wed 05/11/2025

New Music Reviews

Death Cult, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - The Cult revisit their post-punk roots

Guy Oddy

The Cult may have only really hit paydirt in the late Eighties when they started worshipping at the altar of the Rawk Gods of more than a decade before and welcomed Rick Rubin and Bob Rock to toughen up their sound on albums like Electric and Sonic Temple.

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Le Guess Who? 2023, Utrecht - deep listening and deft dancing

Cheri Amour

On a Friday morning under the Dom Tower, the tallest church spire in the Netherlands, our enthusiastic guide explains that we’re standing on 2000 years of history. Formed on the frontier of the Roman Empire, Utrecht originally bordered the river Rhine.

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Album: Lucidvox - That's What Remained

Kieron Tyler

That's What Remained is the aural equivalent of being pulled into a maelstrom and then surrendering to this powerful natural force. Initially, it does not seem safe. But it soon becomes apparent that submission isn’t a problem. It will be fine. Emerging from this experience is accompanied by a shakiness. But that’s OK too.

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Ben Folds, Royal Albert Hall review - piano pyrotechnics and modern musings

Bernard Hughes

When Ben Folds emerged in the mid-90s he was like Billy Joel’s snot-nosed little brother: another virtuoso pianist and songwriter but one whose style was sarcastic, subversive and a little bit punky.

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Hiromi's Sonicwonder, EFG London Jazz Festival, Barbican review - keyboard fireworks from a brilliantly versatile jazz pianist

Rachel Halliburton

To watch virtuoso jazz pianist Hiromi perform is to experience a vast weather system of sound; at some moments exuberant hailstorms of notes alternate with thunderous chords, at others, sombre atonal passages resolve into a burst of sunshine.

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 80: Nanci Griffith, Scuba, Dope Lemon, Aerosmith, Bob Marley, Pharoah Sanders and more

Thomas H Green

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Being Dead When Horses Would Run (Bayonet)

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Jambinai & Leenalchi, Southbank Centre review - contrasting faces of contemporary Korean music

Tim Cumming

Friday’s double-header at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank was not only one of the final gigs in this year’s K-Music Festival – entering its tenth year with an eclectic range of Korean artists and bands performing across London and beyond – but also one of the launch gigs for this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, now entering its 31st year.

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Music Reissues Weekly: Incident at a Free Festival

Kieron Tyler

“We got to play Stonehenge Festival when it was like just a field, a generator and stage. No rip-off burger joints. No packaged new age culture. Just good British hippiedom. A bunch of scruffy, dirty, bean-burger-eating, spliff-making hippies, and in the middle, a bunch of Hell’s Angels.”

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Korea On Stage, OVO Arena Wembley review - a symphony of lights, beats and empowerment

peter Quinn

Choruses rocked, choreo popped, and thousands of light sticks danced in unison, as an incredible lineup of nine acts lit up this fourth edition of Korea On Stage, celebrating 140 years of UK-Korea relations.

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Album: Bas Jan - Back to the Swamp

Kieron Tyler

Margaret Calvert's creations are never far. She set the rules for the design of Britain’s road signs, as well as drafting typography and graphics for national, regional and local rail signage. Back to the Swamp’s fifth track “Margaret Calvert Drives Out” features the lyrics “maximum information conveyed by minimum means, triangles for warning, circles for limits, blue for instructions, green for directions.”

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