album review
ALBUM REVIEW: Pale Waves – Who Am I?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a band in possession of good reviews for their first album must find the second difficult. Debuts are, after all, borne out of years of hard graft and fine-tuning, whereas follow-ups are often written and recorded amongst a brand-new dizzying schedule of touring and promotion and under the …
ALBUM REVIEW: The WITCH – ‘Introduction’: cracking Zambian garage nugget unearthed
You thought every stone had been overturned in the quest for any last garage-punk nuggets of note? You’d be wrong. Get your white drainpipes and chelsea boots on for this cracking Zambian garage album from the early Seventies
Album Review: American Darlings – ‘Afterglow’: sophisticated and psych-infused
OUT NOW digitally on Spotify and Bandcamp is the album, Afterglow from the American psychedelically-infused alt.rock band, American Darlings. Afterglow starts with “You’re Not Alone”, initially a warm, acoustic guitar haze which at first just meanders, before the whirligig of gently fuzzed-up and flange guitars fires in. Gentle 60s-style vocals glide in as the soundscape …
ALBUM REVIEW: Dale Berning – ‘Horse Stories’: spacious, minimal and delightful art soundtrack
Dale Berning’s The Horse Stories is humble, in the very best way; it delights in the tiny and the everyday with a surreal wonder. It has eagle-eyed focus; it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s often as close as music can get to absolute quietude while still retaining a sense of melody and spatial wizardry. If you loved the Clicks + Cuts series of compilations, Ryoji Ikeda, Colleen or Jan Jelinek; The Boats, Alva.Noto, any of these artists who travel deep into the magical, miniaturised web of pure sound, then this record is so, so top of your shopping list. Bravo, Flau, for making it available again.
ALBUM REVIEW: Bill Stone – ‘Stone’: Maine psych-folk nugget sifted and reissued
Drag City dig deep, strike fortune: Bill Stone’s album rings down the decades and it’s really sweet. Sure it’s a little rough ’round the edges, but that’s absolutely part of the charm; you can hear these songs live and breathe, the actual moment of their realisation. Real and delightful
ALBUM REVIEW: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – ‘New Fragility’: raging at the state we’re in
On New Fragility, Alec Ounsworth looks at the state we’re in and calls it like he sees it; rage and horror is articulated with poetry and precision and more often than not with you being able to sing along with abandon
Album Review: Feskarn – Ravens Way
Feskarn is a one man Folk/Pagan/Viking Metal band hailing from Uppsala, Sweden. The one man being Niklas Larsson along with new studio gear, Ibanez guitar, soundcard and upgraded software, he has created the album ‘Raven’s Way’ full of viking elements with throat singing, choirs, shaman drums and mouth harps. You can hear the influence from …
Album Review: Josh Thorpe’s album ‘Love & Weather’ is a blistering delight.
We proudly premiered the video of ‘Down to the Ground’ last week by Glaswegian-based artist and musician Josh Thorpe, and the excitement caused by this single is only exceeded by listening to the entire album from whence it came – ‘Love & Weather’. There is an imperious grandiosity about this album – studied and eloquent …
EP REVIEW: Lizzie Reid – ‘Cubicle’: cathartic beauty from young Glaswegian
Lizzie Reid’s Cubicle is a properly excellent debut from the young Glaswegian, with moments of real cathartic beauty
Album Review: Modern Hinterland – Diving Bell
‘Americana’ is one of those genre descriptions that is narrow enough to be definable but wide enough to be inclusive. Americana music is built on the shared and varied musical traditions of the United States, specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rock and roll, and gospel. Americana music is ‘of’ those styles, but …