SINGLE REVIEW – HOTEL MERCY: LUCKY

California’s Gabriel Hart and Tim Paul Gray convey through this lyrical gem lights fading and despair hitting deeply. The talented duo also try to escape the mundane, a humdrum existence, and their song Lucky bolsters their chances of making it through to a utopia fit for living in. The song is weaved with sweet chords […]
With each pluck of a string and every beat to a drum, The Kowloons present their undeniable talents upon a polished platter of silver.  An upbeat rhythm with an infectious nature, ‘I Don’t Care’ draws a hit of jaunty acoustics before exhaling a sweet summer sound. Revealing a narrative, this track is “spoken like a […]

SINGLE REVIEW – THE KOWLOONS: I DON’T CARE

SINGLE REVIEW – LUCY WROE: THE VAULT

It had been a rough winter. Global politics swung with the same volatility as the weather outside—unpredictable, unrelenting, and sometimes disconcerting. Cold, dark days had felt endless, as if the world had settled into a permanent sepia haze, with no sign of spring and the inevitable feeling of hope that it carried. Then, in the […]
When Tom A Smith played Deaf Institute earlier this year, he introduced two new songs into the set.  The closer – a cover of LCD Soundsystems “All My Friends” – was incredible, a fine example of a band reinterpreting and making someone else’s song their own. But the most intriguing song of the night was […]

SINGLE REVIEW – TOM A SMITH: I DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE TO REMEMBER ME FOR LONGER THAN YOU EVER KNEW ME

SINGLE REVIEW: SHALLOW WATERS – THE GOD YOU KNOW YOU ARE

Arriving at a time of great uncertainty, Shallow Waters new single “The God You Know You Are” gives listeners the keys to a world to get lost in. The band originate from Wigan (aka the pie capital of Britain) and bring with them an expansive single that announces their ambitions clearer than a foghorn on […]
In the preceding summer, I erroneously misheard this song’s name while it was still in its unrecorded, (about-to-be) live-debuted infancy; the unpleasant temperature, noise pollution and the perturbing similarity of piss and kiss as syllables (matter of tongue placement) all proved decisive factors in an error I was powerless to reverse from being carved into […]

SINGLE REVIEW: FURROWED BROW – PISSING SUPERFLUOUS

SINGLE REVIEW: DEATH VALLEY GIRLS – BREAKTHROUGH

Death Valley Girls hit the streets once again with a single release of ‘Breakthrough’. A very charming and inviting success at merging the ‘old rock’ sound into a modern sound. They’ve got their influences tied into their groove without relying to much on just ‘sound like they did okay!’. Having never listened to the group […]
Precipitation, as a literary device, is universally linked thematically to negative topics like the demise of a loved one/barbecue/relationship or even the inability to load a musket if period re-enact were the scenario (appears not). Owning to the 167 second runtime, it is a somewhat more concise and straightforward lament about undefined melancholy, with the […]

SINGLE REVIEW: TINFOILS – SPITTING

SINGLE REVIEW: TSHEGUE – THE WHEEL

This wasn’t really what I was expecting when (I thought) I saw Tshegue described as ‘Afrobeat’ – I was thinking jazzy, musical and upbeat, where this is scuzzy, dirty dance music. Unfortunately, setting me to review this is like a gardener reviewing a computer – but never mind. Looking again, I realise that “afrobeats” is […]
It’s safe to say that Chester’s music scene is just a shadow of its big brother Manchester.  It might have something to do with the lack of venues, or maybe just the lack of interest from the ageing demographic of the city, but for somewhere that doesn’t stop fucking raining it is miraculously dry. However, not […]

SINGLE REVIEW: YAMMERER – POISONOUS REPTILIAN COLLEAGUES & CO