New releases on CD & DVD
CD: Taylor Swift - Lover
Saturday, 24 August 2019
If there's a central motif to the sprawling, 18-track opus that is Taylor Swift’s seventh release - and it’s an album that references both Drake and Springsteen, so it's hard to pin down - it first emerges in track three, the title track.
CD: Tanya Tucker - While I'm Livin'
Friday, 23 August 2019
When Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin released the former’s stripped back, soul-bearing American Recordings in 1994 the impact was massive. Not only did it show a way that country music could cross over to a much wider audience, the alt-rock crowd, for want of a better term, it also demonstrated a “pop musician” could reach a career peak at retirement age. Tanya Tucker had her first big hit at 13.
CD: Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold
Thursday, 22 August 2019
This album’s title began as a reaction to fractiousness under Trump, but gained more intimate meaning when drummer Janet Weiss quit Sleater-Kinney...
CD: Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity - To Whom Buys a...
Wednesday, 21 August 2019
To Whom Buys a Record roams through 12 crisply recorded pieces confirming that jazz which isn’t shy of acknowledging its heritage can still have an...
DVD/Blu-ray: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Fred Schepisi’s The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) was the Australian New Wave film that most rigorously confronted the cataclysmic effect of...
CD: New Model Army - From Here
Almost 40 years on and the Bradford post-punks are still gloomy |
CD: Grenades - Primate
Debut from UK punk outfit shows black wit and sonic imagination |
CD: Ride - This Is Not A Safe Place
The shoegaze legends' comeback is still going strong |
The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru the Passion
A joyous return to form from the world's best bar band |
CD: Frank Turner - No Man's Land
A richly conceived, blandly executed history lesson |
DVD: Are You Proud?
A half-century of gay history recalled, with critical appraisal of the present |
CD: ESE & The Vooduu People - Up in Smoke
Attitude is backed up by talent on Hendrix-inspired band's propulsive debut |
CD: Bon Iver – i,i
Ta-da! Justin Vernon treats fans to an early release of his band's fourth album |
CD: The Regrettes - How Do You Love?
Teenage rockers deconstruct romantic relationships on second album |
CD: Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind
The veteran Iowan misanthropes are in no danger of mellowing out |
CD: PP Arnold - The New Adventures Of…
Impressive though belated comeback from the ever-distinctive soul stylist |
CD: WHY? - AOKOHIO
A powerfully affecting missive from the eternally introspective Planet Anticon |
DVD/Blu-ray: Don't Look Now
Nicolas Roeg's melancholy masterpiece confronts grief and its ghosts |
CD: Morganway - Morganway
A sextet set to go their own way |
CD: Mabel - High Expectations
Run-of-the-mill debut from rising young pop star |
CD: Volbeat - Rewind, Replay, Rebound
Scandinavian Elvis-metallers try out a new sound, with mixed results |
CD: Karine Polwart - Karine Polwart's Scottish Songbook
Scottish folk musician reinterprets classic and contemporary songs from her native land |
CD: Cross Record - Cross Record
US singer-songwriter Emily Cross's latest is downtempo, dreamy and dirgey but occasionally beautiful |
CD: Russian Circles – Blood Year
Experimental three-piece get seriously noisy |
CD: Nérija - Blume
Living, vivid jazz from a septet that represents the cream of young London talent |
CD: Kaiser Chiefs – Duck
Ricky Wilson and co won't silence the critics, but their fans may drown them out |
CD: Violent Femmes - Hotel Last Resort
Mixed bag from US punk veterans on second post-comeback album |
DVD/Blu-ray: Ash Is Purest White
Love in a gangster milieu, set against the changes of the Chinese century |
CD: School Of Language - 45
Field Music’s David Brewis probes Donald Trump |
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