indie
The Hives, Brighton Dome review - Swedish power-pop dynamo are as entertaining as everThursday, 04 April 2024
The joy of The Hives on record is encapsulated by their 2012 micro-song “Come On”. Despite being one-minute long and consisting solely of the title phrase, it fizzes with righteous, effervescent buzzsaw euphoria. They open their encore with it,... Read more... |
Album: The Libertines - All Quiet on the Eastern EsplanadeWednesday, 03 April 2024
Carl Barat and Peter Doherty are "the Glimmer Twins" of their own wayward trajectory through the worlds of rock and roll, stardom, drugs, distraction and destruction.The noughties indie stars, releasing their first album in a decade,... Read more... |
Album: Jane Weaver - Love In Constant SpectacleFriday, 29 March 2024
“Motif,” Love In Constant Spectacle’s fourth track, is the closest Jane Weaver has come in over a decade to the folk influences embraced on her 2007 and 2010 albums Cherlokalate and The Fallen By Watch Bird. Not that her new album is rooted in past... Read more... |
Album: High Llamas - Hey PandaSaturday, 23 March 2024
Hey Panda is unlike any previous High Llamas album. While the characteristic traces of late Sixties and early Seventies Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks and Steely Dan are here, they have become melded with a sensibility lead-Llama Sean O’Hagan has... Read more... |
Album: The Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow EyesWednesday, 20 March 2024
Jim and William Reid’s musical trajectory has been extraordinary. They started out by out-punking punk with terrifying noise barrages and wilfully clumsy three-chord thrashing, but quickly revealed a deep love of classic pop song structures which... Read more... |
Album: Elbow - Audio VertigoMonday, 18 March 2024
On this, their 10th album, the melodious Mancunians started at the drum kit and built from there. This is no bad thing. The overall effect is wide-ranging, surprising and altogether more uplifting than either the delicious despairing ... Read more... |
Album: Kim Gordon - The CollectiveThursday, 14 March 2024
Some icons sit back and bask. Kim Gordon does not. She has occasionally intimated that her New York cool and relentless work rate may be down to a smidgeon of imposter syndrome, even after all her years on the frontline. Whatever the truth of it,... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 82: Human League, Hawkwind, Roberta Flack, Kid Acne, Photek, Rudimentary Peni and moreMonday, 04 March 2024
VINYL OF THE MONTHMito y Comadre Guajirando (ZZK)Mito y Comadre are Guillermo Lares and Shana Comadre, a Bogota-based pair of Venezuelans whose debut album is produced by Christian Castagno (a man who’s more likely to be found helming outings by... Read more... |
Album: Yard Act - Where's My Utopia?Wednesday, 28 February 2024
The best popular music tunes into the zeitgeist. It can reflect cultural currents, encourage them, or enable the public to turn away and just party. At a time when the future of humanity feels more uncertain than at any time since the height of the... Read more... |
Album: The Bevis Frond - Focus on NatureMonday, 26 February 2024
Musically, the assured Focus on Nature knows exactly what it is. Fuzzy, psychedelic-leaning, folk-aware pop-rock with an emphasis on guitars about captures it. And what tunes – this 75-minute double album’s 19 songs are immediate, instantly... Read more... |
Album: Laetitia Sadier - Rooting for LoveWednesday, 21 February 2024
It must be kind of unreal living in the Stereolab universe.A band of geeky introverts, beloved of the type of hairclip-and-satchel indie ultras a friend of mine used to call “the Scooby Gang” for their tendency to resemble Shaggy and Velma, over the... Read more... |
Album: MGMT - Loss of LifeMonday, 19 February 2024
The dolefulness of the title Loss of Life is reflected by what’s in the grooves. The lyrics of the Todd Rundgren/Queen-esque fifth track “Bubblegum Dog” include the line “None of this seems like fun but maybe that’s the point, man.” Further in, “... Read more... |
