rock
Thomas H. Green
Thrash metal’s “big four”, the ones who originally set the genre rolling, are, famously, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. These are American bands. In Europe, another band has a decent claim. They are Germany’s Kreator, whose early work, particularly 1986’s Pleasure to Kill, boasts venomous attack the equal of any peer. Decades later, their 16th studio album sees them offer similar velocity, if with more melodic finesse.For Kreator, wider appreciation was a long time coming. Their global breakthrough came with 2005’s Enemy of God (their 11th album!), and they’ve since Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The term “post-punk” is much overused to describe music, not least by we music writers. It usually covers anything with punk’s outsider attitude but boasting an arty, tricky musical ambition beyond 1977’s spit’n’roar. Not all music described thus sounds as if it might have bothered the indie charts between 1978 and 1984, but Dry Cleaning do. Their third album’s bubbling combination of musical scratchiness and impassively delivered spoken word is pure post-punk. It’s also an intriguing and likeable listen.The rhythm throughout is a groovy plod, guitars wilfully relishing atonal skronk, coming Read more ...
Graham Fuller
That was clever. The original Wet Leg – singer Rhian Teasdale and guitarist Hester Chambers – instantly snagged global attention with a droll novelty single, launched with a knowing faux-rustic video, about a sexy piece of furniture. After scoring a chart-topping multi-genre debut album, the duo recruited three noisy, hirsute male musician-writers, toughened up, and metamorphosed into one of the hottest indie combos on the planet. That evolution is crystallised in their second album, another smash and – in its flawlessness – a 21st-century equivalent of the Human League’s epochal Read more ...
Ellie Roberts
2025 was another year of flaunting for the ever impressive beast that is female-led pop domination. The now iconic line up of legends and future greats, and their growing class of inspired apprentices, have punctuated the year with defiance and celebration in the form of fantastic pop songs. The prevalence across festival stages, TikTok trends, and radio are telling of the power that this entity basks in but doesn’t take away from the deserved success of most of it. Lady Gaga’s Mayhem took the crown for me this year, it’s an all round well planned and polished album with a perfectly Read more ...
howard.male
What is a documentary maker supposed to do when someone as gifted and empathic as Francis Whately has already covered most of the Bowie bases with three detailed and hypnotic films about different defining periods of the man’s life and career? Five Years, Finding Fame and The Last Five Years are texturally complex films that bear repeated viewings. And there’s another Whately film due out next year that will no doubt definitively nail the Berlin years too.Maybe Jonathan Stiasny film should have been called "The Less Raked-Over Years", rather than the more grandiose The Final Act – given that Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Alabaster DePlume, aka Mancunian Gus Fairbairn, has been an antically charming performer, confounding unsuspecting crowds with tenderly comic philosophy, voice Tiny Tim-eccentric yet alive to mental fragility, and attuning listeners to the brave possibilities in their every breath. Operating at a quizzical angle to London’s jazz scene, he surfs his own, sui generis wavelength.Working with West Bank Palestinian musicians during the Gaza War had clearly changed DePlume in gigs in Brighton and Norway’s Moldejazz festival, and A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole. He sometimes found elevated Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
UK prog-rockers Gracious! acquired their exclamation mark when their first album was released in July 1970. Up to this point, they were Gracious. Barney Bubbles, who designed their LP’s sleeve, added the symbol without asking or telling anyone.The sleight typifies the story of Gracious! The band had breaks, but their path through the music business was bumpy. They recorded a second album between January and March 1971, but split in August that year before it was scheduled for release. When the LP was issued in April 1972 the band were not informed. The label “just flopped it out there with no Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHManduria Bite Me (Wild Honey)
Image
The debut from Milan punkers Manduria is a six-tracker haemorrhaging rock’n’roll cheek and sass. They riff and fuzz and bang about without a care in the world, shouting and revelling in reverb mess, howling like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins while cranking up the amps like The Cramps, the rhythm section indulging in a mono-stomp that penetrates the inner brain like Joe Pesci’s vice. There’s a track called “I Hate to Think” and you don’t need to. On “Buongiorno” they slow things down for a dip Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Yes, I know. Maybe everything bitched about them is true; an eye-watering marketing push, cynically calculated, monied, etc. Maybe it is not. I’ve no real idea.But, but, but, the second album by this London five-piece is my most listened-to of 2025 – and it only came out in October. In the end, all that will be left is the music, the rest history. Just think of The Monkees. The cool kids loathed this manufactured TV group in the 1960s, but who listens to “Daydream Believer” today and froths with the same indignation?From the Pyre is a gem, start-to-finish, a perfect balance of Sparks-like pop Read more ...
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, O2 Academy, Glasgow review - revisiting the past produces mixed results
Jonathan Geddes
Towards the end of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's run-through of their old album Howl, bassist Robert Levon Been told the crowd the "pain was nearly over". By BRMC standards that's a wisecrack, referencing the gloomy, pared-back tone of that 2005 release, but some of the Glasgow audience seemed to have experienced it for real, having headed for either the bar or exits as the set progressed.That is partly on them, given the show was clearly advertised in advance as a 20th anniversary revisitation of Howl. However, it is unquestionably an album that was an odd pick to play in full, lacking many Read more ...
Guy Oddy
In all honestly, 2025 has not been a vintage year for new recorded music and there certainly seems to have been a significant paucity of high-profile album releases that are likely to be viewed as stone-cold classics in years to come. Nevertheless, there has been gold for those prepared to look hard enough.Swiss electro-rock veterans, the Young Gods unleashed a techno-metal monster, Appear Disappear, that dug deep into an intoxicating malevolence with their muscular, sample-heavy electronics and live percussion. Soulwax brought us the gritty electro-pop flavoured All Systems Are Lying. While Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Of all the problems a band could face, fighting for room onstage with a Christmas tree must be far down the list of possibilities. Yet there was David "Jaff" Craig struggling to find room to move around, while avoiding knocking over the decoration next to him with an errant swing of his bass. It was the Futureheads own fault though, as both their current album and tour have a festive theme, hence the choice of two large trees on either side of the band.Some of the crowd had taken this theme to heart, with Christmas jumpers and Santa hats worn, suggesting a works night out had wandered into Read more ...