ALBUM REVIEW – DANA GAVANSKI: WHEN IT COMES

Losing your voice would be a terrifying experience for anyone, let alone a singer who had recently released their debut album. This nightmare situation intermittently afflicted Dana Gavanski for a year after ‘Yesterday is Gone’ was released. It was her luscious voice that had first attracted attention, initially striking for its similarities to Cate Le […]
Music can delight for many reasons. Often it is not an entire song but an individual moment, be it the audacity of an instrumental flourish or the ecstasy of a vocal yelp. With Father John Misty, while the pleasure may come from the beauty of the song’s orchestration and the early 1970s singer-songwriter melodies, it […]

ALBUM REVIEW – FATHER JOHN MISTY: CHLOE AND THE NEXT 20TH CENTURY

ALBUM REVIEW: MITSKI – LAUREL HELL

Despite it being her sixth album, the buzz around Japanese-American songwriter Mitski has remained swarming. Her recent success on TikTok is understandable, and her music has a whole generation in an emotional chokehold, that she won’t be losing grip of anytime soon, especially with the brilliance of newest album ‘Laurel Hell.’ The synthy opening track […]
– Albert Hall, Manchester – How does a band who haven’t released a record in nearly a decade until very recently, haven’t toured for nearly as long, and no longer have their OG frontman who performed some of their most beloved songs, mount a credible comeback that people will be bothered about? The answer lies […]
Midlake

LIVE: MIDLAKE– 10/04/2022

Dead Can Dance

LIVE: DEAD CAN DANCE – 08/04/2022

– Cathedral, Manchester – It’s hard not to be seduced by Dead Can Dance. A look at one of the band’s pretty record sleeves, or a read-through of an intriguing list of track titles seemingly drawn from the same well of thought as ex-4AD label mates Cocteau Twins, and resistance becomes futile. The desire to […]
– The White Hotel, Manchester – I’ve somehow gotten this far without ever seeing LoneLady (aka Julie Campbell) live, and I’m not sure how this happened. I’ve been a fan since her superb second album ‘Hinterland’ from 2015, a brooding, funky, post-punk masterpiece that seemed to reflect the stark, post industrial wastelands still found in […]
LoneLady

LIVE: LONELADY – 07/04/2022

CMAT

LIVE: CMAT – 02/04/2022

– Deaf Institute, Manchester – “This one combines my love of the 70s with my love of bastards…” deadpans Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson with a nod and a wink, as she introduces her next song ‘Peter Bogdanovich’ (“I like you Peter, I wish you were a wife-leaver”), taking to a stool clutching some kind of 80s […]
Placebo have always walked the line between clever lyrics, and a dark melodic edge, with guitarist and singer Brian Molko and bassist Stefan Olsdal being  the two original members who have kept the Placebo flame burning bright for over twenty five years. Molko has always had an astute lyrical wisdom, which thankfully is still as […]

ALBUM REVIEW: PLACEBO – NEVER LET ME GO

ALBUM REVIEW – DESTROYER: LABYRINTHITIS

In the overwhelming majority of cases, it is easy to guess what a band will sound like based purely on its name. Without any knowledge of their respective catalogues, it would not take a genius to work out that Napalm Death were going to have a more abrasive sound than, say, Lush. However, Destroyer are […]
– Gorilla, Manchester – Tamara Lindeman, front woman and driving force behind the Canadian band The Weather Station, stops for a chat with the crowd towards the end of their excellent gig here at Gorilla. Looking longingly towards the corrugated roof of the venue, she tells us “we look at the stars and dream, but […]
The Weather Station

LIVE: THE WEATHER STATION – 17/03/2022