The Hellp step their game up with Doppler

There’s loads of music out there, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up.

Rather than letting the algorithm dictate your music taste, you can listen to Rated by THE FACE – a playlist that’s lovingly curated and updated by our (human) editorial team every week.

The Hellp – Doppler

​“Our music has never even been that good​. But it has something in it,” The Hellp’s Chandler Ransom Lucy told THE FACE last year. His leather-clad comrade, Noah Dillon, concurred:​“Even if it’s not the best, and even if it’s not the worst, there’s something real to it, and there are not many real things anymore.” For the best part of their career, the compelling LA-based duo have had more passion than musical skill, but the material from forthcoming album Riviera is impressively polished. On last month’s single Country Road, they merged moody glitch-pop with a pulsating club beat which would have Dan Snaith pulling up Shazam. On Doppler, Dillon’s melancholic lyrics allude to love, lust and heartache amidst a whirlwind lifestyle, while muffled acoustic guitars give way to rising, euphoric synths. They really don’t need be so humble these days. DR

Danny L Harle – Azimuth ft. Caroline Polachek

First teaming up in 2019 on Caroline’s solo album Pang, Danny and Caroline have a long history of making great music together, reuniting for Caroline’s excellent 2024 album Desire, I Want To Turn Into You. Now, with the trance track Azimuth, the two have crafted something ghostly and deeply enticing. Caroline’s signature falsetto holds the line as a thumping bassline boomerangs in and out of focus. Shifting between muffled haze and euphoric clarity, Danny’s production feels like walking along a pavement and catching a glimpse of a basement club when the smoking area door swings open. TL

Feng – When I Met You

“I met so many people, but I still feel alone,” Feng confesses in the opening lyrics of When I Met You, ​“These girls are so evil and the boys are too.” As he sleepily raps over gentle synth bursts, you can picture the UK underground star sulking in his bedroom, watching the vapour from his Lost Mary drift out the window. But then he tells a tale of meeting another misfit at a party. They sip Barcardi, hold hands and light up a blunt in the Uber XL on their way home. It sounds almost too good to be true. DR

Dry Cleaning – Hit My Head All Day

South London indie band Dry Cleaning are back with the first single from their third album Secret Love, out in January 2026. Hit My Head All Day is typically hypnotic, alongside disco strut and razor-sharp post-punk guitars. ​“When I was a child I wanted to be a horse /​Onions, carrots, and celery /​Excuse me, what?” Florence Shaw deadpans with her characteristically dry delivery, before getting all existential on us: ​“I don’t know you /​I don’t know you /​I want to explode /​Hit my head all day”. It’s good to have them back. JW

Chanel Beads – The Coward Forgets His Nightmare

Part of the appeal of Chanel Beads, the much-hyped project of NYC-based musician Shane Lavers, is that the songs feel simultaneously scruffy and stunningly beautiful. After breaking through with last year’s album Your Day Will Come, Chanel Beads have pulled it off again with this breezy loosie. The guitars are so trebly they sound like they’re being strummed with sandpaper and Lavers unleashes his trademark throaty howl towards the end. But the grit is offset by Zachary Paul’s elegant violins and dreamy harmonies with Maya McGrory. It’s like watching clouds drift across a blue sky with a pounding hangover. DR