Needing Love, then pours his heart out on piano-and-strings power ballad Can't Be For Nothing.Singing about family and purpose with a gratitude that only comes from hard-earned self-awareness, Sultan calls it his "greatest work to date". It's hard to disagree.For fans of: Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams, Paul KellyAl NewsteadListen to Shortcut, your cheat sheet to the best new albums of the month, on ABC listen.