rock
Serena Kutchinsky
We all know the backstory of the Mighty Mac, the breakups, the betrayals, the addictions and now, finally, the reunion. These days they're more like the Mellow Mac with the emotional hatchets buried, lingering hugs on stage, and tender tales of their time as struggling Seventies hippies. Few other bands, not even Abba, have mined their private lives for inspiration to the same extent. Unlike today's manufactured pop-ettes who invent relationship strife to grab column inches and make themselves more interesting (Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, I'm looking at you), heartache has always been at Read more ...
Russ Coffey
A fortnight after its release, fans now know the Manics’ latest album Rewind the Film to be a rich, contemplative affair. The musical dynamics are intimate and seemingly best suited to small venues, like the one that features in the video for the single “Show Me the Wonder”. As I made my way across London last night, I wondered if this new sound was why the band had chosen to downsize from last year's O2 to the cosy surroundings of Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Was this "last phase of the band's development" to be consciously close-up and personal?To an extent yes, though not straight away. The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Nirvana: In UteroNext April marks 20 years since Kurt Cobain took his own life. Paving the way for that tragic anniversary is a reissue of 1993’s In Utero, the album which unintentionally became the band’s musical epitaph. Their third, it was written and recorded after Nevermind (1991) had pushed Nirvana to world-wide success. The pressures surrounding the creation of In Utero must have been immense and are utterly unimaginable to anyone outside the band or not close to it.Yet In Utero was and is an incredible album: the full-bore affiliation of Cobain’s ear for a pop melody and his Read more ...
joe.muggs
I once got quite excited by Kings Of Leon. Way back in 2007 I saw them play at the Astoria, and witnessed a band who appeared to be ready to parlay indie credibility and southern-states rocker charm into a genuinely interesting kind of mainstream success. And the album that followed, Because of the Times, seemed to live up to that, full of widescreen Springsteenian ambition while retaining just enough of the Strokes/Pixies buzziness they started out with.Then in 2008 came “Sex is on Fire” and “Use Somebody” – two of the most annoying songs of all time, so perfectly designed for absolute Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The punchline about angry upstarts journeying to po-faced middle-aged is an easy enough one for a band to make, but over the past few years the Manic Street Preachers have managed something far harder: they’ve started to make good records again. Rewind the Film is apparently the more sedate of two planned albums and it’s no laughing matter - even if a song called “Anthem for a Lost Cause” is straight out of Manics 101.From its opening couplet (“I don’t want my children to grow up like me, it’s too soul-destroying, it’s a mocking disease”) to its sepia-tinted title track, Rewind the Film is an Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The last time Mr E toured these shores he looked as if he might be heralding the end of the world. Dressed all in white with a Moses beard and gangsta bandana, his songs were about inner struggle and personal redemption. Between songs he remained mute and mysterious. How things have changed. This year the band is touring the much fuzzier Wonderful, Glorious and last night Mark Everett hardly shut up.The change in mood was evident even before the band had taken to the stage. As I arrived “The Candy Man” from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory was playing over the PA and there was a jolly Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There’s something about the Arctic Monkeys that calls to mind the Rolling Stones. Not now, obviously - it might feel like it’s been forever since four messy hairdos and northern accents burst out of Sheffield, though in truth it’s only been about a decade - but the Stones that scandalised an America expecting another Beatles with their sleazy, bluesy rock. Recorded in California, if there’s one thing AM does not sound like it’s an album by a band whose name still sounds like a practical joke dreamed up in some spotty kid’s bedroom.Because AM is - despite a collection of song titles that come Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
“That was a bit of a dog’s breakfast,” said the guy in the row behind. Yes, but then the said canine repast can also no doubt be nutritious and delicious, for dogs anyway. The most dogs-breakfasty (in the bad sense) moment was right at the end, when the Stranglers played their greatest song “Golden Brown”, their immortal chanson to a girl and heroin.Somehow, perhaps it was just the weird acoustics, but by the time the percussion of the London Sinfonietta reached my seat it was a cacophony (the track, incidentally, alternates 6/8 and 7/8 rhythms, which seemed to cause confusion). The added Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Is the former Razorlight singer Johnny Borrell really the arse that many music fans seem to think? After his debut solo album was announced, the hubris of titles like “Pan-European Supermodel Song (Oh! Gina)” prompted a fresh round of ridicule. JB didn’t seem to notice or care. Even as he toured half-empty regional civic centres on the run-up to the album’s release, his self-confidence never wavered. Some call this behaviour delusional. But is it really? Unlike many of the vapid, wannabe Dylans who bother the indie charts, few could deny that Borrell has real talent. The disagreement Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Rod Stewart isn't cool and he doesn't care. He made a complete pillock of himself with the likes of "Hot Legs" and "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?", but they were some of his biggest-ever hits. He plunged gleefully into the WAGS-and-riches fantasyland of Los Angeles, became a living cartoon of pop star excess, and loved it. "I enjoyed myself hugely, every hour of every day," he told Alan Yentob in this entertaining Imagine... profile.Nonetheless, the success of his recent album Time, and matching live shows, represent a resounding comeback for Stewart. They've restored a chunk of the credibility that Read more ...
joe.muggs
This is not an easy record to get a handle on. When I first got it, I bounced through a couple of tracks idly, and it felt like it was coming from the messy genre fusions of the mid-90s – somewhere between trip-hop, indie-dance, rap-rock and mildly crusty festival-dub. There are growling guitars, indie-rock basslines, anthemic reggae horns, and frontman Joshua Idehen's voice, which lies somewhere between rapper, poet, singer and orator, all making it sound like a livelier take on Tricky, or maybe Roots Manuva fronting a rock band.But idle listening is not enough for this record. For one thing Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
"Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park" is a wonderfully grand name for the venue for this summer's Hard Rock Calling festival, but the reality doesn't quite match up. Rather than basking in the glory (and shiny new stadium architecture) of Mo and Jessica's triumphs from last summer, music fans found themselves a few hundred yards away on a drab swathe of stony wasteland, temporarily covered with artificial grass. Still, at least the sun blazed down and they'd got the beer tent sorted, with thirsty punters bundled in and out, several banknotes lighter, at unprecedented speed.Bruce Springsteen has Read more ...