New music
Jonathan Geddes
The theme tune to John Carpenter’s horror classic The Thing rang out as Slash and his crew of collaborators took to the stage. Unlike that film’s famous climax though, there was no ambiguity here, for these were experienced stalwarts of rock music putting on a traditional, no frills show with a minimum of fuss.Customary top hat and shades on, and adorned in a Scorpions T-shirt, the evening’s main draw was greeted with a cry from one fan of “mon Slash!”, followed seconds later by another yell of “mon Myles too!”. The night’s pecking order was thus confirmed, but if the Guns n’ Roses guitarist Read more ...
joe.muggs
This is a reviewer’s nightmare: it’s literally just Khruangbin doing what Khruangbin do. As ever, the Texan trio are rolling out laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western Tex-Mex country-soul-funk groove after laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western Tex-Mex country-soul-funk groove, all drenched in the usual hazy reverb that practically demand you start drawing for adjectives like “sun-bleached” and talk about big skies and desert landscapes. The instrumentation is, as ever, all super-trad too. Bass, drums, guitar and just tiny wisps of Hammond organ and vocal are recorded in lovingly analogue Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The joy of The Hives on record is encapsulated by their 2012 micro-song “Come On”. Despite being one-minute long and consisting solely of the title phrase, it fizzes with righteous, effervescent buzzsaw euphoria. They open their encore with it, showcasing with ease that, whatever the pleasures of their studio output, live in concert is where The Hives truly explode.Clad in regulation black’n’white suits covered in zigzags, they first appear to Chopin’s funeral march and dive straight into “Bogus Operandi” from their most recent album, last year’s The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons, from which Read more ...
Tom Carr
It’s been a winding road to album number 12 for blues rock duo Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, better known as The Black Keys. Albums one to five – from debut The Big Come Up to 2008’s Attack & Release – all played in a modern, blues rock wheelhouse. Then everything changed as they exploded into the mainstream with the quickfire releases of Brothers and El Camino. Since their meteoric rise, heralded by tracks like “Howlin For You” and “Lonely Boy”, the duo has somewhat meandered through. The following albums Turn Blue, Let’s Rock, and Dropout Boogie all Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Carl Barat and Peter Doherty are "the Glimmer Twins" of their own wayward trajectory through the worlds of rock and roll, stardom, drugs, distraction and destruction.The noughties indie stars, releasing their first album in a decade, are perhaps as near as their generation will get to the steady state of the Mick-n-Keef equation. But it pulls you up to realise that, more than 20 years after they went in to a studio together, this is only their fourth album as a band.Recorded, in part, at their Albion Rooms hotel on Margate’s Eastern Esplanade, its 11 new tunes display Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Thundercat is known for his love of having a good old noodle on his six-stringed bass guitar – and there was plenty of that going on at the Halls in Wolverhampton on Easter Sunday. But this was far from the whole story of his show that threw in sci-fi funk, prog jazz and hip-swinging soul music to a performance that was dedicated to Anime master Akira Toriyama.Thundercat (or Stephen Bruner to his mum) was once the bass man for hardcore punks Suicidal Tendencies and while his show didn’t reach out that far, it was certainly one that didn’t just hit one button. Similarly, his audience was a Read more ...
mark.kidel
The second act of a trilogy, launched with “Renaissance” (2022), Beyoncé’s latest release has been loudly proclaimed as her “Country” album. In a tradition of surprising and controversial self-reinventions that includes among others Bob Dylan’s gospel albums and Ray Charles’s “Modern Sounds in Country and Western” (1962), the superstar has once again broken the rules of genre, and done her own all-too-remarkable thing – with the usual brilliance and panache.Of course, this is so much more than a Country album, even though she's surrounded herself with some of the top black Country singers, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“So Ends Another Life” is strange. Very strange. The song’s dolefulness is immediately set up with a strummed guitar along the lines of the intro to The Bee Gees’ “New York Mining Disaster.” “In a world of agitation, there’s no time for compassion” are the opening lyrics.As it continues, the song asserts that life goes on until you don’t belong. The chorus bleakly commences “so ends another life.” It takes the Gibb brothers’s most maudlin moments to the Nth degree. The arrangement’s use of brass and strings enhance the Bee Gees feel.Next up on the album featuring “So Ends Another Life” is “ Read more ...
Liz Thomson
We’ve come a long way since 1971, when the audience at Madison Square Garden for the Concert for Bangladesh applauded when Ravi Shankar tuned up. Western audiences were first exposed to the sitar in 1965 when George Harrison played one on Rubber Soul, the earliest instance of the instrument being used in rock music. Soon it was all over the place, most often in the form of the Danelectro electric sitar, with its “buzz” bridge design offering an imitation of the sitar’s distinctive sound on an instrument easily playable by guitarists: unlike George Harrison, few took the time to master the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Motif,” Love In Constant Spectacle’s fourth track, is the closest Jane Weaver has come in over a decade to the folk influences embraced on her 2007 and 2010 albums Cherlokalate and The Fallen By Watch Bird. Not that her new album is rooted in past ventures, more that it appears she has taken a step back to consider what she has done, and has found this reflection comfortable.And there is a lot to ponder. Weaver, who thrives on embracing new musical and wider cultural discoveries, has her own résumé to contemplate. Her first solo album was issued in 2002. Just before this, there was her Read more ...
joe.muggs
What a time to be alive it is for fans of late Eighties, early Nineties indie – the proverbial 6 Music Dads – with so many of the best acts from the era on the form of their lives. Even in just the last year we’re spoilt for choice of quality albums by those who’ve kept on keeping on (J Mascis, Kristin Hersh), those who’ve come back but sound like they never went away (Slowdive), and those returned and completely revivified (The Jesus And Mary Chain). It’s into this latter category that Ride fit. The Oxford band reformed in 2014 and since then have made three albums with Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as “William Parker, bass” – is firm about the designation under which the three musicians on stage are operating.Mayan Space Station is also the title of a recent album. On the 2021 release, Parker was joined by drummer Gerald Cleaver and guitarist Ava Mendoza. All three are here, on stage in the basement of the Park Hotel in the lakeside village of Voss, to the east of Bergen. Getting here from Norway’s second city, the just-more than an hour train Read more ...