New music
Russ Coffey
The Time is Now sees Craig David's career well into its Indian summer. The story of how he got here is well known: back in the early noughties a series of hits like "7 Days" made him the toast of the UK Garage scene. Then comedian Leigh "Bo' Selecta " Francis turned David into a figure of fun. The singer relocated to Miami to become a club DJ. Finally, he returned to the UK and released the Number One album, Following My Intuition.It wasn't just the latter's sales figures that were impressive. Over the past two years, David has also picked up a MOBO and filled London's 02 arena Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
How much of someone else’s despair is it possible to take? What are the limits on putting a sense of desolation or isolation into a song? Can such naked expression be mediated by a glossy production or crowded instrumental arrangements which distract from the core essence of the song?All three questions are raised by the new Television Personalities archive release Beautiful Despair. Rather than being an unreleased album, it is a collection of 15 previously unheard home recordings taped in 1989 and 1990 between the albums Privilege (1989) and Closer to God (1992). This was a period of Read more ...
Guy Oddy
If sunny tunes that put a spring in your step and a positive spin on the day are what you are looking for to blast away the Arctic-powered January Blues, then Hollie Cook has them in spades. Vessel of Love is the daughter of Sex Pistol Paul Cook and the former Slit’s third solo album and one that is awash with lilting lovers rock grooves that bring to mind the classic pop reggae sounds of the legendary Janet Kay and even has hints of Lily Allen’s summery debut album Alright, Still on occasion. This is mellow music for swinging hips and, as the temperature plummets, it’s just what the doctor Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The third album from Thomas White under his Fiction Aisle moniker is a match for its delicious, under-heard predecessors. White remains best known for his output with The Electric Soft Parade and Brakes but the prolific Fiction Aisle (three albums since 2016) deserve to gain wider purchase. This time round the mood is more tentatively upbeat than previously, and White’s Pink Floyd-ish tendencies are on the back burner, but, at its core, cosmic easy listening is still the game.The Fiction Aisle aspire to John Barry’s cinematic orchestrated scope, but tinted with hints of Morrissey’s vocal tics Read more ...
howard.male
Growing up with the music of David Bowie is probably not the best grounding for being a music critic because it raises expectations unreasonably high for every other adventurous musician one happens upon. When I first heard the intense, bordering-on-hysterical music of Merrill Garbus (the main creative force behind Tune-Yards) eight or so years ago, I actually had to get up from my desk and pace the room. I was so excited to hear something that both acknowledged pop and rock templates and crushed them underfoot. But with love comes responsibility. But unfortunately Garbus seems to have Read more ...
Katie Colombus
With the tragic passing of Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, I've been thinking a lot about the importance of the soundtrack to youth. I spent days wailing along to "Ode to My Family", raging out to "Zombie" or bouncing around the local indie disco with friends to "Linger". They are moments that now seem frozen in that time, that were reflected in the quirks, uniqueness, newness and message of the Cranberries' sound.What strikes me with First Aid Kit's Ruins is a similarity (perhaps imagined as I'm consumed with memories of one of my old faves) in the uniqueness of Swedish Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Many hard rock aficionados say that Motörhead’s greatest work was all with the “classic” line-up of Lemmy, drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor and guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke (who died last week aged only 67 - this review was written before that news came through). While there’s no denying their 1976-82 output was storming, Motörhead’s later career contained multitudes of gems that were its match. The band’s guitarist for this period, for 31 years from 1984 until Lemmy’s death, was Phil Campbell. He now releases the debut album by a band he formed with his three sons shortly after his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The critic Simon Reynolds characterised Butterfly Child’s debut album Onomatopoeia as the sound of “vitrified everglades in J.G. Ballard’s The Illuminated Man, where some kind of entropy has slowed down time, so that living creatures are literally petrified, encrusted and crystal.”Such circumlocution was unsurprising as Onomatopoeia was originally issued by Rough Trade in August 1993 during a between-time moment for independently minded pop. Britpop hadn’t yet taken off, grunge was a clichéd bandwagon and the first flush of shoegazing had run its course. It hit shops around the same Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The Limiñanas are considered something of a musical jewel across the Channel but, like many fine mainland European bands before them, have been somewhat criminally ignored in the UK over their nine-year career. In a just world and with the wind blowing in the right direction, Shadow People, their latest album of beguiling and psychedelic guitar pop, however, would certainly change that. Well, if the anglophone world was more prepared to listen to pop songs that aren’t necessarily sung in an approximation of the Queen’s English, it might.Taking its cues from the more relaxed end of the Velvet Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
As a prime example of high-end Gallic art-pop, Triomphe pushes the right buttons. The mid-tempo opening cut “Senga” sets the tone. A motorik rhythm and a shuffling counterpoint are complemented by bubbling bass guitar, insistent single note guitar lines and subtle keyboard stabs. The French-language vocal line is hooky, minor key and delivered in close-miked yet distant voice. It exudes class. Krautrock and Air are in there. A smidge of Stereolab too. As is – with the way the song builds and builds – a suggestion of stadium-rock dynamics.It’s the same throughout Triomphe, where a sense of Read more ...
Helen Wallace
Joseph Houston’s recital gave us the piano exposed, sent up, psychoanalysed; in short, piano as theatre. And whether silently depressing keys or creating chords with an elbow, the young Berlin-based pianist brought formidable focus and unshowy mastery.He also revealed a rare talent for curation, creating a narrative that began with a walk around the piano and ended with Christian Mason’s numinous Remembered Resonance, grappling in between with that "curved, tensed, gridded institution of an instrument", in the words of composer Louis d’Heudieres. Houston gave tremendous direction and Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Five years might not, at first, seem like a long time between albums, certainly when you consider that even tectonic shift left the Avalanches in its wake while they were creating Wildflower. But a lot has happened to Californian indie rockers Black Rebel Motorcycle Club during that time. Not least, drummer Leah Shapiro has undergone surgery – crowdfunded by BRMC devotees – for a serious brain condition, and her road to recovery has been mapped out for her by a surgeon who also happens to be a fan of the band. There is, it's fair to say, a lot of love in the room.As well as showing Read more ...