Pete Fij’s debut solo album, Up’s the New Down is a sharp set of songs that sees the former Adorable front man back in the ring for the first time in quite a while. Hip-swinging yet laidback, self-aware but still cool, it’s a disc that may be reflective but still has plenty of zing about it. Given that it’s a good 30 years since he was being touted as a possible "Next Big Thing", he’s surprisingly better preserved than plenty of other veterans of those heady times too.Adorable were the Creation band that Noel Gallagher famously berated Alan McGee for cutting loose but Pete has never totally Read more ...

So the tune we'll discuss today in the imaginary seminar that occupies a certain part of my brain is…."When Jah Come" by Devon Irons (pictured below © Carl Finlay by kind permission of Reggaeville) - look it up everybody - a 7 inch on Lee Perry's Upsetter label. Recorded, I would think, around 1976 and released in '77. Why? Because a little dive into some of the aspects of this tune illustrates nicely so much of the vital and enduring appeal of, as Bob Marley said it, Roots Rock Reggae. Image Firstly, the object itself, a "dinked" seven-inch Read more ...

This is almost too much to bear. This sprawling 37-track collection begins with the sainted 78-year-old Dolly Parton providing a jaunty spoken narration of her family’s history in music and the church. It’s old-school Disney documentary in tone, but because it’s Dolly you listen, and with her endless countrified charm she tells a story of generations of banjo players and preachers of the Appalachians – and reminds us that these, her forebears, were immigrants.She doesn’t use the word, but just how she talks about the landscapes reminding them of home in England and Wales – in a time when Read more ...

When Dolly Parton was nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, she requested that her name be withdrawn.She was "flattered and grateful" for the honour but "I don't feel I have earned that right," she wrote. "It kind of would be like putting AC/DC in the Country Music Hall of Fame. That just felt a little out of place for me.” Officials responded, saying they respected the star's "thoughtful note” and saying that "in addition to her incredible talent as an artist, her humility is another reason Dolly is a beloved icon by millions of fans around the world." A few weeks Read more ...

In that wide field commonly known as world music, ancient traditions co-exist with cutting edge experiment. At Bristol’s intimate city-centre venue Strange Brew, the opening act, Mohammed Errebbaa (pictured below), a Gnawa master from Morocco, alone on stage with his gunbri, the lower-register string instrument, a distant cousin and ancestor of the American banjo, summoned the spirits that accompany trance and healing. He was opening for Ata Kak, a similarly well-travelled West African, whose strange bouncy music mixes electronics, frantic rap and scat, and traditional call-and response Read more ...

After a long break, a new album can be a delicate act to balance for an artist, as well as something of a daunting task. This year has already seen other long-awaited returns from the UK's Marmozets and Basement. This time, it is the return of critical darlings, blues rock group Alabama Shakes.For Alabama Shakes, their first two albums – 2012's Boys and Girls, and 2015's Sound and Colour – brought heapings of acclaim. At the time, you could be mistaken for thinking the four piece (now three piece) had the world in their hands, and free rein to sweep away all before them. Instead, the choice Read more ...

Geese may be the most buzz-worthy band in the world these days, but even they cannot get away with teasing a Glasgow crowd too much. After something politely described by singer Cameron Winter as a “phallic object” was lobbed onstage, the frontman larked about with it, suggesting he might mimic a sexual act. As soon as he pulled it away from his lips, boos descended in force from the always lively throng squeezed together on a sweatbox of a dancefloor. “We’ve lost the crowd” Winter joked to his bandmates, but that was never a serious proposition on a night when those there were completely in Read more ...

As the title of her fourth album suggests, South Carolina blues-rocker Hannah Wicklund is not happy. There’s a tangled yarn behind these songs, a tale of love, deception, and career-undermining shenanigans, followed by resentment, anger and reinvention. She inhabits a musical world that’s pure CLASSIC ROCK, but the voice, the tunes and the emotional vehemence often carry it with a convincing degree of panache.As far as I can deduce (some of the facts are murky), Wicklund had a relationship with Sam Kiszka of successful, sibling-led US rockers Greta Van Fleet. He produced her 2024 album The Read more ...

God Bless The Band feels like an unexpected encounter with your younger self. Compiling tracks from across Courteeners’ career, the collection revisits a period when British indie was less a musical category than a social world, sticky floors, packed festivals, late trains home and the optimism of believing the next weekend might be the best one yet. The nostalgia here is not simply for the music, but for the atmosphere that surrounded it.That sense of time passing gives the collection its weight. Early favourites sit alongside later material, charting how Courteeners have gradually moved Read more ...

Squint and you could be in 1968 - although this lot are rather better dressed and healthier than most hippies. I did see a bumper sticker “The Hippies Were Right”. But though it seems retro, actually many here see this festival as a catalyst of an idealistic loved up eco friendly future.As an old arty punk, I am naturally sceptical of anything that could be called New Age - the new religions with dodgy gurus, the bad music that only works in expensive spas, the over-priced somatic cacao weekends and the like.But I keep being drawn back. Sure, there is some New Age nonsense but last time Read more ...

Exactly how Ronnie Wood has reached the age of 79, after decades of rock’n’roll debauchery with the Faces and the Rolling Stones and surviving cancer twice, passeth all understanding. He even seems to have managed to hang on to a full head of hair, though advanced tonsorial technology may have had a part to play here. Anyway, here he is back on stage with the band he calls AMMO, and kicking off a tour which will take him all around Europe before he nips over to South America for some more dates.This curtain-raiser in Kentish Town revealed a few loose ends and rough edges, with missed cues and Read more ...

Mastodon, to those who are unaware of these US rock behemoths, fill a similar musical space to Iron Maiden or perhaps Rush, if they had louder guitars. Their music is wholly escapist, tending towards the bombastic with a widescreen prog metal sound. Moving from monumental riffing to quiet, more orchestrated ambiances and back again, their lyrics tell dramatic stories but don’t especially engage with modern life and its trials and tribulations. They may be able to turn up the volume but Ministry, with Raging Uncle Al Jourgensen’s continued hectoring of Amerikkka or Slipknot and their dark Read more ...