New Music Reviews
Sam Fender, St James' Park, Newcastle review - Geordie Springsteen scores with celebratory homecomingMonday, 16 June 2025
Had a passer-by from outwith Newcastle been asked to guess what was taking place at St James' Park, football would have been the likely answer. It felt like nearly every person walking to see Sam Fender was clad in a replica top, bearing the name of club legends past and present or, most commonly, the official kit released to mark Fender's newest album. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Pilot - The Singles CollectionSunday, 15 June 2025
"It was really strange. Really quite conflicting, the sort of thing most bands didn't have to deal with. At the front, we'd have the kids who'd come along to scream and at the back were the people who'd come along to hear the music. We didn't know whether to talk to the kids at the front or to speak over their heads to the other people.” Read more... |
Album: Mary Halvorson - About GhostsWednesday, 11 June 2025
Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the fore. The first time her playing really leaps out on her new album is during second cut “Carved Form,” where it weaves through the arrangement. A guitar solo arrives just over a minute in: precise yet slippery, it complements the early space-age feel of the Pocket Piano synthesiser she also contributes to the track. Read more... |
Eva Quartet, St Cyprian's review - polyphonic blissMonday, 09 June 2025
Eva Quartet are four outstanding Bulgarian voices of polyphonic purity and depth, drawn from the legendary choir Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, who guested on Kate Bush’s classic Eighties album The Sensual World. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Gather In The MushroomsSunday, 08 June 2025
“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather In The Mushrooms, compiler, author and Saint Etienne member Bob Stanley says it is “as evocative as its title. The song has a deeply wooded sound, like a cross between Serge Gainsbourg’s “Ballade de Melody Nelson” and Ralph Vaughan Williams.” To this can be added the brooding, dramatic melancholy of Scott Walker’s “The Seventh Seal.” Read more... |
theartsdesk in Fes - world music centralFriday, 06 June 2025
With WOMAD not happening this year, where could one go for a feast of global sounds? Fes in Morocco has been presenting its sacred music festival for 29 years. I’ve been several times and although this wasn’t an absolute classic, it was as ever, full of extraordinary moments. Read more... |
Songhoy Blues, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - West African crew raise the roofFriday, 06 June 2025
No-one needs to be living in Trump’s USA to be aware that governments never feel that it’s in their interest to prioritise great art and music over attention-grabbing and ill-conceived populist policies. Mali’s Songhoy Blues, unfortunately, have now found themselves at the receiving end of such nonsense. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Pete Shelley - Homosapien, XL-1Sunday, 01 June 2025
Pete Shelley’s departure from Buzzcocks felt abrupt. When he left the Manchester band which had been integral to British punk since 1976, the other members thought it was still a going concern. Shelley had reached a different conclusion. Read more... |
Alan Sparhawk, EartH Theatre review - an absorbing game of two halves from the former Low mainstayFriday, 30 May 2025
For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan Sparhawk moves ceaselessly. Whirling, arms sweeping like the sails of a windmill, gliding across the stage. He sings, his voice treated: auto-tuned, pitch-shifted. The only breaks come with momentary pauses to set rhythm tracks for the next song. Then, off again. Read more... |
Album: Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The LightThursday, 29 May 2025
Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end result feels more admirable than truly compelling. While the band still knows how to craft polished, politically aware alt-rock, the album often plays it safe musically, lacking the punch or experimentation that once defined them. Read more... |
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