New releases on CD & DVD
CD: Blossoms - Cool Like You
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Blossoms are the latest inheritors of the massive-in-Manchester mantle that has, so often in the past, translated into massive-almost-everywhere ubiquity. That their eponymous 2016 debut album was a chart-topper shows they’re on the way, although they’ve not yet mustered a single that’s thrown them to the next level. The surprise when they first appeared was that, although they look indie and have fans such as Ian Brown of The Stone Roses, their sound was a blend of polished yacht-rock and...
DVD/Blu-ray: The Touch
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
The touch is not always light here. Swathes of clunking, cliché-ridden English dialogue threaten to make the star-crossed lovers look ridiculous, and one of them (Elliott Gould) can be a wooden actor at times.
CD: Oliver Way - From The Shadows
Monday, 23 April 2018
There’s a regular problem with techno albums. The DJ-producers who make them are usually so deeply embedded in club techno that when it comes to...
CD: Willie Nelson - Last Man Standing
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Willie Nelson turned 85 at the end of April, a few days after releasing his latest album and a rare set of self-penned new songs, Last Man Standing...
DVD/Blu-ray: Bergman's The Magic Flute
Friday, 20 April 2018
Opera on film's most magical offering, better by some way than Joseph Losey's cinematically tricksy Don Giovanni, at last makes it to Region 2 in...
CD: Dylan Carlson - Conquistador
Earth mainman lays down some minimalist desert blues |
CD: Jenny Wilson - Exorcism
Sexual assault and its aftermath are chronicled with chilling precision |
Blu-ray: Andrey Zvyagintsev - The Return / The Banishment
The first two films from the Russian master of the human abyss |
CD: Mark Peters – Innerland
The former Engineer turns cartographer on a simple yet articulate instrumental journey |
CD: Glymjack - Light the Evening Fire
Singer-songwriter Greg McDonald's new folk project is a well-conceived treat |
CD: Neil Young + Promise of the Real - Paradox
Weak soundtrack album lets Neil Young down |
DVD: Blood and Glory
Rare film in Afrikaans dramatises the birth of Springbok rugby in a brutal British internment camp |
CD: Manic Street Preachers - Resistance is Futile
The Welsh rockers' 13th album is philosophical and exciting |
CD: National Jazz Trio of Scotland - Standards Vol.IV
Scottish alt-jazz institution Bill Wells continues his explorations |
DVD/Download: Lies We Tell
Uneven but brave attempt at Yorkshire noir |
CD: Laura Veirs - The Lookout
Assured 10th album from the American singer-songwriter |
DVD/Blu-ray: An Actor's Revenge
Japanese fascination in stage story told with overlapping plot strands, distinctive doubling |
CD: Brazilian Girls - Let's Make Love
Back with a bang (and a few whimpers) |
CD: Kylie Minogue - Golden
Nashville reinvention for the People's Princess doesn't sit well |
CD: The Damned - Evil Spirits
UK punk first wavers prove they still have plenty in the tank |
CD: Fenne Lily - On Hold
Rising singer has a striking voice that may be the making of her |
CD: Sonido Gallo Negro - Mambo Cósmico
Healing energies from Mexico |
CD: Eels - The Deconstruction
Acoustic tenderness gets lost amongst middle-of-the-road musical wanderings |
Blu-ray: Derek Jarman Collection, Vol One 1972-1986
Voyage through an alchemical universe: the magical realm of a flawed English genius |
CD: Owen Broder - Heritage
Americana meets modern jazz in collection of striking originals and inspired reworkings |
CD: Napalm Death - Coded Smears and More Uncommon Slurs
Midlands grindcore war machine still firing on all cylinders after all these years |
DVD: Queerama
A glorious film reclamation of Britain’s troubled gay past |
CD: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Sometimes Just the Sky
Thirty years' worth of pearls from the Mary Chapin Carpenter jewel box |
CD: Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker - Seedlings All
Songs of emotional maturity from the art-folk duo |
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