The history of popular music is littered with bands who fulfilled everything needed to make it. Then fate kicked them in the teeth. Goofin’ good time Brit heavy rockers Dinosaur Pile-Up have had some rubbish luck.In 2019, after slogging the circuit for a decade, their fourth album was signed to Parlophone, they supported The Offspring and Sum 41 on US tours, and their new song “Back Foot” was an ebullient pop-metal classic. They were on the brink of breaking big.We all know what happened next. That virus closed the world. But, worse for the band, frontman Matt Bigland became seriously ill, Read more ...

Who’d have guessed that a dude who first came to attention a decade ago guesting on a cheesy Chase & Status drum & bass track would likely now be heading for his third chart-topping album? Tom Grennan’s done well.His first two albums lent into singer-songwriter territory. His last one became playful. On his fourth, the convolutedly titled Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn't Want To Be, he’s aiming for the Olly Murs mountaintops.By Tom Grennan we mean Grennan, regular collaborators Dan Grech-Marguerat and Mike Needle, plus new associate, US mega-songsmith Justin Tranter. Between Read more ...

Emma Smith, one time Puppini Sister, has established herself over the past decade or so as one of the UK’s most compelling jazz singers, now signed to hip Brooklyn label La Reserve, with Bitter Orange, a new album of classics from the Great American Songbook. The 2024 Parliamentary Jazz Vocalist of the Year launched the album from the stage of Ronnie Scott’s over four sets across two hot, high-summer Soho nights.She’s got artistry and showbiz all sewn up in one body-sculpting outfit, and between songs delivered very funny, sassy and illuminating asides – best of which was a story about her Read more ...

You can't explain stage presence like Anoushka Shankar’s. It just "is". When she steps out in front of a completely packed Royal Albert Hall, and utters a welcoming, exploratory, London-ish “Hi... welcome to my Prom… Oh, my God!”, a friendly connection with audience is made. Instantly and with disarming ease.Then come memories: she thinks back to having participated with her father in the Ravi Shankar Prom in 2005 and her further three appearances since then, notably one in 2020 with no audience: “It’s so much nicer to have you guys all in here.”And then, from the moment she starts to play, Read more ...

“I will fly around the world just to forget you” are the opening words of “It Hits Harder,” the first track on New Radiations. The song is about a farewell. The album ends with “Sad Satellite,” where the titular heavenly object is used as a metaphor for distance, when the gap is increasing between the narrator and the subject: the latter a character who is “sucking me dry” and “took me for ride”.It’s not hard, then, to construe the tenth album from the Nashville-based Marissa Nadler as one permeated with partings – cleavages which create distance. If analysed, detachment can bring perspective Read more ...

Ricochet is Chicago punk veterans Rise Against’s 10th album and, unfortunately, one which suggests that despite a four-year break since Nowhere Generation, that they have hit that point where they are seriously struggling to maintain relevance. In fact, they would seem to be both short of anything special to say and for tunes to carry their message, such as it is.A quarter of a century ago, when Rise Against first appeared, they were a melodic hardcore punk band, mining much the same territory as Bad Religion and Green Day. Political, compassionate and speedy, but with catchy tunes that Read more ...

The booklet coming with Just Like Gold - Live At The Matrix frequently refers to the band as “The Solution.” It will be the same here.With respect to the name this pioneering San Francisco psychedelic outfit did choose, their drummer John Chance is quoted in the booklet as saying “My mother was really upset about it [the band’s name], and I knew why.”Lead guitarist Ernie Fosselius adds “We knew vaguely somewhere back in history it was heavy. I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t realise how much the name could mean to a Jew.” Or, Ernie, anyone else.One person who realised the resonance of the Read more ...

Running as part of the South Facing Festival in Crystal Palace Bowl, Thursday’s headliners, Mogwai, and their friends across the water, Lankum, were an excellent pairing, both atmospheric, wonderful musicians whose instrumental (and vocal, in the case of Lankum) virtuosity, were a real joy to listen to.Confessionally, although I had wanted to arrive earlier to watch Caroline (much lauded by friends who also came to the festival) and The Twilight Sad (glorious Scottish misery), this was the first time that we had left our three-month-old with a babysitter, so we got to the park in time to get Read more ...

It’s impossible to overstate how much the early 2000s records of Goldfrapp – the duo of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory – set the tone for the whole rest of the 21st century. The electroclash scene had already ushered in an Eternal Eighties of electropop revival, but Goldfrapp professionalised it, added heavyweight songwriting skill and superstar vocal personality.They drew in the production gloss of precursors like Trevor Horn and William Orbit, instantly influenced existing stars like Kylie and Madonna, and created an updated template for synth pop that you can ear echoing through Read more ...

For a band who started by entirely self-producing their own records and performing in basements, it has ended up being a long and storied career so far for The Black Keys. The blues-rock group, consisting of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, began their career with their first five albums, from 2001 debut The Big Come Up through to 2008’s Thickfreakness, all playing in a modern blues rock wheelhouse.Distorted, heavily fuzzed guitar lines and Auerbach’s soulful warm vocals played over Carney’s frenetic, energetic drums; the duo quickly garnered a passionate following and renowned for their live Read more ...

Wilderness is the kind of festival where you can overhear a conversation about the philosophical implications of rewilding whilst queuing for Veuve Clicquot, or watch a man dressed as a vicar strip naked mid-cricket match without anyone blinking. It is, in every sense, deeply decent – equal parts bougie and bonkers, like a country house party that accidentally invited in the circus, the club kids, and a few stray shamans.This year’s gathering was a reminder of how the annual arable revel in Cornbury Park has become the gold standard for sophisticated summer merrymaking. And golden it was, Read more ...

This is a weird one: I do try and stay on top of pop culture, but for several years, Ethel Cain completely passed me by. You’d think I would have noticed a gothic bisexual Baptist trans woman achieving great enough success to be championed by Barack Obama, but no – until streaming algorithms put me on to her record Perverts, released earlier this year. It’s an incredible work of fathomlessly deep ambient and drone music, and I was baffled to see something so out-there clocking up millions upon millions of views, until I finally clocked her previous success. Though Read more ...