LIVE: YAK / MUSH / DEJA VEGA – 09/04/2019

-YES, MANCHESTER- Déjà Vega The 3-piece’s formula could be deciphered as: drumming reminiscent of one of those Palm Desert bands from the early 1990s, no doubt putting the kit’s structural integrity into question as the concussive quality surprisingly rings through a sound system I certainly wouldn’t count as Manchester’s finest. The bass playing, with a […]
-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- We have a double whammy of John Fairhurst tonight. First up is a stripped-down acoustic set, as he muses how it’s good to make some chilled acoustic after making such a heavy album. But chilled may not have been the best choice of word for it, excellent fingerpicking at the start of tracks […]

LIVE: JOHN FAIRHURST – 10/04/2019

LIVE: THESE NEW PURITANS – 10/04/2019

-YES, MANCHESTER- Can’t lie kids, this is going to be pretty gushing. What unfolds tonight in Yes is by far the best thing I’ve seen so far this year, it’s all the words like ‘astonishing’, ‘scintillating’, ‘fucking unbelievable’, those kind of descriptors. Because TNP are by far and away the best band in the country, […]
-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- “The ones that sound like you’re on holiday? I’d have gone to see them!” My mum is 63-years-old. She loves The Beatles and Motown and Take That. She also, it turns out, has been as charmed by Beirut’s swaying melodies as I have and packaged that appreciation up in a turn of […]

LIVE: BEIRUT – 10/04/2019

ALBUM REVIEW: FONTAINES D.C. – DOGREL

As I walk through Manchester city centre gazing up at the cranes building new skyscrapers all around, with Fontaines D.C. in my headphones, the lyrical content of the album makes perfect sense. Although cities have to change, it’s important not to lose the culture and unique characters which made the place great originally, and that’s […]
Personally, I think it’s important to take some things into consideration when listening to a debut single. If an artist is serious, they’ll pour their heart, soul, and everything just shy of the kitchen sink into that first song. At that point, it’s evident that to them, it is their masterpiece. In that case, the […]

SINGLE REVIEW: TOM GIBSON – NOT RIGHT FOR YOU

LIVE: JAMES BLAKE – 07/04/2019

-VICTORIA WAREHOUSE, MANCHESTER- If you’ve listened to James Blake’s beautiful new album Assume Form, read any interviews with him recently or looked on any social media about him, you’ll know one thing: James Blake is fully loved up. His relationship with actress and all round hero Jameela Jamil appears to have fundamentally changed Blake’s outlook […]
Earlier this year, I saw Holy Moly & The Crackers live. “What kind of music was it?” my roommate at the hostel I was staying in asked me. “Sort of…folk rock?” is the guess that I hazard. “There was an accordian. And a violin. I danced a lot.” It was the sort of gig that […]

ALBUM REVIEW: HOLY MOLY & THE CRACKERS – TAKE A BITE

LIVE: NILUFER YANYA – 04/04/2019

-YES, MANCHESTER- Nilüfer Yanya has recently cashed in on a couple of years’ steady hype with her debut album, Miss Universe. Plaudits have rained in from internet corners far and wide, her ascent into the mainstream of the alternative complete. It is fully deserved, too. Miss Universe is a charmingly strange album, one of those that […]
-NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER- Walking into the Night and Day, a venue I’ve sat in with my old man having a last drink after a session around the Northern Quarter, I am completely surprised to see the lead guitarist of arguably the biggest rock band on the planet stood at the merch stand, taking […]

LIVE: CHRIS SHIFLETT – 04/04/2019