ALBUM REVIEW – OLIVIA DEAN: THE ART OF LOVING

With a sudden crusade of the charts, Olivia Dean is on everyone’s lips and in their ears becoming the first artist since Adele to have three songs in the top twenty at the same time. The debut album ‘Messy’ was critically acclaimed yet didn’t make the dent in the charts like it should have, however, […]
Trying to release a new album after releasing a masterpiece is one of the hardest tasks for any musician. Rage is no ordinary band though and when the three-piece set themselves up for something, they usually achieve it. This German thrash, power and speed metal hybrid released what is easily their best piece of work […]

ALBUM REVIEW – RAGE: A NEW WORLD RISING

ALBUM REVIEW – CERYS HAFANA: ANGEL

Sometimes artists kindly try to do journalist’s work by describing their music. On Cerys Hafana’s Instagram page, their music is described as “sad Welsh harp pop”. As a description, this barely scratches the surface of what can be heard on their latest album, ‘Angel’. Whilst they indisputably sing in Welsh and play the triple harp, […]
Over the course of a long gig-going life, there will inevitably be regrets about opportunities missed. Festivals in particular offer so many choices that there is bound to be the odd misstep. From the perspective of what happened in the following few months, I look back with a rueful shake of the head on being […]

ALBUM REVIEW – MULATU ASTATKE: MULATU PLAYS MULATU

ALBUM REVIEW – THE GENESIS: A STORY

Fear not! This is not an ode to Messrs Collins, Banks and Rutherford, or even Gabriel. The Genesis is an entirely separate beast and ‘A Story’ comes, aptly enough, with an incredible backstory. Hand of Glory Records’ Will Twynham (who records as Dimorphodons) was searching eBay for interesting instruments and came across an old Hohner […]
Skim through my concert bucket list and find Johnny Marr, most likely sitting between some random all-acoustic folk singer who last wrote a good song in the late Seventies and an Indie band that the NME tried to push to popularity in the mid-Noughties. A personal guitar hero and one of the few cool people […]

ALBUM REVIEW – JOHNNY MARR: LOOK OUT LIVE!

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 19 SEPTEMBER 2025

Cardiacs            LSD       The culmination of the late Tim Smith’s work and brings all of his faculties to bear in one place: a unified whole world of experience. Elements of more folk-horror offshoot The Sea Nymphs, his solo work OceanLandWorld and pop-flavoured Spratleys Japs flow alongside distinct references to Cardiacs’ 80s albums and on through to […]
“Rhythm’s deep within, strap in for what’s right.” POP QUIZ TIME: don’t worry it’ll be a short one, but very quickly, could you define the term “Chorophobia”? If you said it’s the fear of dancing, you’d be correct! Unfortunately, I have no prize to hand out, so instead take a powerful sense of pride with […]

ALBUM REVIEW – WEVAL: CHOROPHOBIA

ALBUM REVIEW – GHOSTWOMAN: WELCOME TO THE CIVILIZED WORLD

Nihilistic, sardonic and world-weary… electric, psych-intoxicated Americana that’s bloodshot-eyed, wounded and dangerous. ‘Welcome to the Civilized World’, the cynically titled fourth album by GHOSTWOMAN, is a record beaten into shape by the unrelenting cruelties of life; knocked down countless times, yet staggering defiantly with a crooked smile, daring anyone who will meet its gaze to […]
A young man with long hair stands right at the front of the crowd, centre stage. He sings every word of every song, seeming to conduct the band, his hands as batons. He looks like he got to the Albert Hall about a week before the gig and would have willingly fought anyone in the […]

LIVE REVIEW – BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD: MANCHESTER ALBERT HALL – 13/09/25