ALBUM REVIEWS – THEE HEADCOATS: THE SHERLOCK HOLMES RHYTHM’N’BEAT VERNACULAR & THEE HEADCOATEES: MAN-TRAP

“One chord is good, a second is alright, three is a crowd, four will end in a fight.” These words from ‘The Friends of the Buff Medway Fanciers Association’ perfectly summarise Thee Headcoats’ music. They offer a primal take on rhythm’n’blues, rock’n’roll and punk influenced by early Kinks, Pretty Things and, most importantly, The Downliners […]
Is there anything as beautiful as a comeback? From this summer’s swaggeringly assured Oasis reunion, also known as Armistice Day for Adidas-wearers, to the slightly more unsteady reappearance of Catfish and The Bottlemen – a very slow-hatching but tardily rewarding cocoon – this last year has been all about musicians returning to the ring. The […]

LIVE REVIEW – HARD LIFE: MANCHESTER ACADEMY – 06/11/2025

ALBUM REVIEW – THE SAXOPHONES: NO TIME FOR POETRY

“There’s a mighty judgment coming / But I may be wrong”, Leonard Cohen croons on “Tower of Song”, a career highlight from 1988’s dark, moody I’m Your Man. Whichever it is, he doesn’t sound overly concerned. No, he sounds like a fatalist with a dry sense of humour. On their fourth album, No Time for […]
“It’s your troubled hero / Back for season six,” Florence Welch sings on ‘The Old Religion,’ irony curling through that unmistakably captivating voice. But rather than another chapter in her story, Florence’s sixth album, titled Everybody Scream, feels more like a shared exorcism: a reckoning with the horrors and hopes embedded in womanhood. Weeks before the record’s release, Welch told The Guardian that its creation […]

ALBUM REVIEW – FLORENCE + THE MACHINE: EVERYBODY SCREAM

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 7 NOVEMBER 2025

It is a ludicrously busy week for new releases. The albums at the top of this list deserve to be getting full reviews. We desperately need more time. Could someone kindly arrange to extend the week beyond its measly seven portions of 24 hours a piece! Constant Smiles           Moonflowers    Though the band gradually grew from […]
Conceptually the most elaborate of their 23 albums, ‘Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan’ sees The Mountain Goats embark on a full-blown musical. It tells of a small crew consisting of Captain Peter Balkan, Adam and an unnamed narrator who are stranded on a desert island. Their struggle for survival amidst declining resources and […]

ALBUM REVIEW – THE MOUNTAIN GOATS: THROUGH THIS FIRE ACROSS FROM PETER BALKAN

ALBUM REVIEW – THE DIVINE COMEDY: RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOON

“Everything’s connected, the fibres intertwine.” For three decades now, Neil Hannon, performing under the name The Divine Comedy, has serenaded the world with his baroque, orchestrated pop, as well as his bespoke outlook on not just life itself, but himself too. But, as the old saying goes, time is of the essence. It had been […]
Melodic death metal is a subgenre within death metal that tends to explore the uniqueness of what a musician is able to produce, whether it is melodies or guitar solos. Omnium Gatherum pull this off to perfection. Despite the harsh vocals of frontman Jukka Pelkonen, which are absolutely brutal, where this band shines is in […]

ALBUM REVIEW – OMNIUM GATHERUM: MAY THE BRIDGES WE BURN LIGHT THE WAY

ALBUM REVIEW – NOURA MINT SEYMALI: YENBETT

Noura Mint Seymali’s third album and her first in nine years is a highly focused and impressive blast of desert psych. ‘Yenbett’ is a successful blending of tradition with innovation. A Mauritanian griot, Seymali comes from a significant musical family: her father, Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, was a renowned composer and scholar; and her stepmother, […]
For some reason, I can’t pinpoint how I first discovered Luvcat, the persona conjured by Liverpudlian musician Sophie Morgan. Somehow, “Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel” made its way to my headphones with this sprawl, a message of longing and image conjuring an opulent night in Soho, and I was promptly hooked. A quick delve into what […]

ALBUM REVIEW – LUVCAT: VICIOUS DELICIOUS