Album Reviews
Album Review: Blue Angel – Departures
Fate, it seems played its part with Blue Angel. The first piece of fate happened at rehearsal rooms, the now defunct Backstreet Studios on Holloway Road in London , when producer/Instrumentalist Jason Newton heard Bella Bennett in the next room, rehearsing for a wedding, and he knew he’d found the voice he’d been looking for. The other piece …
EP: Ty – Kick Snare and an idea (Part One)
I didn’t come from the slums, in fact there’s very little about me that is even remotely ‘urban’. When I was at school we had to do this tracing your family tree thing. There were others in my class where there parents had been involved in exciting jobs, like in the army or merchant navy, …
Album Review: British Sea Power – Machineries of Joy track by track
Have British Sea Power really been around a decade? It doesn’t seem that since, shortly after the release of their second album, Open Season I saw them in London, as support for the much missed (in my house anyway) Electric Soft Parade. They wore odd costumes, paraded around the stage on each-others shoulders, made a …
Album Review: Johnny Hates Jazz – Magnetized
You heard right: Johnny Hates Jazz have a new album out. Radio 2 are playing their new single. It’s technically their third studio album, although only the second with the original singer, Clark Datchler. This time round they’re a two-piece, just Clark and bassist/producer Mike Nocito, returning without drummer Calvin Hayes. The story of JHJ is …
EP: Blood Sport reveal new EP ø, and download it for free
One of the things about music is it can create mood. You hear a piece of music and at once it can take you back to a moment in your life, or a mood you felt. I’m sure that when I was younger I had break-up songs and stuff like that, but I can’t remember …
Album Review: The Laurels – Plains
I seem to have been to Australia on a few occasions. Its lovely, and my favourite place has always been Sydney. The capital city always seems to have more things going on, feels more bohemian, seems so much prettier. I walked up to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge one (a difficult task since …
Album Review: Foreign Talks – Foreign Talks
Here it is then*, the album you have all been waiting for: Foreign Talks‘ debut LP. The Portland, Oregon four-piece have delivered a tight, 10-song set that barely breaks 30 minutes in length. Replete with deft instrumentation, four-part harmonies, spacious production that transports us into the breezy open-air, and copious confidence, this is a compelling …
Album Review: Atoms for Peace – Amok
Given its slightly dark imagery, and menacing title, it’s rather a surprise that Thom Yorke and (new) friends have made an album that, while having its moments of doubt and even sadness, is largely an upbeat listen. With a line-up that includes flea of the chili peppers amongst other, suspicions that he would make (I say he because this definitely …
New Music: Northern Portrait – Pretty Decent Swimmers EP
It started with The Smiths. When I first heard them, I began to doubt whether I would ever love a band any more than that. After that, I started to buy these bands who had records that came out in plastic sleeves, and made flexi-disc and things, and were on labels like Sarah, and Subway …
Album Review: Johnny Marr – The Messenger
Jim F finds that despite spending years in the background, there’s always been a frontman in Johnny Marr that’s been fighting to get out. Rather like the end of one of those Rom-Com films when the perennial Bridesmaid suddenly steps forward and becomes the blushing bride, so Johnny Marr, at the ripe old age of …