LIVE: THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN – 16/04/2019

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- Best known as leader of Britpop heroes Blur and virtual pop superstars Gorillaz, Damon Albarn has never been one to stick to one project and for that has become the most forward thinking and prolific artist of his generation. The Good, The Bad & The Queen is a project he launched back […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Acid Child With a name as ‘incendiary’ as titled and opening for a headliner dubbed ‘electro punk’, you’d expect some questionable attempt at hardcore along with runic tattoos and enough profanity to warrant an OFCOM intervention… it appears my imagination dreamed big. They have a sound veering around that middle-of-the-road-psych you see with […]

LIVE: AK/DK / ACID CHILD – 12/04/2019

LIVE: THE SLOW READERS CLUB / LIAM FROST – 11/04/2019

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- “REEE-DERS! REEE-DERS! REEE-DERS” Between songs, this low-lung call rings out around the walls of Gorilla like a football chant, like Utd fans singing “Roo-ney” back in the day. A quick scan of the crowd and it’s a real stew… some grey beards (perhaps surprisingly for a band of this relative youth) but up […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Déjà Vega The 3-piece’s formula could be deciphered as: drumming reminiscent of one of those Palm Desert bands from the early 1990s, no doubt putting the kit’s structural integrity into question as the concussive quality surprisingly rings through a sound system I certainly wouldn’t count as Manchester’s finest. The bass playing, with a […]

LIVE: YAK / MUSH / DEJA VEGA – 09/04/2019

LIVE: JOHN FAIRHURST – 10/04/2019

-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- We have a double whammy of John Fairhurst tonight. First up is a stripped-down acoustic set, as he muses how it’s good to make some chilled acoustic after making such a heavy album. But chilled may not have been the best choice of word for it, excellent fingerpicking at the start of tracks […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Can’t lie kids, this is going to be pretty gushing. What unfolds tonight in Yes is by far the best thing I’ve seen so far this year, it’s all the words like ‘astonishing’, ‘scintillating’, ‘fucking unbelievable’, those kind of descriptors. Because TNP are by far and away the best band in the country, […]

LIVE: THESE NEW PURITANS – 10/04/2019

LIVE: BEIRUT – 10/04/2019

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- “The ones that sound like you’re on holiday? I’d have gone to see them!” My mum is 63-years-old. She loves The Beatles and Motown and Take That. She also, it turns out, has been as charmed by Beirut’s swaying melodies as I have and packaged that appreciation up in a turn of […]
As I walk through Manchester city centre gazing up at the cranes building new skyscrapers all around, with Fontaines D.C. in my headphones, the lyrical content of the album makes perfect sense. Although cities have to change, it’s important not to lose the culture and unique characters which made the place great originally, and that’s […]

ALBUM REVIEW: FONTAINES D.C. – DOGREL

SINGLE REVIEW: TOM GIBSON – NOT RIGHT FOR YOU

Personally, I think it’s important to take some things into consideration when listening to a debut single. If an artist is serious, they’ll pour their heart, soul, and everything just shy of the kitchen sink into that first song. At that point, it’s evident that to them, it is their masterpiece. In that case, the […]
-VICTORIA WAREHOUSE, MANCHESTER- If you’ve listened to James Blake’s beautiful new album Assume Form, read any interviews with him recently or looked on any social media about him, you’ll know one thing: James Blake is fully loved up. His relationship with actress and all round hero Jameela Jamil appears to have fundamentally changed Blake’s outlook […]

LIVE: JAMES BLAKE – 07/04/2019