LIVE REVIEW: PORRIDGE RADIO – 11/12/23

Dana Margolin, singer and guitarist of Porridge Radio, makes my blood run cold with one phrase uttered at the very start of their Yes show this evening. ‘We’re going to play mainly new stuff’. That’s it. That’s enough to dampen my enthusiasm for this show on a mild Monday evening in December, the promise that […]
It’s still hard to believe that it’s only ten years ago since Johnny Marr decided to go solo. Since the demise of The Smiths in 1987, his collaborations took centre stage, notably with Bernard Sumner in Electronic, The Cribs, and Modest Mouse amongst others, so tonight is a celebration of Marr’s decade going solo, lent […]

LIVE REVIEW: JOHNNY MARR ORCHESTRA 07/12/23

ALBUM REVIEW – FULL OF HELL AND NOTHING: WHEN NO BIRDS SANG

2023 has been a year of collaboration for Full of Hell. The band’s joint effort with Primitive Man, Suffocating Hallucination, a split EP with Gasp in August and now, to close the year off, When No Birds Sang. The record is a melding of minds with Philadelphia’s sullen, grungey shoegaze outfit Nothing. Full of Hell […]
Having reached the point where the industry assumes the music buying public is only interested in streaming the Christmas hits of yesteryear, the new releases have slowed to a trickle so Silent Radio has bundled the year’s remaining offerings into a little bundle of joy. 8 Cymande             Second Time Around      Reissued 1973 album from Black […]

ALBUM ROUNDUP DECEMBER 2023

EP REVIEW – TAYLOR PEARLSTEIN: PERFECT BLUE

It is quite a rare thing in the music industry for someone to have vocal control as smooth as Amy Lee or Karen Carpenter while managing to simultaneously exhibit the same volume of emotion that a tortured entity like Janis Joplin would – and yet Taylor Pearlstein manages to encapsulate it all. The Perfect Blue […]
The comparison with The Beatles is often a death wish for bands who don’t live up to the claim often slung on by PR companies in order to sell albums and gather interest within the artist they represent, which is a trap I often fall into as I either need to disprove the claims or […]

ALBUM REVIEW – MISS CHAIN AND THE BROKEN HEELS: STORMS

ALBUM REVIEW – COBRA SPELL: 666

We have had some incredible rock albums released this year. None of them, however, are like what Cobra Spell have conjured up on their debut album ‘666.’ This is the most 80s influenced album you will hear in 2023. It is full of life and energy, as well as sexual lyrics that are synonymous with […]
The last significant week for releases prior to Christmas, here is Silent Radio’s guide. Peter Gabriel     i/o          His first album in 20 years, its songs tackling life and the universe, our connection to the world around us, but also the passing of time, mortality and grief, alongside such themes as injustice, surveillance and the roots […]

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 1 DECEMBER 2023

ALBUM REVIEW – HARP: ALBION

The debut album from Harp, former Midlake singer Tim Smith’s new act, bears a healthy imprint of Anglophilia. The album title reflects his fascination with England, or Albion as it was known in former times, especially the Medieval and Renaissance eras, together with its landscapes, gardens, villages, grey skies and mist on the moors. Musically, […]
For its latest release, Analog Africa travels to South America for a compilation of songs performed by Ary Lobo, a singer of Afro-Brazilian heritage. Hailing from the northeast of Brazil, Lobo encountered the biases of a southern based industry. On his first audition, he was so exhausted from the journey that he was too frail […]

ALBUM REVIEW – ARY LOBO: ARY LOBO 1958-1966