rock
The Best Albums of 2017Tuesday, 14 November 2017
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.SIMPLY THE BEST: THEARTSDESK'S FIVE-STAR REVIEWS OF 2017Alan Broadbent:... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 33: Pet Shop Boys, AK/DK, Ian Dury, Grateful Dead and moreFriday, 10 November 2017
The autumnal release deluge is upon us. Vinyl’s thriving and writhing. Raise a glass to it. Do it. However, records that, in another month, would have been reviewed here, music that would have been in the ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION section, has been... Read more... |
Peter Perrett, Concorde 2, Brighton review - magnificent songs scorchingly renderedThursday, 09 November 2017
These days Peter Perrett doesn’t rely on the songs of his late Seventies/early Eighties band, The Only Ones, to hold his audience’s attention. At 65, looking and sounding healthier than he has done in years, he’s on a vital late-career creative roll... Read more... |
Queen: Rock the World, BBC Four review - we won't rock youSaturday, 04 November 2017
Forty years ago Whispering Bob Harris made a documentary about Queen. He eavesdropped on them as they recorded the album News of the World and then followed them around America on tour. The film was never broadcast but the footage was exhumed for... Read more... |
CD: TootArd - Laisser PasserWednesday, 01 November 2017
It’s impossible to discuss TootArd without digging into the history of their region. They’re a funky desert blues outfit but they don’t derive from Saharan Africa; they were born and raised in the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. This... Read more... |
Steely Dan / The Doobie Brothers, Bluesfest 2017 review - brilliant Dan, delicious DoobiesMonday, 30 October 2017
Following the recent death of the band's co-founder Walter Becker, it seemed faintly remarkable that Steely Dan went ahead with this O2 show at all – it was the closing night event of Bluesfest 2017 – but Becker’s absence wasn’t allowed to detract... Read more... |
CD: St Vincent - MasseductionSunday, 08 October 2017
It’s easier to admire than fall in love with the music of St Vincent aka Annie Clark. But then again does one genuinely fall in love with a Bacon painting or a Beckett play? It’s just that we’re more used to taking pop songs to our heart, fondly... Read more... |
CD: Liam Gallagher - As You WereWednesday, 04 October 2017
When Liam Gallagher turns up with an album in tow, no one is expecting "Jazz Odyssey". You wouldn’t call a plumber to turf your lawn, and you wouldn’t ask ISIS to explain the dynamics of intersectionality. Similarly, you wouldn’t expect the former... Read more... |
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, O2 Arena review - intimate emotional releaseMonday, 02 October 2017
Nick Cave walked onto a simple black stage and quietly perched on a stool. He took a deep breath and launched into "Anthrocene". "This sweet world is so much older," he sang with arms outstretched. His huge baritone voice travelled across the arena... Read more... |
CD: Miley Cyrus - Younger NowSaturday, 30 September 2017
When Miley Cyrus released the deliriously patchy Bangerz in 2013 she was as over-exposed as any pop star has ever been, as I subtly pointed out at the time. Far less so now. Her only album in the interim has been a slightly tedious, flung-out drug... Read more... |
CD: The Blow Monkeys - The Wild RiverThursday, 28 September 2017
It was this album's good fortune to arrive on a miserable rainy afternoon. At other times my first impressions might be a bit harsher about its comfortable, retro dad-grooves and easily flowing sax solos, but instead I let it wrap me like a blanket... Read more... |
CD: Wolf Alice - Visions of a LifeWednesday, 27 September 2017
London indie-rockers Wolf Alice’s debut album, My Love Is Cool, made it to no 2 in the charts a couple of years back. It was a bona fide success story and a rare thing, a gold record for a female-fronted outfit who major in grungey, ambitious post-... Read more... |
