album review
Not Forgotten: The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
After years of struggling in the alt-rock wilderness, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots was the first release by The Flaming Lips that you could say had been ‘long awaited’ by just about anybody outside of North America. Sure they had their small bands of admirers scattered across the globe previously, but The Soft Bulletin had …
Album Review: Wire – ‘Wire’
As a band Wire are far more accomplished and creative, than to rest their laurels on past glories. Throughout their, almost, 40 year existence, they have constantly produced music that is very much of the here and now. Maybe not so much in the limelight, but their presence has been constant, not exactly underground, more …
Not Forgotten – Mott the Hoople – Mott
Having established themselves in the late 60s as Dylan and Stones infused rockers, Mott the Hoople spent the next few years with a reputation of a storming live act whose studio material failed to capture the magic they routinely produced on stage. After four albums for Island Records in which they explored hard rock, country …
Album Review: They Might Be Giants – Glean
Do you remember when music’s primary function was to provide fun entertainment? It’s something that has been increasingly overlooked in recent years, and the majority of attempts to remind us of it have been dismissed as disposable pop confectionary that it was impossible to take seriously. After all, proper musical statements demand to be taken …
Not Forgotten: Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Brain Salad Surgery
‘Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends’ How’s that for a killer opening line? Read it again. It’s brilliant. It’s irresistable, pulling you in, promising a life-affirming musical experience and ramps up the anticipation for what can only be one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Except that it doesn’t …
Reissue: Rush – All the World’s a Stage
For all Rush’s reputation as dazzling progressive rockers on their studio albums, they have an enviable parallell reputation as a thunderously hard rocking live act. While their 70s studio albums are heavy on meticulously played brainiac sci-fi / fantasy concepts, their first live offering, All the World’s a Stage, confirmed that when it came to …
Not Forgotten: David Byrne – Feelings
In retrospect Feelings is probably the last time that David Byrne made a conscious effort to make an album that might sell to an audience beyond his most obsessed fans. Where his previous self titled album had been a mature mix of material with a very definite adult feel about it, Feelings was partly a …
Not Forgotten: Thea Gilmore – Avalanche
It can’t be easy being Thea Gilmore. Widely hailed as one of the best songwriters of her generation, yet receiving almost no radio play and little media coverage. She’s been releasing high quality music now for the last eight years or so, but registers negligible sales. She displays traditional singer-songwriter strengths, but she doesn’t fall …
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon – Life’ll Kill Ya
It’s tempting to retrospectively view Warren Zevon’s final three albums as a loose trilogy based around the theme of mortality. While the post cancer-diagnosis musings of My Ride’s Here and the acceptance of The Wind can certainly be seen as being directly influenced by the fact that Zevon knew that he was reaching the end …
Album Review: Taylor Locke – Time Stands Still
A few notes of electric piano and semi-distant slide guitar stamps Time Stands Still with the hallmarks of a West Coast album with a whole heap of promise. The opening track of Time Stands Still, “Burbank Woman”, was my first experience of the music of Taylor Locke and by the end of the song, I …