Ipswich, UK
Recommended if you like Linkin Park, Kano, Bob Vylan
Up next New single Dumb Bruddah released via SharpTone Records on 30 October

"Laaa!" growls Native James on his 2025 track Fallen, stretching a wicked fried scream over more traditionally poppy "la-la-la" chants like a hair-raising metal frontman. Because, well, that's what he is. But James is also a pretty deft rapper, the kind of artist who grew up listening to Evanescence during school lunchtimes then went home and studied first-wave grime on Channel U. The preceding verse on Fallen rattles through quick-witted bars over bouncy nu-metal riffs, blending Jamaican Patois with The Lion King references for a scorched-earth unmasking of his "demon within". He's raging in every sense of the word – and it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

Last year's EP Confessions of a Sinner is full of similarly – gloriously – boisterous grime-metal crossovers. A student of fellow rap-rockers Linkin Park, James (real name Aaron James) filters his alt influences through a distinctly Black British point of view, from his rapid-fire, staccato delivery to his sly sense of humour. His latest single, July's Never Been Scared, fine-tunes that blueprint, introducing metallic, eskibeat-style synths before its final drop crashes down like a roaring clap of thunder. A guest verse from Boy Better Know's Frisco earns him bonus grime kudos, not that he really needs it. James had already brought out Double S and Professor Green during his 2025 Glastonbury set to perform their collaboration Block (RR), then he reunited the trio at Download festival this summer. Last month, he won One to Watch at the Independent Music Awards, following in the footsteps of Arlo Parks and Nia Archives. No wonder he's never been scared. At 140bpm, he's barely got time.

This week's best new tracks

Keen to test the transcendence and infinite potential of their songs, Eisenberg stretches a highlight from this year's self-titled record into gorgeous 37-minute chamber drone with a lot to offer lovers of Dirty Three.

Teeing up the duo's second album of compacted electrotrash this year, this is an almighty bassline house wobbler reeking of stale cigarettes and spilled energy drinks, featuring some appealingly out-of-tune vox.

Matilda Tjäder – The Phone Call
The Swedish artist's project Shelf Life began as a short story, then became an opera. Now it's an album of zonked experimental pop about a woman who collects items with the same expiration date. This shimmering ballad sits at its heart.

Angling for more of Alex G's hangdog beauty? Find it in the tumbling, glistening piano and weary barroom anthemics of Isaac Eiger, who has also co-written for Adéla, Frost Children and Chanel Beads.

A hero in drum'n'bass circles since her teens, Hong Kong native Kiana Li goes down some less-travelled wormholes in the dub bass continuum with new album Great Jobs, ending up at muscular techno-skank on Burls.

Bjarki – Isn't It Nice to Be Somebody)
For all that the Icelandic producer's comeback is ultra-regimented, running on bass that flickers like a mechanised hummingbird wing, it's also somehow alluringly frisky, suggestive of transcendent pleasures.

It's difficult to do minimal techno with as much drama and genuine propulsion as GiGi FM does here, inspired by the Greek goddess Astraea, who left corrupted humanity to go and live in the stars.

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