LIVE REVIEW – ANTHONY SZMIEREK: ALBERT HALL – 21/03/2025

Unlike comedian Louis CK (CK for “Székely”), Anthony Szmierek has the chutzpah to stick with his given name, and also the confidence to almost single-handedly bring back the faded-in perm and banging ‘tache combo. It shouldn’t really work, but boy does it. Just like an English teacher from Hyde mixing spoken word delivery with phat […]
“It’s just rock ‘n’ roll, you won’t die!” If there’s one thing The Dare, also known as Harrison Smith, knows how to do, it’s open a show. On the night of his 29th birthday, Smith walks out onto the stage with snippets of ‘Open Up’ ringing out through the venue, he’s greeted with screams and […]

LIVE REVIEW – THE DARE: NEW CENTURY HALL – 19/03/2025

ALBUM REVIEW – HANNAH COHEN: EARTHSTAR MOUNTAIN

When an album has such a high-quality, diverse set of influences (Dusty Springfield, Gal Costa, Minnie Riperton, Ennio Morricone, Neil Young and Sly & The Family Stone) and an individual way of realising them, it would require a complex mathematical formula to explain what has happened. It would not be fair to say that Hannah […]
A heavy, thumping riff. A strong, pounding drumbeat. That glamourous metal swagger of Justin Hawkins. The Darkness are back and ready to rock your socks off like they have many times before. The opening track to Dreams on Toast, ‘Rock and Roll Party Cowboy’, is the perfect start to any glam metal album. Loaded with […]

ALBUM REVIEW – THE DARKNESS: DREAMS ON TOAST

ALBUM REVIEW – SPELLLING: PORTRAIT OF MY HEART

Four years after the release of The Turning Wheel (2021), Tia Cabral dares to fiddle with the work of God in Portrait of My Heart (2025, Sacred Bones Records); creating a unique record in her catalogue that takes distance with their predecessors without losing identity. Cabral is cautious in Portrait of my Heart: the tracks […]
Silent Radio’s guide to the week’s new releases. Benefits            Constant Noise          The band take a different approach to the in-your-face polemics of their debut. Recalibrated as a two-piece featuring founding members Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major. The album is still angry, the band is still angry, but rather than regurgitate what they’ve already done, it […]

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 21 MARCH 2025

LIVE REVIEW – MICHAEL KIWANUKA: MANCHESTER APOLLO – 13/03/2025

“How does it feel when it’s quiet and calm?” Is there such a thing as the “perfect venue”? A venue designed to host live entertainment, Theatre, Live Music, Comedy, can that venue be so intrinsically in tune with the acts it puts forth? Can a venue simultaneously look and embody it’s chosen acts? …well sadly […]
It will come as no surprise that ‘Choses Sauvages III’ is the third album from the Montreal based six-piece of that name. While they might take their numerological approach to record naming from Led Zeppelin, that is where the similarities end. Back in an era where musical tribal loyalties were more dogmatic, they would have […]

ALBUM REVIEW – CHOSES SAUVAGES: CHOSES SAUVAGES III

ALBUM REVIEW – SACRED PAWS: JUMP INTO LIFE

Sacred Paws have a signature sound, a blend of Afrobeats and highlife with a post-punk spikiness and pop melodicism. While this can be blessing, it also has its drawbacks. Any of their songs are instantly identifiable as their own work but it does mean that new releases do not contain a huge element of surprise. […]
It had been a rough winter. Global politics swung with the same volatility as the weather outside—unpredictable, unrelenting, and sometimes disconcerting. Cold, dark days had felt endless, as if the world had settled into a permanent sepia haze, with no sign of spring and the inevitable feeling of hope that it carried. Then, in the […]

SINGLE REVIEW – LUCY WROE: THE VAULT