fri 13/06/2025

New Music Reviews

theartsdesk on Vinyl 56: Kreator, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Disney, Twin Atlantic, Elton John, Buddy Rich and more

Thomas H Green

Welcome to the biggest plastic reviews party on earth. Now that vinyl is steadily successful as niche musical medium, some have rightly been considering its environmental impact. Perhaps the best overview is given by Kyle Devine’s feature in the Guardian, which is well worth checking (please come back if you do!).

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Album: Pat Metheny – From This Place

Sebastian Scotney

From This Place (Nonesuch) is a complex, meticulously produced and many-layered album which demands concentrated and repeated listening. In many ways, it is all the better for it. Pat Metheny himself has written an essay or “Album Notes” of no fewer than 2,020 words to explain how the concept of the album evolved, as it went through a several-stage process of  conception, recording, arranging, production.

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Angel Olsen, Eventim Apollo review - rock reinvention at its loudest

India Lewis

Angel Olsen’s show at the Eventim Apollo has been much hyped and publicised over the past weeks, an indie chanteuse reinventing herself, recasting herself with a darker, more rocky sound.

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The Hu, O2 Academy, Bristol review - heavy metal meets throat-singing

mark Kidel

There is natural logic in the unholy marriage between heavy metal and Mongolian throat singing.

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Lonnie Holley, Cube, Bristol review - outsider with vision

mark Kidel

Alabama-born Lonnie Holley, the seventh son of 27 children, more or less abandoned as a child, comes from a tradition of African-American visionaries who reach back through the generations to a culture of great aesthetic and ethical sophistication, one which the slaves’ horrific voyage across the Atlantic wasn’t able...

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Carly Rae Jepsen, Brixton Academy review - punchy, polished pop

Miranda Heggie

Few will forget back in 2012, when Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen came crashing into the airwaves of pretty much every pop station on the planet, with the sugary synth-pop sounds of Call Me Maybe. With a track as big as that – even Jepsen herself has said she was sick of hearing it on the radio – it would have been easy to assign the singer to one-hit-wonder status....

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Album: Tame Impala - The Slow Rush

Owen Richards

And so, Tame Impala’s evolution from riff-laden psych-mongers to dancefloor-fillers is complete. It’s undeniable from the opening drum machine on “One More Year” supplanting Kevin Parker’s trademark kit-work.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Hank Williams

Kieron Tyler

Any knowledge of the Hank Williams narrative heavily influences how he is perceived. He died at age 29 on New Year’s Day 1953, in the back of a car while travelling to a show in Ohio. His schedule was punishing. A day earlier he had played in West Virginia but a storm meant he could not fly from one show to the next.

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Transatlantic Sessions, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - folk fusion from Burns to the boss

Miranda Heggie

In its seventeenth incarnation, Transatlantic Sessions - a concert comprising music from some of the finest names in Scottish, Irish and American folk - had its penultimate night of its UK tour in a packed-out Symphony Hall, Birmingham on Friday evening.

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Jonas Brothers, SSE Hydro, Glasgow - reunited siblings look to the future with slick show

Jonathan Geddes

No matter how much the Jonas Brothers try, they can’t totally escape the mouse. Commercials for new Disney TV shows flashed up onscreen not long before the siblings took to the stage, and although the trio’s days of appearing in such fare are long gone, it offered a brief reminder of where they began.

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