ANOHNI and the Johnsons

ANOHNI’s at her best with the Johnsons back in tow - devastatingly powerful protest music with an insatiable ear for classic pop hooks.

This fifth record with The Johnsons, their first in 13 years, brings a perfect, delicately orchestrated accompaniment to her voice. Rooted in soul with nods to Eddie Hazel and Steven Lee Cropper’s guitar styles, they’ve created the perfect bed to allow ANOHNI’s softer moments space, while swelling into tremendous crescendoes for her most powerful deliveries. After her excellent experimental turns in recent years we’re glad that she’s also still able to provide the huge emotional payoffs.

"ANOHNI’s solo work has been great but she’s truly unparalleled with The Johnsons. ‘My Back…’ wraps its razor sharp message in velvet; an urgent and direct set of protest songs written, as the best protest songs often are, with irresistibly catchy tunes that capture a soul at its most vulnerable and beautiful." - James

"A profound, protest-rich and soulful album; working through matters of personal strife, environmental apocalypse, humanity and the absence of equality. Themes of hopelessness, grief and melancholy, wrapped in blunt and poignant lyrics and delivered with her otherworldly and utterly captivating vocal, all align to produce this hard-hitting masterpiece. An absolute triumph and a richly human album." - Julian

"Not the album I listened to most this year (100% the Mary Wallopers) but the most essential. A masterful baring of the soul, a lamentation of the eco-apocolypse & politicised transphobia. ‘It Must Change’ is 2023’s answer to ‘What’s Going On’, but the high point is ‘Scapegoat’, a painfully direct exploration of the demonisation of trans people, with the most sublime musical crescendo." - Matt