ALBUM REVIEW: NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS – GHOSTEEN

Nick Cave announcing a new album is always welcome news in our house. After witnessing his recent ‘In Conversation’ tour, where everything was stripped back, raw, emotional, funny and a real one-off event, plus reading his brilliant responses to fans’ questions via his ‘Red Hand Files’ emails, predicting where he could go next with his […]

I’ve spent many a happy hour in a Dinosaur Jr moshpit. From Reading Festival (yes I am that old!) to Manc Academy in the 90’s, and still like to get involved in some ferocious head nodding / arms in the air kind of activity whenever I see them live these days too, although my mosh […]

ALBUM REVIEWS: DINOSAUR JR – GREEN MIND, WHERE YOU BEEN, WITHOUT A SOUND, HAND IT OVER

ALBUM REVIEW: PIXIES – BENEATH THE EYRIE

When the Pixies reformed back in 2004 I was leaping around like a deranged idiot with excitement, the gigs were great, then after a long wait, the comeback album ‘Indie Cindy’ was surprisingly good too, so fifteen years since reforming it seems like business as usual in terms of releasing new material, although no one […]

Having recently performed in a cruise ship as part of their ‘Boaty Weekender’ festival, the ever evolving Scots band release their second film soundtrack album. Sadly I didn’t take the indie rock n’ roll cruise, but apparently there were people there for the bands (Belle and Sebastian, Teenage Fanclub and tons more) plus bizarrely enough, […]

ALBUM REVIEW: BELLE & SEBASTIAN – DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER

ALBUM REVIEW: PARSNIP – WHEN THE TREE BEARS FRUIT

It’s very rare that I start listening to something and immediately fall in love with it but that is exactly what happens when I get hold of Parsnip’s debut album ‘When the Tree Bears Fruit’ and hear the delightful opening track ‘Are You Taking Me For a Ride’. In the nicest possible way, it’s utterly […]

As anyone who knows me will testify, I can waffle on about my love for Sonic Youth all day long, so any band that has elements of the much missed soaring guitar sounds and otherworldly eeriness about them, is always going to grab my ears, however I wasn’t expecting this… Sometimes bands come along and […]

ALBUM REVIEW: THE MURDER CAPITAL – WHEN I HAVE FEARS

ALBUM REVIEW: SLEATER KINNEY – THE CENTER WON’T HOLD

Watching Sleater Kinney at the Albert Hall in 2015 on their first tour since reforming, was a reminder of how much of a gap in my musical world there had been in the intervening years since they split. I was lucky enough to see them numerous times over the years, and even managed to grab […]

Dead Nature: Taking My Shadow EP From the ashes of the great but underrated band Spring King comes Dead Nature. I loved Spring King, a band who should’ve been massive with their brand of fuzzed up guitar melodies, and new project Dead Nature doesn’t disappoint either. It’s the work of Tarek Musa former chief songwriter […]

ALBUM REVIEWS ROUND UP – THE REST OF THE BEST NEW RELEASES FROM THE LAST MONTH

ALBUM REVIEW: COMPILATION – OPTIMISM/REJECT (PUNK AND POST PUNK)

Whatever the history of punk, it’s impossible to deny the huge impact that this short-lived, intense burst of energy, ethos and political statement had on the music scene not just in the US and UK, but across the world. The striking substance-over-style aesthetic to the music, the boundary-pushing, taboo-breaking socially unacceptable behaviour, even the fashion […]

Let’s face it, if the blurb in the press release says signed to Courtney Barnett’s record label, you’re gonna take notice, well, I am anyway cos I think she’s great, and yes, I am easily swayed by this sort of thing! So, having not heard anything by these Aussies before, purely on the Courtney Barnett […]