New music
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. Instead, Jepsen has released a steady stream of highly credible pop music, proving herself to be musician first, celebrity second, building up a serious and loyal fan base. Her return to the UK saw her playing a far bigger Read more ...
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. The band’s music has always been built from the groove up, but now the head banging has been replaced with waves of rhythm that flow through the body. The Slow Rush is an apt name. This is an album that replicates the wash of a narcotic come-up. Unstoppable, inimitable, and highly addictive.A sense of joyous adventure carries through the songs, less concerned with the destination than Read more ...
Guy Oddy
In the times long before Oasis and certainly before indie music made much of an impression on the public consciousness and wallet, Alan McGee’s Creation Records carved something of a niche for itself, by championing fey psychedelic guitar-pop revivalists. Rishi Dhir’s Canadian space cadets, Elephant Stone clearly have quite a fondness for those times, by immersing themselves in that sound with their latest album, Hollow. However, not content in tipping their collective hat to McGee’s acid eaters from the 1980s, Elephant Stone have flown even further into the psychedelic firmament, by making Read more ...
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.He had spina biffida and was in constant pain. There were prescribed painkillers, self-medication and a long-standing problem with alcohol. He missed shows. Contracts were cancelled due to drunkenness. He had married Audrey Sheppard in 1944 but they fought. Divorce came in 1952. Read more ...
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. At first it might feel like an overly large venue for a group of around fifteen musicians. After all, as the name suggests, the hall’s been designed with a symphony orchestra in mind. However, the velvet curtain which hid the organ gallery, clever use of lighting, and some seriously good sound engineering all came together to lend to the Read more ...
mark.kidel
There is something deliciously normal about Tennis, the Denver husband and wife team of Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley. Steeped in the best pop of a bygone age, the couple’s lyrics seem so simple and yet unpack hidden depths on repeated listening. Moore and Riley met as analytical philosophy majors - with a shared love of great and often little-known music - and they bring to their crystalline songs of love a sophistication that never gets too clever.This is their fifth album, and they never let up. As time goes by, Tennis seem to refine their art, leaving most traces of indie rock behind. Read more ...
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. Ironically though, this was a forward thinking pop show that worked best when focused on the future, rather than indulging in nostalgia.It was also a performance that spared no expense. If the trappings were familiar, from the group appearing on a platform being lowered from the ceiling before Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Without wanting to get into what constitutes punk, we can, at least, agree that brevity is to be lauded? Right? Good, because at 26 minutes, Green Day’s 13th studio album, Father of All Motherfuckers, is a volley delivered at velocity. That’s not to say that all 10 tracks speed along at the same Ramones-esque breakneck pace however. There’s room for changes in speed and style as the pop-punk’n’roll band deliver an album high on energy and low on political outrage. Despite no shortage of source material, any fans hoping for American Idiot #2 will find something very different in store. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
10 years ago, a wave of exciting femme-pop was cresting, women taking the reins with singular visions; the results were shiny, personally honest, inventive and ebullient, from Gaga to Adele and beyond. A leading light was La Roux, a duo fronted by the androgynous Elly Jackson. She looked different, a bit Bowie, and the music was a fantastically catchy reimagining of Eighties synth-pop. They had monster hits with “In for the Kill’ and “Bulletproof” but Jackson’s career since has swerved about somewhat. Her return is much-anticipated. Unfortunately her third album, while bubbling with bounce, Read more ...
Asya Draganova
After 35 years on the global scene, Sepultura are entering the Twenties with the force of great quality metal music. Quadra is unlikely to bring new hits that resemble Sepultura’s classic “Roots Bloody Roots”, 1996, or “Refuse/Resist”, 1993; however, it suggests that Brazil’s metal giants are approaching new intellectual heights in their music and career. Quadra demonstrates impressive joined-up thinking around universal themes from the realms of philosophy, history, and mythology.The new album lets pretty much every fan find what they are looking for. If you are after powerful thrash metal Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
U-Bahn’s second-ever live show outside their home country Australia took place in Aalborg, in Jutland, in the north of Denmark. They were in this congenial, routinely rain-sodden city last weekend for Northern Winter Beat, the annual festival of established, offbeat and up-and-coming musical adventurers.The Melbourne oddballs’ (pictured above) debut album attracted attention for its seeming determination to borrow much of the early Devo’s shtick. Live, however, they are something else. The herk-jerk, tick-tock patterns are present and correct but what’s apparent a minute into “Beta Boyz”, Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
While there’s usually something for everybody on the Celtic Connections festival programme, where Glasgow’s midwinter festival tends to shine is in its collaborations and special events. Over the past 18 days the city has hosted folk icon Peggy Seeger on a cross-generational bill with her songs Calum and Neill MacColll; Glasgow singer-songwriter Beerjacket performing with the Cairn String Quartet; a new orchestral symphony inspired by the Declaration of Arbroath in its 700th anniversary year; and the annual Transatlantic Sessions shows, featuring lovingly curated lineups of musicians from Read more ...