Album Reviews
Album Review: Beach House – Thank Your Lucky Stars
While I consider Beach House to be a special sort of band, I’d never consider then to be particularly prolific. This is a band that takes a good couple years in between albums in order to cultivate and organically grow a Beach House record. That sort of melancholy and malaise doesn’t just grow on trees(unless …
Album review: Various Artists: Creation Artifact: The Dawn of Creation Records 1983-85 (Cherry Red)
It’s a shame Creation Records is now known as the home of bloated rock gods Oasis when in reality it was the ground-breaking label that created DIY indie pop. It helps Creation was started by one of music’s genuine mavericks Glaswegian Alan McGee and his genius is celebrated in this lavish 5 CD compilation of …
Album Review: The Kinks – Sunny Afternoon
Okay, so what do we have here? Another Kinks Kompilation? Aren’t there enough of those already? The latest attempt to distil the brilliance of The Kinks onto two CD’s ties in with the jukebox musical based on their material. Whether you’re a fan of them or not, jukebox musicals have been big business for a …
EP Review: Talay – ‘Piece By Piece’
At this point it’s an easy thing to take the internet and the availability of music for granted which has increased over the years but one of the aspects I still love is that I’m able to watch a live show in New York whilst I’m sat on my sofa in Sheffield via a livestream. Specifically that …
Album Review: Killing Joke – Pylon
Killing Joke occupy that interstitial space between order and chaos, between sanity and madness, between the temporal and the spiritual, between darkness and light…that moment just before the apocalypse consumes us all. On occasion the band have teetered over onto on side or another, producing a series of albums in the 1980s which were relatively …
Album Review: Hurts – Surrender
I must admit to having a bit of a crush on Hurts’ frontman Theo Hutchcraft. He is stylish, debonair, with a dry wit. As a vocalist he manages to pour so much emotion into his performance. And as part of a duo, has helped create two stellar pop albums. Hurts appeared on the scene in …
Album Review: John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
For me, like many people, John Grant first appeared on my radar following the release of Queen of Denmark, his gloriously heartbreaking collaboration with Midlake and simply one of the most astonishing debut albums for many years. Of course, he’d previously been vocalist with the Czars during the 90s and early part of this century, …
Album Review: Rolo Tomassi – Grievances
Released earlier this year Grievances is arguably the bands best collection of work yet. Rolo Tomassi are a band that don’t tend to shy away from experimentation blending a whole a multitude of styles with varying results. The issues with some of the groups previous material is that it wasn’t always the most accessible, not …
Album Review: Luke Haines – British Nuclear Bunkers
Luke Haines is one of Britain’s genuine rock n roll eccentrics. As lead singer of The Auteurs he created some of the greatest albums of the era, including my personal favourite album of all time ‘After Murder Park’. As a solo artist he has created several (mainly concept) albums. And as an author he has …
Album Review: Die Nerven – ‘Out’
‘Out’ is the third LP release, by Stuttgart post-punk trio Die Nerven. I am delighted that this found it’s way to me via Ben Lynch at PinDrop Publicity – just the other day, I was reminiscing about John Peel having introduced me to Xmal Deutschland and Einstürzende Neubauten back in the day, courtesy of one of those Facebook …