New music
Album: Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Kings of the AsylumThursday, 31 August 2023
Three albums in, Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons have proved themselves a proposition to be reckoned with. A solid live draw, they’ve supported Guns N’ Roses amongst others, and made the album charts in mainland Europe.They may initially have... Read more... |
Medicine Festival review - the new New Age gathers in leafy BerkshireWednesday, 30 August 2023
Fia is a Swedish singer with a crystalline voice and a ear for a great melody - her singalong choruses are not typical for a festival Friday night headliner, like getting the audience to join in with “Sit with your pain/ cradle it close/ and when... Read more... |
Album: Frankie & the Witch Fingers - Data DoomMonday, 28 August 2023
Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ new album is a heady stew of the loud, the funky and the weird – and it doesn’t let up from the first riff to the last. Make no mistake, Data Doom really does have the band firing on all cylinders the whole way through... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Keith Levene and The ClashSunday, 27 August 2023
Forty-seven years ago this week, a new band called The Clash were seen by a paying audience in London for the first time. On Sunday 29 August 1976 they played Islington’s Screen on the Green cinema, billed between Manchester’s Buzzcocks – their... Read more... |
Album: Slowdive - Everything is AliveSaturday, 26 August 2023
Everything is Alive opens with all that could be wanted from a Slowdive album. “Shanty” is just-under six minutes of out-of-focus, shimmering aural fog in which guitars throb and drums are a distant pulse. An acid-house-type heartbeat is offset... Read more... |
Album: Alice Cooper - RoadThursday, 24 August 2023
Let’s face it, well over 50 years into Alice Cooper’s career, you probably already know whether his umpteen-billionth album is for you. Over the last decade, he’s revitalised things by taking a meta look at himself, but, whether harking back to his... Read more... |
The Walkmen, SWG3, Glasgow review - a classy return for New York's finestWednesday, 23 August 2023
As the relentless, hammering beat of “The Rat” faded away, the Walkmen’s singer Hamilton Leithauser was evidently in buoyant mood. “Like riding a bike,” he declared to the Glasgow crowd, and this was a statement that proved consistently accurate... Read more... |
Album: Hiss Golden Messenger - Jump for JoyWednesday, 23 August 2023
Any surprises which Jump for Joy brings aren’t about the nature of the music or the unfailingly open lyrics recounting Hiss Golden Messenger main-man M.C. Taylor’s outlook on his life, but an intermittent undertone suggesting he’s been considering... Read more... |
Album: Ratboys - The WindowMonday, 21 August 2023
Ratboys have been around since 2010, knocking out their guitar-powered indie fare over three albums in their home city of Chicago. However, with album number four, they have decided to branch out and pay homage to the US alt-rock scene of the early... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Boo Radleys - Giant StepsSunday, 20 August 2023
The final track of Giant Steps is titled “The White Noise Revisited.” Its lyrics recount the crushing impact of a job where you “kill yourself at work for what seems nothing at all.” After coming home, “you listen to the Beatles and relax and close... Read more... |
Album: Be Your Own Pet - MommySaturday, 19 August 2023
It shouldn’t be news to you that thanks to Gen Z, Y2K is making a comeback. From fashion threads to cultural memes, our feeds are a wash of “nowstalgia”. After 15 years away from the dive bars of their youth, Noughties noisemakers Be Your Own Pet... Read more... |
We Out Here Festival, Wimborne St Giles review: it's a family affair, and then some...Friday, 18 August 2023
We Out Here Festival, now in its fifth year (and fourth edition, as 2020 was of course cancelled for Covid), has become an institution. Curated by jazz-centric veteran DJ Gilles Peterson and actualised by Noah Ball – best known for his role in... Read more... |
