SINGLE REVIEW: The Decemberists – Down By The Water

The swash-buckling, sea-shanty-ing troubadours are back with an excellent, rousing single. The band that brought you an 11 minute tale of revenge culminating in a torture scene inside a whale’s stomach, have teamed up with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck (and his magical twelve string guitar) and Gillian Welch. ‘Down by the Water’ actually sounds a lot […]
– THE LOWRY HOTEL, SALFORD – Let’s get this out of the way. The main reason I’m here is because the venue for tonight’s show is The Presidential Suite in the Lowry Hotel, and I’m pretty certain this is the only chance I will ever get, in my entire life, to spend an evening (let […]

LIVE: HAUSCHKA/NANCY ELIZABETH – 13/11/2010

SINGLE: Musée Mécanique – Fits & Starts

Though it might be hard to believe, ‘Fits & Starts’ is one of the more upbeat moments from Hold This Ghost – an album of nostalgic, folk mastery. In ‘Fits & Starts’ it feels like Musée Mécanique are holding a warm, living person (though possibly dying), as opposed to a cold, clammy ghost. This is […]
Muffled drums without cymbals and purely acoustic guitars give ‘Rinse Me Down’ a sort of ‘farmhouse folk’ feel. It’s all in keeping with the very diatonic, upbeat folk of the moment. It is very lively – in an understated way – especially when the hi-hat kicks in before the second verse, bringing in an uplifting […]

SINGLE: Bombay Bicycle Club – Rinse Me Down

SINGLE: The Charlatans – My Foolish Pride

‘My Foolish Pride’ is a lovely, catchy, kitchen sink sing-along tune full of introspection and heart warming self-deprecation, straight-forward, nothing fancy, something lots of people will relate to. As the title may suggest, the song is a tale of regret, reflection, and just a little bit of self-pity, but if it was this and this […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Let’s get one thing out of the way: ‘The Naked and Famous’ is a bit of a rubbish name. Initially a droney college-rock ‘anthem’ by The Presidents of the USA, their moniker has also been adopted by an overpriced hipster-courting denim company. Still, third time’s the charm, right? Local […]

LIVE: THE NAKED AND FAMOUS – 10/11/2010

ALBUM: Bruce Springsteen – The Promise

To start with a cliché, when I was young Bruce Springsteen was so ubiquitous, so well-established that the only thing I could do, as an angst-y sixteen-year-old, was to disregard him. To me he was nothing more than a crusty, jingoistic, cheese-peddler who clashed badly with my nascent nihilism. But time changes everything, and ten […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Cloud Nothings seem to have been rather busy bees lately, supporting the likes of Real Estate and Woods and even the ever popular Best Coast; they seem to be enjoying some good shows but I admit that I hadn’t heard of them till tonight. They perform a tight show, […]

LIVE: CLOUD NOTHINGS/VERONICA FALLS – 09/11/2010

LIVE: DIVINE COMEDY – 09/11/2010

– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon is Divine Comedy. It’s a Badly Drawn Boy /Damon Gough dynamic which means there will never be different line-ups… unless Neil plans on major schizophrenic schisms. Hannon does sometimes play with a band but tonight it’s only Neil, armed only with a grand piano, acoustic […]
“I came into this world as nothing, I ain’t gonna leave that way,” sings Zack Lopez on ‘I guess You Could Say’, the track which, on 10 March 2009, Zane Lowe damningly named his Hottest Record in the World. In a world of 6 billion people, Zane Lowe is a waste of human matter, and a […]

ALBUM: MIDDLE CLASS RUT – NO NAME NO COLOR