Album Reviews
Album Review: Taylor McFerrin – Early Riser
Lets get this straight right from the off. Taylor McFerrins debut LP Early Riser is one of the albums of the year, and the fact that its taken this long since its release (nearly a month) to get a review together is a crime for which we here at Backseat Mafia are torturing ourselves with …
Not Forgotten: Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born Ten Years Later
I don’t think there’s a more divisive Wilco record than A Ghost Is Born(maybe Wilco(The Album)). It was a record filled with claustrophobic silence, whispered musical intentions, and the sound of numbed pain. It was the record where people asked “What’s going on with Jeff Tweedy’s voice?” Well I asked it, anyways. It felt both pared down …
Not Forgotten – Faces – A Nod is as Good as a Wink… To a Blind Horse
There are some bands whose true worth only became obvious following the passage of time, whose stature continues to build year upon year, long after the band members themselves have gone their separate ways. Faces are not one of those bands. In the early 90s gold rush to re-evaluate and re-assess the music of the …
Not Forgotten: Deep Purple – Made in Japan
It is the 70s. Weeks last three days, amplifiers are stacked, hair is long and unkempt, pants are loon and sleeves are gatefold. In the pop charts, glam-rock and hollow pop held sway, while the album charts were dominated by progressive and hard rock bands, whose live reputations were at least as important as their …
Album Review – Guided by Voices – Cool Planet
Guided by Voices are one of those acts where I genuinely cannot remember where or when I first heard their name, but I’ve known it for a while now. I guess he first time they registered on my radar as anything more than just a name, was about nine years ago when a Canadian friend …
Not Forgotten: Dusty Springfield – Dusty in Memphis
It’s heartbreaking that someone who had such a huge talent as Dusty Springfield suffered from almost crippling insecurity and self-doubt. Legend has it that she struggled so much with the recording of this, Dusty in Memphis, now her most celebrated album, that “Son of a Preacher Man” and “Just a Little Lovin’” aside, she was …
Album review – 3TEETH – 3TEETH
3TEETH the L.A four piece that have seemingly re-invented industrial music for the digital age have been turning heads with the slow intravenous drip of material over the last year. Through impressive use of social media and Soundcloud they’ve built up anticipation but also cleverly only revealed 3 of the tracks featured on their debut …
EP: Batsch – Collar EP
14th July will see the latest release from Coventry art/synth pop quartet Batsch. The band – Mason Le Long, Joe Carvell, Matt Rheeston and Andy Whitehead do a mean line in groove, laying down some beautifully melodic and memorable ones in their recorded work to date, taking the lead from the likes of Chic and …
Album Review : Alex Calder – Strange Dreams
The title of Alex Calder’s newest album couldn’t be more accurate. Listening to Strange Dreams is indeed like having a strange dream. The music wobbles and shimmers. It hops along like a hurt animal doped up on narcotics. It’s hallucinogenic demeanor oozes out of the speakers as if some symbiotic creature wanting to meld into your DNA …
Album Review: Japan Soul “Plastic Utopia”
Japan Soul: call it dance music with a conscience, intelligent pop, whatever you like, their new album “Plastic Utopia” is a fantastic slice of intellectual soul. To reflect my eighties predilections, it’s like a mash-up of the attitude of The Clash with the music and lyricism of Heaven 17 (and even China Crisis) it is something sorely missing from …