ALBUM: THE WAR ON DRUGS – A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING

“We as a band went from worrying about the record to worrying about the person,” speaks The War on Drugs bassist Dave Hartley of Adam Granduciel during the making of ‘Lost In The Dream’, the band’s critic-aligning breakthrough – birthed in the grip of a mountainous, sleep-fearing depression. However, sourcing its strength from obsessive insularity, the […]
For almost two-decades, the Toronto-hailing army-of-indie that is Broken Social Scene have been traversing their counter-cultural anxieties with visions of familial community and refreshing doses of celebratory sound-collage – ushering in some of our darkest political hours with defiant, unabashed joy. 2010’s ‘Forgiveness Rock Record’ closed with a two-minute ode to the loneliness found in […]

ALBUM: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE – HUG OF THUNDER

ALBUM: FOG LAKE – DRAGONCHASER

Combining the words ‘fog’ and ‘lake’ paint that of a tranquil scene – muddied with spirits and demons that quest and cloud. It’s hard to imagine Aaron Powell, Canadian downer-pop veteran, releasing music under a guise that conjures any other image, as Fog Lake is just that: peace-of-mind sitting dormant under a ceiling of head-fuck […]
RELAXER follows the Mercury Prize winning debut, An Awesome Wave and 2014’s #1 album This is All Yours. 2017 brings the notoriously tricky third album. Not that it has much to live up to… In my own experience, alt-J are incredibly good at dividing opinion. People either love or hate their quirky, awkward sound. I’ve […]

ALBUM: ALT-J – RELAXER

ALBUM: CIGARETTES AFTER SEX – CIGARETTES AFTER SEX

A crap name need not necessarily hold a band back. Coldplay are doing OK, U2 have shifted quite a few units. Still, unless you are completely without prejudice, you can be put off. I once skipped an early Manchester appearance by Vampire Weekend because I did not like their name – a truly regrettable decision. […]
Since his early records, the works of Mac DeMarco have felt consistent with fuzzy wistfulness, a non-embarrassing clarity of writing that can plausibly resonate with all (love, worry, cigarettes, mums). It lulls and flows, often without the prickly critical eye that might appeal to his largely millennial audience in present political times. Any moderately committed […]

ALBUM: MAC DEMARCO – THIS OLD DOG

ALBUM: MINISTRY – TRAX! RARITIES

Ministry is a band I’ve been recommended numerous times. I have generally found them too heavy and monotonous for my liking but I’ve never given them a serious go. “A serious go” is definitely what’s on offer with a recently-released double vinyl called Trax! Rarities. I am actually listening on an electronic copy, but the […]
Music writing is full of unending discussion of the fabled album number two. It’s a hurdle so many fall at – buckling under the weight of expectation, overreaching, rushing – all pitfalls for the difficult second album™. Well, one way to side step that particular cliché is for your debut record to go unfairly unnoticed. […]

ALBUM: TOM HICKOX – MONSTERS IN THE DEEP

ALBUM: FATHER JOHN MISTY – PURE COMEDY

I don’t need to tell you about Father John Misty (FJM for brevity’s sake) if you’re here, because I’m taking it you know about him. If not, you can just scroll through any half decent music news website’s newsfeed, as they report literally everything he says or tweets as a bone fide news story. This […]
Forty years after stepping onto the musical battlefield with one of the best albums of the late seventies in ‘Pink Flag’, WIRE return with an album that can be summed up with one phrase: more of the same. It’s better than their last release, the weirdly titled ‘Nocturnal Koreans’, but the plodding nature of many […]

ALBUM: WIRE – SILVER/LEAD