ALBUM REVIEW – TIAN QIYI: SONGS FOR WORKERS

Hearing Tian Qiyi for the first time, in session on 6Music’s Riley and Coe show in 2023, was one of those dumbfounding moments. Here was something outside of the realm of my common experience. While there is a saying about music being a universal language that may really be more a celebration of cultural homogeneity […]
Grounded upon a musical foundation of gloriously youthful indie-rock sounds, four-piece New York based Frankie Cosmos declare their talents with sixth album Different Talking. At first, the 17-song track list appears daunting, but with songs no longer than three minutes, we are met with an almost rapid fire of snappy yet thought-provokingly relatable lyrics set […]

ALBUM REVIEW – FRANKIE COSMOS: DIFFERENT TALKING

ALBUM REVIEW – LOYLE CARNER: HOPEFULLY!

Known for his introspective and sociopolitical lyrics, Loyle Carner has changed the UK rap scene. With beats that wouldn’t be out of place on a The Roots or MF Doom album allowing the listener to truly hear what he is saying. Carner is adored by critics and all of which is shown by numerous award […]
When I was growing up in England, bagpipes were often subjected to ridicule. Whilst this could in part have been due to their tonal contrast with conventional pop music of the time, there may have also been the unthinking residue of anti-Scottish prejudice that led to the instrument’s widespread mockery. Fortunately, in recent months, Glitterbeat […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BRIGHDE CHAIMBEUL: SUNWISE

ALBUM REVIEW – BC CAMPLIGHT: A SOBER CONVERSATION

There is always unadulterated glee running through Silent Radio’s suite of luxury offices when a new BC Camplight album is announced. His most recent classic, ‘The Last Rotation of Earth’, was our album of 2023 and the culmination of a run of four records dating back to 2014’s ‘How To Die in the North’ that […]
The Sick Man of Europe        The Sick Man of Europe        Their name connects the current post-Brexit landscape to the austerity of Thatcherite Britain and the social conditions that shaped the likes of Bauhaus and Joy Division. These are touchstones for TSMOE, but the influence and discipline of Neu!, Suicide and Swans are just as intrinsic […]

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 20 JUNE 2025

ALBUM REVIEW – U.S. GIRLS: SCRATCH IT

“You gotta dance til you feel better.” So begins ‘Like James Said’, the James Brown quoting opener to Meg Remy’s latest album as U.S. Girls, ‘Scratch It’. While it might be more appropriate to categorise the nine tracks that comprise the record as hyper-emotional pop music, they also occasionally scratch the urge to dance. “Stretch […]
If you were a teenager in the early to mid-2010s you would have heard the song ‘She Looks so Perfect relentlessly throughout every radio station, and a repeat of this with “Youngblood.” However, now is the time for the band 5 Seconds of Summer, or 5sos, who created those songs to go their own separate […]

ALBUM REVIEW – CALUM HOOD: CHAOS ORDER CHAOS

ALBUM REVIEW – BLACK MARKET KARMA: MELLOWMAKER

A singular phrase kept creeping its way into my head whilst listening to Mellowmaker, Black Market Karma’s latest album. A phrase that I feel embodies the ethos and feeling of the LP. That phrase was “beauty in it’s imperfections”. Mellowmaker is an album that is aware it can’t be perfect, but revels in its differences, […]
Joe Armon-Jones        All The Quiet (part II)               Second of two distinct but conceptually linked albums find the London-based keyboardist, producer, songwriter and bandleader expanding his sound into new musical and sonic realms, assisted by a wealth of special guests including Nubya Garcia, Asheber, Greentea Peng, Wu Lu, Hak Baker […]

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 13 JUNE 2025