ALBUM: VESSELS – QUEEN OF GOLDEN DOGS

Anyone up for some harpsichord disco? One of the reasons I started writing about music in the first place was to challenge myself to do something new, to listen to music outside of my usual indie-rock-electro bubble, and albums like Vessel’s ‘Queen Of Golden Dogs’ fit that tag perfectly, as it’s far removed from my […]
It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to any new punk music – although to be fair, the last stuff I was listening to probably wouldn’t have been called “punk” by original punks – I like a lot of the Fat Wreck Chords stuff and Rancid, early Green Day & Offspring and others (sacrilege, […]

ALBUM REVIEW: GESTURES – FUNNY GAMES

ALBUM: KILLING CARTISANO – VOLUME 1

Killing Cartisano is an ensemble project by Italian vocalist Roberta Cartisano, previously described as “emotional rock”. In a way, that sums it up – but for me, the description has a slightly dismissive, condescending air of “woman’s music” about it. Killing Cartisano is rock music – the best of which always has emotional content. Call […]
Only on their second album, this Liverpool lot create an electro pop stew with bits of disco, funk and catchy melodies which are capably of sticking around for days. Think Chemical Brothers meets Everything Everything with a sprinkling of New Order yet with their own distinguished electro ambience. Deep synth and dance rhythms overlaid with […]

ALBUM: TEA STREET BAND – FREQUENCY

ALBUM: TY SEGALL – FUDGE SANDWICH

A stereotypical day in Ty Segall’s life, must go something like this: wake up, have breakfast, record some new stuff with whoever you want, release it – such is his prodigious musical output, there seems to be a constant wave of Ty Segall records being unleashed into the world. That’s no bad thing either, although […]
At his final Manchester show in April 2016, Chris Cornell played ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ Back’ – a re-working of Bob Dylan’s original, which was written in a time of political upheaval, it seemed a very appropriate choice for our current times. Cornell’s skilful re-writing of the lyrics to reflect the authoritarian and populist […]

ALBUM: CHRIS CORNELL – AN ARTIST’S LEGACY

ALBUM:THURSTON MOORE & TOM SURGAL – KLANGFARBENMELODIE..AND THE COLORIST STRIKES PRIMITIV

From sticking screwdrivers in guitars to creating some of the most sublime alternative guitar anthems ever, Thurston Moore has long been credited as a guitar genius. His former band Sonic Youth still remain one of the best bands to emerge from the U.S. creating a dazzling array of noise warped melodies over their thirty years […]
Joy Against The Machine(s) So, here’s the promised party. After the circumspect ‘Brushes With Happiness’, The Wave Pictures are back on the road with the joyous ‘Look Inside Your Heart’, a spontaneous bunch of songs to celebrate long-term friendships and long-live-drunken-parties. You listen to their new album and suddenly wish you could be part of […]

ALBUM: THE WAVE PICTURES – LOOK INSIDE YOUR HEART

ALBUM: JON SPENCER – SPENCER SINGS THE HITS

Would you like some raw rock n’ roll guitar energy blasting into your eardrums this autumn? Jon Spencer is back in a different form, but still not a million miles away from his previous musical incarnations with The Blues Explosion, Boss Hog or Heavy Trash, which is no bad thing. This is Spencer solo though, […]
Calvin Johnson for many is the definition of U.S. indie, with his musical projects from Beat Happening in the early 1980s, Halo Benders and Dub Narcotic Sound System in the 1990s, a vast array of solo albums and collaborations, plus being the founder of the legendary indie label,  K Records,  in Olympia, Washington.  Apparently Kurt […]

ALBUM: CALVIN JOHNSON – A WONDERFUL BEAST