New music
DVD: Rude BoyTuesday, 31 March 2015
Rude Boy is a rotten film. Nonetheless it exerts an inexorable draw as it includes live footage of The Clash which is amongst the best of any rock group on stage. The performance of “Safe European Home”, caught on camera in July 1978, is white hot.... Read more... |
CD: Pombagira – Flesh Throne PressSunday, 29 March 2015
Flesh Throne Press is the sixth album from heavy doom-rock duo Pombagira. Guitarist and singer Pete and drummer Carolyn Hamilton-Giles’s massive sound is characterised by portentous riffing soaked in reverb, vocals that could easily be mistaken for... Read more... |
CD: Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & LowellSunday, 29 March 2015
Let’s get one thing straight: Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell is not a folk album. Folk, in this case, is a word used as a comfort blanket in an attempt to summarise the Michigan songwriter’s return to simple, acoustic music after the... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The SpecialsSunday, 29 March 2015
The Specials: Specials, More Specials; The Special AKA: In the StudioAfter hearing the three albums credited to The Specials during their formative period with 2 Tone Records it becomes hard to think of them as a single band. Their clanky... Read more... |
CD: The Prodigy - The Day Is My EnemyFriday, 27 March 2015
How many UK Number One albums have there been since the millennium that emanate truly vicious, caustic energy? How many have a furiousness which sets them completely apart? Royal Blood gave it a good whirl last year and Plan B’s Ill Manors in 2012... Read more... |
CD: Polar Bear – Same As YouWednesday, 25 March 2015
Polar Bear have been re-shaping the musical landscape (the experimental jazz end of it, at least), since 2004, and after a few years’ hibernation after 2010, the creature is back in rude health, this year’s album hot on the heels of last year’s... Read more... |
CD: Hanoi Masters - War Is a Wound, Peace Is a ScarWednesday, 25 March 2015
The music of melancholia takes on varied forms on different continents: the religious spirit and anger of the blues contrasts with the edgy rebelliousness of Greek rembetika, and the spiritual longing and melismatic vocal whirling of the Turkish... Read more... |
The Subways, Institute, BirminghamTuesday, 24 March 2015
Not unreasonably, anyone might imagine that a band might lose a bit of their usual vigour if they found themselves four albums into their career playing in a room not much bigger than a church hall, miles from home on a cold Monday evening. Not so... Read more... |
CD: Motorama – PovertyMonday, 23 March 2015
The two-and-a-quarter years between the release of Motorama’s last album Calendar and Poverty hitting the shops have done nothing to dim the Russian band’s aural resemblance to the roster of early-Eighties Factory Records. At this remove, it’s hard... Read more... |
Ian McCulloch, St Pauls Arts Centre, WorthingSunday, 22 March 2015
Things do not start well. Ian McCulloch, in trademark shades, apparently not aged a jot since Echo & the Bunnymen’s 1980s glory days, hits the stage in an offensive strop. He is performing a solo acoustic set from a chair. Beside him on a table... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Odyssey - A Northern Soul Time CapsuleSunday, 22 March 2015
Various Artists: The Odyssey - A Northern Soul Time CapsuleIt begins with “Open the Door to Your Heart” by Darrell Banks. Over a mid-tempo rhythm, Banks sings in an affecting voice obviously schooled in gospel. Choppy Motown-style guitar is... Read more... |
CD: Seasick Steve – Sonic Soul SurferSaturday, 21 March 2015
As thoughts begin to turn to this summer’s music festivals, it only seems appropriate that along comes Sonic Soul Surfer, the latest album from festie-perennial Seasick Steve. In fact, it’s hard to believe, given what seems to be his ubiquity among... Read more... |
