ALBUM REVIEW – FATHER JOHN MISTY: CHLOE AND THE NEXT 20TH CENTURY

Music can delight for many reasons. Often it is not an entire song but an individual moment, be it the audacity of an instrumental flourish or the ecstasy of a vocal yelp. With Father John Misty, while the pleasure may come from the beauty of the song’s orchestration and the early 1970s singer-songwriter melodies, it […]
Despite it being her sixth album, the buzz around Japanese-American songwriter Mitski has remained swarming. Her recent success on TikTok is understandable, and her music has a whole generation in an emotional chokehold, that she won’t be losing grip of anytime soon, especially with the brilliance of newest album ‘Laurel Hell.’ The synthy opening track […]

ALBUM REVIEW: MITSKI – LAUREL HELL

ALBUM REVIEW: PLACEBO – NEVER LET ME GO

Placebo have always walked the line between clever lyrics, and a dark melodic edge, with guitarist and singer Brian Molko and bassist Stefan Olsdal being  the two original members who have kept the Placebo flame burning bright for over twenty five years. Molko has always had an astute lyrical wisdom, which thankfully is still as […]
In the overwhelming majority of cases, it is easy to guess what a band will sound like based purely on its name. Without any knowledge of their respective catalogues, it would not take a genius to work out that Napalm Death were going to have a more abrasive sound than, say, Lush. However, Destroyer are […]

ALBUM REVIEW – DESTROYER: LABYRINTHITIS

ALBUM REVIEW: BLUE STATES – WORLD CONTACT DAY

Music has had a long relationship with space, dating back to Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’ through pop music’s early dabbling, such as The Tornados’ ‘Telstar’ and David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, all the way through to Hannah Peel’s ‘Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia’. Because space conjures ideas of mystery, connection, imagination, infinity and the intangible, it […]
When you can count Iggy Pop, Johnny Marr, Jarvis Cocker as fans, you know you must be doing something right. After more than forty years of music making The Monochrome Set are back again with their sixteenth studio album.  From the opening refrains of title track ‘Allhallowtide’ the chamber pop tone for the rest of […]

ALBUM REVIEW: THE MONOCHROME SET – ALLHALLOWTIDE

ALBUM REVIEW: JOHNNY MARR – FEVER DREAMS PTS 1-4

Johnny Marr’s Crazy Face studio sounds like a great place, an old warehouse, somewhere in the Mancunian suburbs, its industrialist past now given way to a creative future. It’s where, during the last year, Marr’s album ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1 – 4’ has taken shape. Most of the song writing was done by just Marr […]
In 2011, Metronomy released ‘The English Riviera’ which stands as one of the 21st Century’s landmark albums, blending Joseph Mount’s earlier creative dance music with sophisticated pop in a loose concept album that reenvisaged Torquay as an elegant resort. Like Magnetic Fields after ’69 Love Songs’ or Sufjan Stevens with ‘Illinois’, the problem becomes how […]

ALBUM REVIEW: METRONOMY – SMALL WORLD

ALBUM REVIEW: CARAMBOLAGE – CARAMBOLAGE / EILZUSTELLUNG-EXPRES / BON VOYAGE

Let’s face it, the thrill of discovering new music, new bands you’ve never heard of before keeps us music fans entertained and constantly striving for the next music fix. Whether it’s digging through the vinyl and CD shelves in your local record shop, hearing something new on the radio, or in this case getting a […]
Cate Le Bon has been one of the most thrilling performers of the past decade. From hitting her stride with second album, ‘Cryk’, through to 2019’s Mercury Prize nominated ‘Reward’, she has created a string of albums unmatched over the period by finding a perfect balance between experimentation and charming melody. She is blessed with […]

ALBUM REVIEW: CATE LE BON – POMPEII