ALBUM REVIEW – MODERN NATURE: THE HEAT WARPS

“The community we’ve built our life around – artists, musicians and the people who gravitate to these things as a way of communicating – are struggling to reconcile how they fit into an increasingly cruel world. This album, the themes and the lyrics are directed towards them because I think there are still reasons to be optimistic. There are amazing things happening all around us and it’s up to communities like ours to double down on the things we believe in. It feels... Read More

ALBUM REVIEW – BOBBY CONN: BOBBY’S PLACE

As the Premier League football season gets underway, it is fitting that the new album from Bobby Conn is as extreme an example of a record of two halves as is imaginable. While each side exists as an independent conception and could be played in either order, I will channel my inner Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher to tackle it in the order set out on the streamed copy. In this universe, ‘Bobby’s Place’ starts with Side A and sees Conn living in a tent on the astral plane... Read More

ALBUM REVIEW – WATCHHOUSE: RITUALS

Watchhouse is a duo from North Carolina made up of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz who both have immense talent and attitude. With that, their music confronts the dark side, trying to eradicate it from their own lives and minds. Though this is true, they do offer a musical avenue for the listener to navigate down, as they feel the pressures of the modern world on their backs. Expressive and emotive with sadness rippling through, this album by the outfit is a collection of majestic... Read More

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 15 AUGUST 2025

Alison Goldfrapp          Flux       The album showcases some of her most undeniable pop hooks since Goldfrapp’s iconic album Supernature as well as her most poignantly vulnerable songwriting to date. Marissa Nadler              New Radiations             It features subtle instrumental arrangements from longtime collaborator Milky Burgess—woozy slide guitar, hypnagogic synthesizers, and gritty riffs. Genre‑bending yet quintessentially... Read More

ALBUM REVIEW – SUNYEARS: THE SONG FORLORN

“I look at peers of mine I’ve worked with, like James Yorkston or Robert Forster, and those guys are auteurs, with a clear identity. They know exactly what they want to do. But, myself, I felt a little bit lost.” Peter Morén recounts the musical crossroads he reached after Peter Bjorn and John placed themselves onto the backburner after nine albums and twenty years. His response to these doubts was to return to the guitar as his primary songwriting tool and to release music... Read More

ALBUM REVIEW – PROLAPSE: I WONDER WHEN THEY’RE GOING TO DESTROY YOUR FACE

The 1990s was a halcyon time for adventurous guitar led music. Beyond the obvious American candidates such as Slint, Polvo and Trumans Water, there was a host of UK bands who were pushing the format to its limits. It was easy to overlook Prolapse in this category as the first thing that leaps out when listening to them is the duelling vocals of Mick Derrick and Linda Steelyard. Sounding like a series of arguments between a drunken, rambling Scotsman and an exasperated, petulant... Read More

INTERVIEW: MANCHESTER PSYCHFEST RETURNS – WE CATCH UP WITH PROMOTERS NOW WAVE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS YEAR’S EVENT

Now Wave have been a fixture on the Manchester music scene for over a decade, putting on gigs by a variety of bands, both the more established ones and taking a chance on the newer bands too. Inventing a festival dedicated to the best new and established psychedelic bands around, Manchester Psych Fest is now in its eleventh year, with a lineup of over fifty bands, multiple stages, art installations, a variety of other creative stalls, plus a cinema screen. Gareth Butterworth from... Read More

INTERVIEW – NERVES

Having started out in their secondary school days in Mayo, Ireland, with Kyle Thornton on guitar and his mate Adam on drums, Nerves are now on the brink of a second EP that sees them pushing their eclectic, quaking noise-rock sound even further. “We were quite obviously going to end up forming a band,” Kyle recalls. “It was kind of inevitable.” However, the path they took was far from typical. “In fifth year, some woman who was working in our school – she ran a local... Read More

ALBUM REVIEW – MARISSA NADLER: NEW RADIATIONS

It is easy to perceive the criticisms that could be levelled at ‘New Radiations’. Undeniably, it is glacially one-paced while the absence of percussion makes it unlikely to inspire its listeners to dance or send them out into the world feeling euphoric. However, there is a more powerful flipside to that critique. The similarities between the eleven tracks on Marissa Nadler’s tenth album give them a unity and consistency of mood as it develops an all-enveloping gothic-folk... Read More

ALBUM REVIEW – NO JOY: BUGLAND

“I’m outside with lily eyes”. Labels. They’re everywhere. They are a part of you, me, the cafes that you walk by and the people that you see day in day out. Everything and everyone has a label. But why? When each facet of our life is so different, so intrinsic, so innate, is something lost by reducing everything down to a single, quantifiable variable? That class clown may have made you laugh during even the most turgid of classes, but did you ever get to know them for... Read More