indie
Kieron Tyler
The extent to which Gargoyle counts as a Mark Lanegan or Mark Lanegan Band album is debateable. The entire musical backings for six of its ten tracks were created in Tunbridge Wells by former Lanegan support band member Rob Marshall and made their way across the Atlantic via the internet. In Los Angeles, Lanegan then wrote lyrics and melody lines, and sang to what he had received. The other four tracks were recorded in California in a more traditional way with PJ Harvey/Queens of the Stone Age/Them Crooked Vultures associate Alain Johannes.Nonetheless, despite its curious birthing process, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It's easy to presume that the early ‘00s indie boom just fizzled away. Not so. Many of those bands have had successful albums reasonably recently. The Fratellis? Check. The Wombats? Check. The Kooks? Check. Maximo Park’s last album, 2014’s Too Much Information was a Top 10 hit. In truth, though, Maximo Park were never landfill indie. For one thing, their first three albums arrived with the blessing of electronic maverick label Warp. For another, their 2005 single “Apply Some Pressure” remains a deathless, dynamic pop-rock belter. And their sixth album, put together in Chicago with Norah Jones Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Frankie Goes to Hollywood of “Two Tribes”. Talk Talk. Stadium-era Depeche Mode. Laibach. a-ha’s aural dramas “Stay on These Roads” and “Manhattan Skyline”. “New Year’s Day” by U2. These are the musical building blocks of Ulver’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar.The death of Princess Diana. The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan. The Greek goddess Artemis (Diana, in the Roman myths) and story of Actaeon the hunter who saw her naked body so was killed by dogs. The Bernini statue The Rape of Proserpina, used as the album's cover image. The death of Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
The first thing that hits me as I walk into Concorde 2 is the age and energy of the audience, dominated by excitable booze-fuelled teenagers. Black Honey themselves are pretty young for a band capable of quickly selling out a 600-capacity venue, with the singer noting that “it feels like just yesterday we played here and couldn’t sell two tickets”. Their following has grown steadily over the last few years, thanks to their accessible pop singles and constant comparisons to Lana Del Rey and Lush. Now, it seems that just about everyone in Brighton wants a ticket to see them.First, however, are Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Seattle-based rockers Car Seat Headrest finally burst their cult bubble with their 13th album, last year’s Teens of Denial, which found veteran songwriter Will Toledo combining Nineties indie, post-punk nihilism and psychedelic vocal harmonies in a collection of sprawling lo-fi jams. Inside the sold out 1,100 capacity Electric Ballroom, expectations are subsequently set extremely high.The formidable TRAAMS are supporting Car Seat Headrest for their whole European tour, and as one of the most prolific bands in the south of England, they’ve become notable for their live performances. TRAAMS Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Although Wire have regularly fired out albums, ever since their inimitable strain of angular punk first exploded into the Seventies, their later efforts have never quite reached the same coveted cult status as 1977’s Pink Flag or 1978’s Chairs Missing. Silver/Lead does, however, continue the upwards trajectory the four-piece are currently on, sparked by 2015’s frenzied and cathartic Wire.With musical nods to Bowie, Killing Joke, and even Johnny Cash holding up the first half of the album, Wire wait until the second half to delve into more uncharted territory. This Wire is more melancholy and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Albums are not meant to be heard this way. Collecting a band's output in one package inevitably obscures that what’s being heard might have been recorded and released over years. The listening time may be five or six hours, but eighteen months could have separated albums when they were originally released. Messing with time messes with reality.For Kitchens of Distinction, the new, six-disc box set Watch Our Planet Circle includes their four albums for the One Little Indian label across each of discs one to four. Disc five rounds up B-sides and other non-album material (a contemporaneous EP is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Musically, Interplanetary Class Classics breaks no new ground. Opening cut “Vessels” could be by the KLF and kicks off with Glitter Band drums, a Chicory Tip stomp and has robot-like declamatory vocals: what critically favoured Nineties band Earl Brutus perfected. It’s followed by “Sweet Saturn Mine”, a swirling confection with Broadcast synths, motorik percussion and more of those mannered vocals. Next up is “Black Hanz”, a herky-jerk Krautrock/Black Angels construct with a – them again – KLF-type narration section. After this, “I.D.S.”, which could pass for a Sigue Sigue Sputnik outtake. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Temples’ debut album, 2014’s Sun Structures, was an instant and surprise success. Within weeks of its release, the Brit-psych outfit were headlining major venues for the first time. Sun Structures went UK Top 10. Tame Impala had opened the door and Temples stepped through. As if to stress this, Volcano’s fourth track, “Oh the Saviour”, rhymes “lava” with “impala” and, three tracks on, “Open Air” could pass for a Tame Impala stomp-along.Instead of taking Temples further out, their second album Volcano is a consolidation which drops the overt nods to Oasis and supplements the edgy 1966-Beatles Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Pulling together a music documentary strikes me as a simple enough concept. Gather your talking heads in front of a nice enough backdrop, splice with archive footage in some semblance of a narrative order and there you go. There’s no need to, say, hire a minibus and attempt to recreate a near-mythological gig from 20 years ago. Especially if that gig happened in France.While taking his protagonists on the physical journey from Scotland to Mauron in the north west of France, director Niall McCann takes them on an emotional journey, too: from the close-knit friendships and fertile new music Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
On first pass, Beautica comes across as an exotic hybrid of 1991 school-of-Slowdive shoegazing and the fidgety music pre-Stereolab outfit McCarthy had perfected around 1989. But there’s something else; a lilting characteristic to the vocal melodies suggesting an inherent melancholy. Yet although the album’s makers were not bouncing with joy, the hymnal sense of reflection running throughout Bizarre’s Beautica is, contrastingly, uplifting.The timeline just-about fits. Beautica, reissued this week, was first released in 1994 after shoegazing’s first flush, when those still pursuing the music Read more ...
Russ Coffey
There was a time, a decade or so ago, when US indie bands would adopt such idiosyncratic names it almost felt like a ploy to stop them selling out. No band epitomised this trend more than Brooklyn's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. But whilst CYHSY managed to avoid crossing over into the mainstream, their self-released debut did become a cult hit. A biggish one. Big enough cast a shadow over the band's career. And 12 years on, fans are still asking whether they can escape it.The Tourist certainly makes a good fist of gently moving things on. More impressively it does so whilst Read more ...