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 […]
It’s hard to imagine now, but at the turn of the millennium The Manics were firmly out of favour. I remember seeing a picture in the NME of an overweight, dishevelled looking James Dean Bradfield with a caption saying something like, “Who ate all the pies”? Trust the NME to not see beyond the image. […]

SINGLE: Manic Street Preachers – (It’s Not War) Just the End of Love

SINGLES: The Minutes – Fleetwood

Irish rock trio The Minutes will have lovers of all things down and dirty paying close attention. There’s nothing radically original about new single ‘Fleetwood’, built on a fusion of early Fleetwood Mac and, as the three Dubliners will no doubt be tired of hearing, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s grunge. Where this pulsing, upbeat song […]
London duo Goldfrapp’s latest single ‘Believer’ is an honest effort as far as bright and buzzy electropop goes. But new album ‘Head First’ was clearly produced with ‘sales first’ in mind. No one would argue that it’s a problem unique to the decade. Yet established artists face a challenge in the current climate to retain […]

SINGLE: Goldfrapp – Believer

SINGLE: Björk – Comet Song

Eccentric Icelandic songstress Björk has recorded a song for the upcoming Moomins film. Though The Moomins is a distinctly Scandinavian film, with the scattered percussion and flickering panpipes, ‘Comet Song’ sounds like it would go better with a Studio Ghibli animated, native South American scene set in dense rainforest as opposed to the barren wastelands […]
Carefully written in a seamless fashion, ‘Lighthouse’ plays its colours dark grey colours well. It has a deeply brooding feel. The recorded space between the instruments gives it a chance to swell and reserve its layers, and allows the little charming snippets of its orchestration to chime through, giving an extra spangle to the song. […]

SINGLE: The Strange Death of Liberal England – Lighthouse

SINGLE REVIEW: Morcheeba – Blood Like Lemonade

Marking the return of honey-toned singer Skye Edwards, who left in 2003 following those pesky ‘musical differences’ that eat at every band at some point, ‘Blood Like Lemonade’ is the title track from Morcheeba’s seventh album.   It’s also the name of a cocktail apparently, the ingredients of which are listed on the back of the […]
The forty fourth release on Hyperdub sees South Africa & South London come together as LV hooks up with South African Kwaito artist Smiso Zwane (aka Okmalumkoolkat). Fusing their own unique styles, the pair’s meeting makes for a highly infectious set of sounds. ‘Boomslang’ kicks out a UK funky beat fired up by Kool Kat’s […]

SINGLE REVIEW: LV Ft. OKMALUMKOOLKAT – Boomslang

SINGLE REVIEW: Badly Drawn Boy – Too Many Miracles

You’d struggle to find a more down to earth, northern, quirky songwriter than Badly Drawn Boy. With his trademark woolly hat and delightfully Mancunian vocals, Damon Gough is the epitome of the North.  After three years of producing soundtracks, the hat clad, lyrical genius is finally back and releasing “too many miracles,” the first single […]
Britain’s leading exponents of “council-pop” – Britain’s only exponents of council-pop – are back with a new single, ‘Some Frontier’.  The track comes from Orphan Boy’s second album Passion, Pain and Loyalty, which was released in August. It’s got radio-friendly-hit written all over it, in that it’s catchy but there’s a slight air of blandness to it.  […]

SINGLE REVIEWS: Orphan Boy – Some Frontier