Indie
New Music: MT Warning – Youth Bird
And so we propel towards the end of the Summer. Here in the north of England, it’s especially important to try and grab any chance we can to sit in the Sun, as we don’t get that many of them. It’s those rare times that we can relax and let the mind wander, usually (for …
Album Review: Franz Ferdinand-Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action
How many of you like me were enamored with Franz Ferdinand back in 2004? It’s hard to describe, but something about that debut album lit a post-punk fuse in me. I’d just begun listening to Gang of Four and had dabbled in The Jam as well. These cats were just the right modern take on …
See: Editors reveal new video for Formaldehyde, plus November tour news
Sometimes, as much as I love music, the way things look is the thing that makes them beautiful. When I was at University I had a poster of (this might seem a little sad) Edvard Munch‘s The Scream. To me it was scary and comical and cool and meaningful and, well, just brilliant. He himself …
Meet: We chat with The Magic Numbers, with new album news
You know sometimes you get this sort of blinkered memory of something, or somewhere. Like when I first went to Whitby and I thought it was this fantastic place where I had literally had the food of the gods (well, the best fish and chips ever), but every other time I’ve been I’ve so looked …
New Music: Seawaves – Born To Fly
I’ve just come back off holiday. I went to the little Channel Island of Alderney. It’s this small bit of rock, where everything happens, well, whenever. I sort of love the Island and its charms, but one of the thing i don’t like, even a little bit, is getting there. Firstly, I had to fly …
ALBUM REVIEW: THE POLYPHONIC SPREE – YES, IT’S TRUE
Ten years ago I got hugely into what was being referred to as the ‘Cosmic Americana’ scene, a loose sub-category of American alt-rock that had given us such instant classics as Deserter’s Songs, The Soft Bulletin and The Sophtware Slump. An act I had initially lumped in with the likes of Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips …
Album Review: Medicine – To The Happy Few
When you hear a song like “Long As The Sun” -the opener on Medicine’s excellent new album To The Happy Few– you don’t think that this is a band that has essentially been stored in moth balls for 18 years. You think you’re hearing The Beach Boys ran through the Jesus and Mary Chain warpulator. …
Track: Years & Years – Traps
I reckon pretty much everyone tries a diet at sometime in their life. Whether that’s because they want to get smaller, or more muscle-bound, or fit into a particular dress or something, we all try it. I had a friend, this huge Tuba player we called Tiny, who went on a diet. Cut out all …
See: Walla release new Video for ‘Nature’
So I’m accident prone, what of it? The whole reason I started this….whatever its grown into, is (and you’ll know this story backwards by now if you read Backseat Mafia at all regularly) I fell over, and broke a whole range of things in my left hand. Several months, and several loads of inserted metal …
Album Review: Whirr-Around
Whirr are lumped into that genre we Generation X oldsters affectionately call “shoegaze”. And while some of my favorite music is lumped into this category, I have to say it’s getting used way too much. It’s become this generic term used to describe anyone that looks at the floor more than ten seconds in order …