sun 01/12/2024

rock

Music Reissues Weekly: John Cale - The Academy in Peril, Paris 1919, Fear, Slow Dazzle, Helen of Troy

The return to shops of a consecutive sequence of five of John Cale's Seventies albums through different labels is undoubtedly coincidental. All have been previously reissued multiple times and none are scarce in any form. Anyone wanting any of these...

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Album: Kim Deal - Nobody Loves You More

The progress of Kim Deal has been one of the great delights of modern music. Much as one wishes Pixies well, they have never been the same without her distinctive voice and presence, whereas her other band The Breeders have only gone from strength...

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Album: Joan Armatrading - How Did This Happen and What Does It Now Mean

Hard to believe it’s coming up to 30 years since “Love and Affection” put Joan Armatrading in the top 10, a track from her third, self-titled, album which confirmed the arrival of a major talent. “Down to Zero” was another of the album’s enduring...

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English Teacher, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - Mercury winners step up in size with style

Props designed like flowers were scattered across the QMU stage for English Teacher's performance. A fitting choice given the Leeds group are evidently in full bloom these days, with an upgraded venue in Glasgow due to demand and, of course, a...

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Bob Dylan, Royal Albert Hall review - cracked ritual from rock elder

Will Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour ever come to an end? Two years on from the last UK tour, he’s returned, with substantially the same band, once again mostly featuring material from his brilliant album Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). He’s a little...

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Rachel Chinouriri, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - a formidable and genre-hopping talent

It appears Rachel Chinouriri has a good memory. “I remember you!” she yelled excitedly to one fan early on, highlighting that she currently sits in a nice position – popular enough to be playing busy shows in decently sized venues, but at a level...

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Amyl and the Sniffers, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - rowdy Aussies let loose

Amy Taylor and the rest of the Sniffers ambled onto the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Academy to a huge roar of approval from a packed and diverse audience on Sunday evening. With her Farrah Fawcett hairstyle, toothy smile, sparkly bikini, knee length...

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Bob Vylan, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - self-proclaimed most important band in the UK blow the roof off

More than once during their barnstorming performance this weekend, Bobby Vylan, vocalist with Bob Vylan proclaimed from the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Institute that “We are the cutest band in punk rock. The friendliest band in rock’n’roll. The most...

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Album: Chuck Prophet - Wake the Dead

Chuck Prophet speaks the old language of rock’n’roll as if it’s bright and new. His long gone band Green On Red were R.E.M.’s Eighties peers, and as rock’s cultural tide has receded, his loyalty to its spirit of liberty, askance at authority and...

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Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Disney+ review - the Boss grows older defiantly

Director Thom Zimny has become the audio-visual Boswell to Bruce Springsteen’s Samuel Johnson, having made documentaries about the making of Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, Springsteen On Broadway and several more. Road Diary takes as...

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Album: Willie Nelson - Last Leaf on the Tree

Well, seems like only yesterday when I reviewed Willie Nelson’s last album, Borderline, an excellent set from the man’s ninth decade, and now here comes Last Leaf on the Tree, a consummate set that’s at a higher level.It opens with Tom Waits’ title...

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Album: The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

Could melancholia be an elixir of creative youth? Or is it that sad people were never really that youthful, so age suits them? Certainly it seems that there was something in the water for so many of the foundational 80s indie bands who dealt in...

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