album review
Album Review: An Early Bird – Echoes of Unspoken Words
An Early Bird is essentially the work of Stefano Di Stefano – a quintessentially romantic troubadour from Naples and now based in Milan. Backseat Mafia has followed closely Di Stefano’s career since we began life, firstly though his band Pipers then through his solo work under the An Early Bird moniker. ‘Echoes of Unspoken Words’ …
Album Review: Wilding – The Death of Foley’s Mall
Wilding – the nom de plume of Justin Wilding Stokes – premiered the single ‘Swipe Right’ here on Backseat Mafia last month and it was quite a breath of fresh air. I observed it was a highly enjoyable marriage of pure pop bounce mixed with an intelligent and off-kilter lyrics. Wilding just released his new …
Album Review: Enslaved – Utgard
With ‘Utgard’ Enslaved are looking behind the mirror, tracing the origins of the well-known fables of the northern world back into each and every one of us. A band that have always been more than a black metal band endlessly turning out the usual and expected. Enslaved are happier when pushing the boundaries especially into …
ALBUM REVIEW: Mint Field’s second LP, ‘Sentimiento Mundial’ is an out-of-body experience
DESPITE the gloom-laden bleakness of this year, there has been at least some positives from the cursed chalice that is 2020. One of those is the continuation of fantastic music dropping left, right and centre, picking up from a very strong 2019 with a consistent stream of flaming hot good stuff, all oozing onto our …
Album Review: Hen Ogledd – Free Humans
Once again they come from the north-Hen Ogledd, time travelling space pop troubadours with music of weird and wonky magic. Originally the brainchild of folk experimentalist/indie anti-hero Richard Dawson and avant harpist Rhodri Davies, the addition of Dawn Bothwell in 2016 and then Sally Pilkington has sparked the collective to channel their inner wonk and …
ALBUM REVIEW: Hugar – ‘Music For The Motion Picture The Vasulka Effect’: graceful ambience for art documentary
HUGAR is the exploratory Icelandic music project of Bergur Þórisson and Pétur Jónsson, a pair of talented musicians hailing from Seltjarnarnes, which rejoices in the fact it’s the smallest town in the nation. Their collective name: it translates from the Icelandic, quite simply, as “Minds”. They’ve had a quietly stellar upward career curve, working at …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Heliocentrics – ‘Telemetric Sounds’: trippy as hell Afro-psych grooves
THE HELIOCENTRICS have been working away on a rarified astral plane of musical fusion for more than a decade and a half now – and frankly, if you’re a crate-digger on any kind of level, whose musical tastes range multifariously, they’re the kind of band whose wax should be sat in that little favoured stack …
ALBUM REVIEW: Kris Drever – ‘Where The World Is Thin’: a fine, open and wise set from Orcadian folk star
IF YOU’RE a gig veteran, whichever your chosen poison in terms of bands or genres, I bet you can in one sphere break down your gig experiences thus. Some bands you see – maybe that upcoming, hotly tipped support, you turn to your friends at the end of the night and say: “Yeah, quite fun …
ALBUM REVIEW: Cabbage – ‘Amanita Pantherina’: Mossley marauders aim for the jugular on their second
MOSSLEY – you pronounce it Mozzley, chaps, hard S – is a small milltown up in the hills north west of Manchester, where the soil gets thin, the rushes spring through the steep meadows; where Manchester as a greater conurbation gives up its last and prepares for the bleak moors of Yorkshire ahead. It’s also …
Premiere: Divest – Time Well Spent
There’s something in the Scandinavian air that’s producing some pretty special music. This time around, it’s Divest, a Norwegian indie pop band that are premiering their new album ‘Time Well Spent’ on Backseat Mafia. This is as far as you can get from a bleak Nordic winter: it’s bright, sparkling summery pop that canters forth …