New music
Album: Marina Allen - CentrificsThursday, 15 September 2022
Marina Allen’s singing voice fluctuates between the conversational and the flutingly melodic. In one song, she can be asking “Why do I sing my song for you” in a no-nonsense Randy Newman manner and then shift into a series of spiralling, ascending... Read more... |
Album: Gogol Bordello - SolidaritineWednesday, 14 September 2022
If anyone was going to produce a raucous musical response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it was always likely to be Gogol Bordello. After all, the band has both Ukrainian and Russian members (among other nationalities), they have a... Read more... |
Album: Suede - AutofictionTuesday, 13 September 2022
Suede were both prototypes and outliers of the Britpop pack, and their 2010 reunion managed a rare, creatively substantial second act; given their resurrection after guitarist Bernard Butler’s fractious 1994 exit, this may even be the band’s epic,... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Sons of Adam - Saturday's Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966Sunday, 11 September 2022
“We played the Rolling Stones concert at Long Beach Arena. The Stones came on, and it was the first time that any band had ever done better than us. I was very angry about that.” Randy Holden was The Sons of Adam’s guitarist. He was pretty... Read more... |
Album: Star Feminine Band - In ParisSaturday, 10 September 2022
The Star Feminine Band are from Benin, all of them under 18, the youngest only 12. They hail from a village in the north of their small country tucked between Togo and Nigeria. Their pop-inflected mix of high life, Congolese rhumba and other trans-... Read more... |
Album: Santigold - SpiritualsFriday, 09 September 2022
Those talented internationally-renowned musicians are just like the rest of us, you know? They had a rubbish time during lockdown too – turns out it was the great leveller after all. Santigold’s latest album (her sixth, the first for four years) is... Read more... |
Album: Parkway Drive - Darker StillWednesday, 07 September 2022
Away from the spotlight of mainstream music the metal scene thrives, unbothered with how much attention it picks up. When bands like Architects reach number one in the UK charts, it is huge, but unimportant. Instead the scene is preoccupied with its... Read more... |
The Divine Comedy, Barbican review - a triumphant retrospectiveTuesday, 06 September 2022
“We love you, Neil!” came the shout from the back of the circle. “Well, you’d have to,” he replied. Five nights, ten albums, 113 songs and 30-plus years of releases: The Divine Comedy’s residency at the Barbican was an opportunity to savour the... Read more... |
Album: Ozzy Osbourne - Patient Number 9Monday, 05 September 2022
Is Ozzy Osbourne finally over the hill and ready to knock this rock’n’roll thing on the head? It’s a question that has been asked many times since he was unceremoniously dumped by Black Sabbath in 1979.Ozzy seems physically and artistically... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Ultravox! - Live At The Rainbow 1977Sunday, 04 September 2022
Eddie and the Hot Rods played London’s Rainbow on 19 February 1977. A big deal, the Saturday headliner was at the largest venue they’d been booked into to date. Their debut album Teenage Depression had been issued in November 1976 and this confirmed... Read more... |
Album: The Afghan Whigs - How Do You Burn?Saturday, 03 September 2022
Hedonism and romance still drive Greg Dulli’s rock’n’roll on his main band’s ninth album.Relationship traumas have always simmered just beneath the Whigs’ surface, most notably on Gentlemen’s 1993 autopsy of an affair. Whatever the real life... Read more... |
Album: Julian Lennon - JudeFriday, 02 September 2022
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, there’s no way for Julian Lennon to escape the longest of shadows – his parentage – so by naming this album Jude, he’s tackling it head on. Or is he? The haunting cover image and name are the only direct... Read more... |
