Not Forgotten: Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
When reviewing In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a term like ‘influential’ just doesn’t seem to cover it. Neutral Milk Hotel’s final full album (their second or third, depending on whether you include the obscure Hype City Soundtrack), the influence of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has seemingly seeped through independent / alternative guitar …
Not Forgotten: Eagles – One of These Nights
Eagles are one of those bands that split opinion. For some they are the absolute epitome of bland, coke-blasted, West Coast Album Orientated Country-flecked Rock. To others they are an act of rare quality, whose big hit and mega-selling album sadly eclipsed the fact that they were one of the finest rock bands of the …
Album Review: Ezra Furman – Transangelic Exodus
As a rallying cry for a generation of music fans with a notoriously short attention span, ”Suck the Blood From my Wound” is an attention grabbing opener. Transangelic Exodus has the unenviable task of maintaining the attention of fans that Ezra Furman gained with 2015’s Perpetual Motion People, and with a solid opener and an …
Album Review: The Shins – The Worms Heart
For me the fascinating thing about The Worms Heart is not its concept, or even the music within, but it’s trying to figure out exactly when James Mercer came up with the wheeze of re-recording The Shins’ previous album, ensuring that each new version of every song had a tone which contrasted the original version …
Not Forgotten: Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man
It shouldn’t work. It should have been a complete and utter dud. Of the old guard of the 60s and 70s, almost no one had made the hard synthetic production techniques of the 80s work for them. Sure, a few had maintained a certain level of commercial success, but at what cost to their integrity? …
A buyers’ guide to Flight of the Conchords
I can’t remember the first I became aware of Flight of the Conchords. I had certainly heard of them prior to my friend Mark recommending their TV series to me. Although Mark has always had a good idea of what music and television I would enjoy, it would be a few years until I fully …
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon – Excitable Boy
Sometimes a single song becomes so synonymous with an artist, that they are unable to outrun its shadow and anyone who is not a established fan only ever associates the act with that song, regardless of how rich and varied the rest of their output. “Werewolves of London” certainly isn’t a bad song, but as …
Not Forgotten: Rush – A Farewell to Kings
By 1977, although Canadian progressive power trio Rush had taken the scenic route to commercial success, they were well on the way to becoming one of the biggest bands from the North American continent. Their proverbial last roll of the dice in recording an album, 2112, had finally found the band’s audience of kids who …
Not Forgotten: Smog – A River Ain’t Too Much to Love
For the first minute or so there’s nothing but melancholic acoustic guitar and a far away harmonica. It’s moving, deeply moving. Then comes Bill Callahan’s voice, and you’re utterly invested. By the time he released A River Ain’t Too Much to Love in 2005, Callahan has been recording under the identity of Smog since the …
Video: Levellers release new video for McGee
Ahead of the release of their new album, We The Collective, British rock institution, Levellers, have released the video for their new single, McGee. Shot live in Abbey Road Studios, McGee, is the second single from We The Collective, which is available on 9 March.