Album Review: The Raft – Abloom
Backseat Mafia has been following with great delight the prolific releases of The Raft for the last few years – a series of brilliant EPs that somehow capture an unique Liverpudlian pop sensibility. The Raft have released a full album, containing the previously released single ‘Xanadu’, and it represents a glorious evolution and development of …
Track: Imperial Daze – People are Animals
Following a brilliant debut last year with one of my favourite singles of last year, ‘Always Settling’, Peckham’s Imperial Daze are back with another fantastic single ‘People are Animals’. Of the release, the band says it “hints at the glaring contradiction that, although we are ever more digitally connected, these digital connections can ultimately be …
Track: Ummagma – Caravan
Dreamy dream pop duo Ummagma take a surprising direction in their new single, ‘Caravan’. It’s a thumpingly percussive missile, tilted forward and racing like a sprinter in a 100m run. With a slight arabic air that is almost reminiscent of Remain in Light-era Talking Heads, there is a sparkling arpeggio with the intertwined vocals of …
Album Review: Japan Suicide – Ki
A year and a half after the release of their magnificent album ‘Sante Sangré’, Italy’s goth maestros Japan Suicide are back with ‘Ki’, a masterful and complex album that further evolves Japan Suicide’s glorious oeuvre. Single ‘Mishima’ is inspired by the Japanese writer’s second novel ‘Confessions of a Mask’. According to the band, “The book …
Track: Nice Biscuit – Goodbye, Luya plus tour news
There’s something in the water up in the north of Australia and it’s not H2O. Brisbane’s Nice Biscuit have released a gorgeous psychedelic, jangly, kaleidoscope whirligig of a song in ‘Goodbye, Luya’. It is a hallucinogenic seven minutes of glorious harmonies from the two lead singers, Grace Cuell and Billie Star with a hypnotic drive …
Track: Underground Lovers – The Passer-by, plus album news
There can be no greater sense of excitement and anticipation than news of a new release from one of Australia’s best bands, the criminally underrated Underground Lovers from Melbourne. And so it goes a surprise new single has just been released – ‘Passer-by’ – as well as confirmation of the release of their 10th album, …
Track: Syrup, Go On! – Don’t Go (Riding Down The Cosmic Drain)
Yet another blast of creativity from Queensland gets launched to day with the release of the single ‘Don’t Go (Riding Down The Cosmic Drain)’ by the psychedelic upstarts, Gold Coast’s Syrup, Go On!. The title of the song tells you everything: this is a psych-infused stop/start sparkling brilliance surely fueled by substances you wouldn’t want …
Track: Local Authority – Oil Rigs
Dripping with an early The Cure vibe but infused with a Ride-like wall of harmony and jangling guitars, the new single from Brisbane’s Local Authority, ‘Oil Rigs’, is an absolute delight. With a cold, clinical spine, the sound is leavened by the layered vocals that are haunting – distantly floating in a dream-like reverie. Apparently …
EP/Track: Fragile Animals – Only Shallow
South East Queensland’s Fragile Animals have recently released their new EP, ‘Only Shallow’ and it is an absolute shimmering delight. Infused with a dream-like melancholia and an antithetical summer sheen, this band has all the genetic makeup of classic shoegaze, but has evolved this into their own unique style. There is a developing sound from …
Live: Fontaines D.C. at Gorilla, Manchester on 13 April 2019
Fontaines D.C. have just finished their first major tour across Europe, a tour that essentially was off the back of a couple of outrageously good singles last year and at pessimistically smaller venues. It was sold out everywhere. The Gorilla in Manchester, sold out this night, has a capacity of up to 700 punters. In …