New music
Norah Jones, Ronnie Scott's review - heartfelt music that transcends blandThursday, 28 September 2017
When we were at peak Norah a decade ago, she looked rather intimidated by the large crowds at venues like the Forum. Having been suddenly catapulted into the limelight she looked nervous, lacked any real stage charisma and her so-so band looked like... Read more... |
CD: The Blow Monkeys - The Wild RiverThursday, 28 September 2017
It was this album's good fortune to arrive on a miserable rainy afternoon. At other times my first impressions might be a bit harsher about its comfortable, retro dad-grooves and easily flowing sax solos, but instead I let it wrap me like a blanket... Read more... |
CD: Wolf Alice - Visions of a LifeWednesday, 27 September 2017
London indie-rockers Wolf Alice’s debut album, My Love Is Cool, made it to no 2 in the charts a couple of years back. It was a bona fide success story and a rare thing, a gold record for a female-fronted outfit who major in grungey, ambitious post-... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 32: OMD, Twin Peaks, Bicep, Sisters of Mercy and moreMonday, 25 September 2017
September and October see a deluge of new releases. Everybody and their aunt puts out an album as autumn hits, so theartsdesk on Vinyl appears this month (and next) in a slightly expanded edition. As ever, the fare on offer is as diverse as possible... Read more... |
CD: Jon Boden - AfterglowMonday, 25 September 2017
The main man of folk big band Bellowhead steps out solo with a companion piece to his 2009 outing Songs from the Floodplain. Where that album was essentially rural, the new one is altogether more urban, Boden describing it as a story of "two star-... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Ducks DeluxeSunday, 24 September 2017
That this year is the 40th anniversary of 1977, the year punk rock went mainstream, shouldn’t obscure the pub rock foundations underpinning much of what was supposedly new. The Clash’s Joe Strummer had fronted pub circuit regulars The 101’ers. In... Read more... |
CD: David Crosby - Sky TrailsSunday, 24 September 2017
David Crosby might be entering life’s twilight but, like a tired drummer, he seems to be speeding up towards the end. Perhaps he’s simply hit a rich vein of form – the success, both artistic and critical, of 2014’s Croz, and the 2016 follow-up,... Read more... |
CD: The Killers - Wonderful, WonderfulSaturday, 23 September 2017
The last song on The Killers' new record is called "Have All the Songs Been Written?". The words refer to Brandon Flowers' writers' block during the album's recording. Apparently, he tried everything to get out of the slump, including asking... Read more... |
CD: The Horrors - VThursday, 21 September 2017
The Horrors have always had a penchant for churning out pop-tinged gems, and on V, with help from Adele/Coldplay/Florence and the Machine producer Paul Epworth, they’ve applied their same winning formula to darker music. The album cover, a mishmash... Read more... |
Neil Sedaka, Royal Albert Hall review - sparkly veteran defies the decadesWednesday, 20 September 2017
As pretty much everything but a plague of locusts is visited upon this grim old world, an evening in the company of Neil Sedaka is the greatest of pick-me-ups. At the Royal Albert Hall on Monday, as his UK tour drew to a close, the capacity audience... Read more... |
Mads Mathias, Pizza Express Jazz Club - honeyed yet preciseTuesday, 19 September 2017
Caressing the microphone, and gazing into the audience with winsome, soulful sincerity, tousled auburn locks glistening in the stage light, Mads Mathias looks like nothing so much as Ed Sheeran’s more handsome older brother. His voice has the... Read more... |
CD: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian TowersTuesday, 19 September 2017
Luciferian Towers, the third album since Canadian oddballs Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s 2011 reunion, is an instrumental psychedelic masterpiece that reflects our times without resorting to political bluster. Indeed, with two of its four tracks... Read more... |
