Music
Track: Enea – 21
Detroit emcee Enea has been rapping since he was 8, and released his debut mixtape ‘Accept me’ last August. Now he’s back with a new single, 21. It’s a playful and poppy look at his life, driven by this slippery soul pop backing, full of vocal harmonies and string stabs, as guitars gently noodle away …
Album Review: SIA – This Is Acting
There is an uneasy amount of hype surrounding Sia Furler’s forthcoming album, This Is Acting – Sia is seen as the new bastion of hope within a bloated pop music scene with her offbeat musical output lauding her to not only critics but more crucially the general populous (no pun intended) of mainstream audiences. You …
Album Review: Foxes – All I Need
In 2014 Foxes released her debut album ‘Glorious’. It took pop music, added in a whole bunch of quirks and an edge, and went on to be one of the best albums of the year. Her Kate Bush-esque dramatic sound, laid over huge pop hooks and dirty electronic beats separated her from so many others …
News: Backseat Mafia Live! – Coastival, Scarborough13-14TH Feb
Get your buckets and spades ready, because Backseat Mafia is going back to the seaside, only this time it’s going to be bigger and better!!! Backseat Mafia has once again been asked to take part in Scarborough’s Coastival festival – www.coastival.com – The festival runs from Friday 12th of February right through to the evening of Sunday …
Meet: Former Formes frontman Steven McNamara on his new solo project
Those of you that have experienced the tumult of a set by heavy psych doom band Formes will be somewhat surprised to listen to the new EP, ‘Wake Up Lie Down’, from the band’s former front man, Steven McNamara. The EP is very much a stripped back acoustic set of songs that in many ways …
Say Psych: Album Review, Magnetic Seasons by Mugstar
Normally when I review an album I sit down with it and really think about how it makes me feel, and generally just go with the flow. If I don’t like it, I don’t write about it…there’s enough cynicism in the world…right? When this new album from Mugstar popped into my in box I was …
Not Forgotten: Aretha Franklin – Aretha Live at Filmore West
When the Queen of Soul records a live album at one of the iconic live rock venues, things are never going to be anything less than interesting. Aretha Franklin, as ever, is a smart operator. She knows that not everyone attending tonight is her usual audience, so the set list is heavy with covers of …
Live Review: Escape The Fate, Manchester Club Academy, 28.1.16
If there is any band that have seen their fair share of problems, it’s Escape The Fate- prison stays, betrayals, drug problems and more line-up changes than are worth thinking about. Yet here they are heading out on the Hate Me tour, in celebration of their fifth album of the same name, and they’re doing …
Meet: The Caulfield Beats + Single ‘Acid Part I’
After the release of the ‘Mexican Smoke’ EP, which saw the Boiler Room favourite 90’s Love (Acid Pt II), Lawrence Northall and Molly Dixon bring us their follow up single Acid Pt I. A little taste of what’s to come as we anticipate their forthcoming album due out this year. But before Video let’s catch up …
Reissue: Julia Fordham – Julia Fordham
God, if this album was any more 1980s it would come with a free Ra Ra skirt and fluorescent leg warmers. But despite the overproduced tinny guitars, hideous fretless bass and synthesised keyboards, that are so redolent of the time, it is saved by Julia Fordham’s gorgeous smoky jazz tinged voice. Fordham was one of …