rock
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It’s two songs into Port of Morrow, the Shins’ first album since 2007’s Wincing the Night Away (and the band’s first to be distributed by a major label, Columbia) and it hits me that what I’m hearing isn’t something I’ve heard before. Sure, the track - “Simple Song” - started streaming on the band’s website back in January with accompanying fanfare, but that isn’t exactly what I mean. It’s more that those first two songs sound like a continuation, and a surprising one at that.When you’ve had any level of investment in a band at all, news of a full-on line-up change never goes over well. While Read more ...
bella.todd
He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws… Ah wait now, that’s The Gruffalo. Mark Lanegan doesn’t have any of the above (although he does have tattooed fists and a considerable jaw, and past heroin addiction probably hasn’t played too well with the old teeth). But the grunge survivor turned celebrated American gothic bluesman is the gruffest man in rock, with a voice that makes Nick Cave seem like a bit of a pussy and Johnny Cash sound positively moisturised, and a complimentary reputation for hard living and hard dealing that warns baby music Read more ...
graeme.thomson
There are times when Paul Weller seems little more than a strutting anachronism, his gear-box jammed permanently in reverse. His appearance – a toasted walnut with a tinsel trim; or, if you prefer, Ian McLagan in aspic – is a pitch-perfect rendition of a clapped-out Seventies rock star. More than once in his long career his music has sounded similarly out-dated, all earnest huff'n'puff and stodgy “authenticity”. Sonik Kicks – thank heavens – is emphatically not one of those occasions. Instead it sparkles with psychedelic mischief and brims with youthful vigour. So much for appearances.The Read more ...
Thomas H Green and Joe Muggs
After a nine-month absence, during which Joe Muggs explored the world's largest natural bassbin in the Amazonian rain forest and Thomas H Green waited to receive his passport back from the Bolivian government, Singles & Downloads returns to celebrate the best in new music. From the ambient to the danceable, the glorious to the outright embarassing, we present the juiciest possible representative cross section of modern popular music.Rebecca Ferguson, Too Good to Lose (Simco/Sony)X Factor runner-up and fabulously husky purrer Rebecca Ferguson's album is based on the sort of wholesome Adele Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Some people – a very few – just have it. Never mind whether her songs appeal, or the style in which she performs them, but Sinéad O’Connor’s presence is extraordinary - as, of course, is her voice. She sings “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” a capella, dedicating it to PC David Rathband, the policeman blinded by Raoul Moat who recently committed suicide. The Queen Elizabeth Hall falls to pin-drop silence; O’Connor’s singing, which flecks wrenching forcefulness with heartbreak vulnerability, is relentless - it brooks no doubt. The song itself, translated from a 200-year-old Irish gravestone elegy Read more ...
ash.smyth
You could say the Duke Spirit have come a long way since I saw them support The Rapture (the who, now?) at the Oxford Zodiac, in 2004 – where, for my five quid, they accidentally sold me their band-wagon copy of Roy Orbison’s Big Hits from the Big ‘O’. Since then, they’ve released three studio albums, been lauded by the likes of NME, travelled well in the States, had their tracks remixed by such eminences noirs as Gary Numan, bolted their horse to the door of the Universal stable, got a song on Guitar Hero V and put their frontwoman’s face on a T-shirt by Alexander McQueen. Now The Duke Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It’s a sign of Bruce Springsteen’s contribution to the canon of American rock music that we no longer spend time comparing his music to others. Springsteen’s problem tends to be living up to different versions of himself. It seems like every new album is hailed as a return to somebody’s favourite Springsteen, whether it’s acoustic confessional, balls-out stadium rock or great American storyteller. From what had been trailed of Wrecking Ball I was anticipating the return of the angry man-of-the-people, which is probably my favourite. Wrecking Ball has been billed as Springsteen's response Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The final section of The Joy of Disco illustrated how disco music grew into a vast global phenomenon. It had been brought to the popular mainstream by the success of Saturday Night Fever, was enjoyed by grannies at Pontins, and even prompted 70-something showbiz veteran Ethel Merman to make a disco album.But the central theme of the film was the way that disco represented the triumph of social groups who had been deemed to fall outside the prevailing social norms. Blacks, gays and Hispanics flocked to join the scintillating Church of Disco as it blossomed through the Seventies, and it became Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Rodrigo y Gabriela’s flamenco gymnastics have gained such a reputation over the past couple of years, it’s been suggested that watching them is like being at a circus. Ever since these two Mexican buskers came over to Europe and started dazzling with their near impossible heavy-metal-on-nylon-strings routine, audiences have been left drop-jawed at their speed and exuberance. But, unless Rod and Gab want to end up as a novelty, they know their current routine can only take them so far. Their solution? A slight change of direction and a bunch of musicians called C.U.B.A.Area 52, released last Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Ah, the difficult second album. Except that’s a music hack cliche, isn’t it, rarely a statement of truth. Sleigh Bells sprang fully-formed and perfect, as if from nowhere, back in 2010, and if they have a tough act in following their bombastic debut Treats then it's our fault, not theirs. Not that it’s stopped me anticipating, half-dreading, their second album; knowing that nothing the Brooklyn duo could produce now will ever punch me right between the eyes the same way “Rill Rill” did the first time I heard it, but at the same time half-hoping...Certainly they've made all the right moves. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The credibility of blues-rock has ebbed and flowed wildly for 40 years. Once upon a time it was simply the common currency for all major British and American rock bands, as exemplified by Led Zeppelin. Punk’s Seventies heyday put the kybosh on all that and blues-rock has been a less loved creature since, redolent of lazy parochial pub jam bands. However, from George Thorogood and the Destroyers to the White Stripes via Mississippi’s Fat Possum Records, it’s also become a major niche flavour for connoisseurs of raw guitar Americana - the scuzzier, the better.Leading the contemporary blues-rock Read more ...
joe.muggs
Justice – pronounce it “Joosteece”, for they are as French as they come – deconstruct the opposition between style and substance. Everything about them is preposterous, from the hipster facial hair via the rock-pig antics in their A Cross The Universe tour “documentary” DVD to the way that almost the entirety of their musical palette is cribbed from their countrymen and close associates Daft Punk. They are masters of the big, empty gesture taken to ridiculous extremes, of blustering noise and gut-punching beats made strangely friendly, of the reduction of both rock and rave music to a Read more ...