Album Review: Diamond Rugs – Diamond Rugs

Match a group of dudes from different bands who each hone gritty vocals and a love of beer with borderline vulgarity in lyrical ascension, and you may just have yourself a trailer park indie super group. Diamond Rugs is the newest blue collared engaging side-project between John McCauley (Deer Tick), Robbie Crowell (Deer Tick), Ian […]
Anybody that fell for 2010’s ‘Own Side Now’, the first full-length from Nashville singer-songwriter Caitlin Rose, will be aware that sheer force of personality was the key ingredient that separated her from the countless other country-tinged starlets vying for your attention. And it wasn’t confined to her live shows – the ten tracks on that […]

Album Review: Caitlin Rose – The Stand-In

Album Review: Kavinsky – OutRun

The end is so often embedded in the beginning – so it is with Kavinsky. Clocking up 30 million views on Youtube thus far due to the song’s Drive cameo, ‘Nightcall’ has propelled this French 80s cinematic throwback act into a very modern overnight sensation (a cross between the Terminator and Beverly Hills Cop soundtracks […]
There is famously a darkness to everything Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds create. Sometimes it’s glaring, violent, in your face darkness, like the bubbling anger and mystery of ‘Red Right Hand’, or the title of their ninth album ‘Murder Ballads’. Even Bad Seeds songs that seem harmless enough on the surface always have something […]

Album Review: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away

Album Review: Veronica Falls – Waiting For Something To Happen

In the week that My Bloody Valentine have crashed back into the collective musical conversation, it’s particularly intriguing to listen to the sort of new record that Veronica Falls have created. Where the Valentines use their endless list of hip references to find some new path forward of their own making, Veronica Falls are more […]
There’s a belief amongst some musicians, that more – not less – is more. The more singers, instruments, harmonies, the better. But Fionn Regan’s latest record, The Bunkhouse Vol. I: Anchor Black Tattoo, proves that music served raw can be equally powerful. Armed with just a guitar, voice, microphone and a 4 track recorder, this […]

Album Review: Fionn Regan – The Bunkhouse Vol. I: Anchor Black Tattoo

Album Review: Speck Mountain – Badwater

There are certain bands that demand attention, whether good or bad, whilst others (which personally I much prefer) draw you in gradually and seep under your skin. Speck Mountain are very much the latter and their melodic, dreamy soundscapes have been critically lauded over their previous two albums, Summer Above and Some Sweet Relief. The band centres around […]
There’s something about winter – gazing at blankets of cold, soft snow – that invites introspection. Maybe it’s the human urge to hibernate, or perhaps its nature imposing on the 9-5 bustle that makes us stop and become happily enveloped in the wider picture. Nothing goes together quite so well as reflection and music – […]

ALBUM: MASAYOSHI FUJITA – STORIES

ALBUM: YO LA TENGO – FADE

‘Fade’ is the 13th studio album to be released by Yo La Tengo since they formed in 1984. Hailing from America this three-piece band has worked on a multitude of projects, from charity singles, to soundtracks, to covers for compilation albums. Originally started by husband and wife duo Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, the band […]
Sudden Elevation may be Icelander Ólöf Arnalds’ third album, but it remains a landmark, being her first sung wholly in English. For this I’m awkwardly grateful as reviewing it is my first encounter with her otherworldly brand of folk. However, as a latecomer I find myself trailing behind an influential admirer of Arnalds who has already hit […]

Album Review: Ólöf Arnalds – Sudden Elevation