LIVE: ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE – 26/08/2014

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Good grief. Even the most seasoned gig-goer would be forgiven for taking an extra moment to process proceedings when Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (to give them their full title) roll into town. The veteran free-form progressive psychedelic experimental rock group, or as they would have […]
For anyone who doesn’t know who Mark Lanegan is, you’re an idiot he co-wrote Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘No One Knows’, one of the best rock songs of the noughties. And that’s just one of a myriad of activities he has undertaken since his Seattle rock band Screaming Trees petered out. Indeed, it’s hard […]

EP Review: Mark Lanegan Band – No Bells on Sunday

Album Review: The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers

The supergroup: a lazy term for a generally dirty concept in rock music. It brings to mind egotistical, indulgent, short-term projects comprising disparate musicians operating on different wavelengths. But after 15 years and six full length albums, The New Pornographers have found a way to circumvent these problems, chiefly by only convening every few years. […]
– FALLOW CAFE, MANCHESTER – Despite being scheduled for the Ruby Lounge, tonight’s festivities instead take place at Fallow Cafe. The stage at Fallow Cafe is tiny, last time I was here even the two piece bands on the bill looked a bit cramped. The people of Fallow Cafe have tonight extended their stage slightly, […]

LIVE: PROTOMARTYR – 18/08/2014

LIVE: DEAFHEAVEN / CHELSEA WOLFE -16/08/2014

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – We had to wait less than a year to to see one of the most active underground bands nowadays. The San Francisco quartet Deafheaven, loved, hated and criticised by the media and public, is unique in style. Their look seems to be the one for a standard indie band, but their […]
– THE STAR & GARTER, MANCHESTER – I’m still unsure about gigs at The Star & Garter. To me, that venue is The Smiths Disco. First Friday of the month, a gang of folk young and old gather upstairs in the (let’s be honest) grotty venue to sing and dance along to classic Smiths/Morrissey tunes. It’s not […]

LIVE: FALLS / THE HYENA KILL – 16/08/2014

Album Review: Sex Hands – Pleh

When you talk about slackers, the glamorous, Americanised image is of beautiful surfer dudes smoking lots of weed and making lovely, reverb-heavy music about being sad. Best Coast, basically. The British equivalent isn’t nearly as cool. With a climate like ours, it’s nicer to sit in and watch telly all day and eat biscuits and […]
– ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – Back in 2006, one Zach Condon started his own solo musical project which soon expanded into a band, now known as Beirut. Fast forward to the present, the American band has three studio albums under their name and a massive fan base with their multi-elemental indie folk rock music. The […]

LIVE: BEIRUT – 14/08/2014

EP Review: Baby Brave – King Horse

King Horse presents a very different Baby Brave to their clumsily titled 2012 debut EP (deep breath) The Hornet’s Nest of Unrequited Ambition That Was 1960s Vogue. They’ve since lost a singer and the suffix “…and the Love Bites” but gained an affection for some noisier influences. That’s not to say there’s none of the […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – Possibly the best band currently signed to Sub Pop, although that might depend on your preference for angular, heavy, noisy, punk rock or Fleet Foxes. Pissed Jeans seem able to create sonic landscapes, themes and soundtracks to the irritations of life and the minutiae of the daily grind. They create an […]

LIVE: PISSED JEANS – 14/08/2014