EP REVIEW: BRAND NEW FRIEND – A CURE FOR LIVING

There are so many bands coming out of Ireland currently, with Fontaines D.C and Inhaler is there room for another Indie band out of Ireland? Brand New Friend is here with their new EP, ready to answer that question. The four-piece from Belfast made up of frontman Taylor Johnson along with his sister Lauren along […]
So, it’s fifty years since Black Sabbaths self-titled was release. Ozzy also had a serious life affirming 2019. So, what’s the best way to approach this? Release a new solo album that feels like a swansong. Well that sounded depressing and an excuse. But it isn’t! Not even close. ‘Ordinary Man’ is Ozzys best album […]

ALBUM REVIEW: OZZY OSBOURNE – ORDINARY MAN

ALBUM REVIEW: KVELERTAK – SPLID

Guess who’s back? Kvelertak. Kvelertak, tell a friend! (worked better in my head) Kvelertak had found themselves sailing to the unknown. Their last release ‘Nattesferd’ was a fine advancement in their sound, moving away from shorter bursts of fright, to a progressive, aggressive lengthier song run. Was great but didn’t quite catch on like previous […]
Ah the difficult second album, it’s something every artist either embraces or dreads, it usually goes one of a few ways, you either make something too similar to the first album or you go in a completely different direction and alienate your fan base. It is a difficult tightrope to walk for any artist, but […]

ALBUM REVIEW: SOCCER MOMMY – COLOR THEORY

INTERVIEW Q & A: ROBERT FORSTER – THE GO-BETWEENS

‘G Stands For Go-Betweens’ is the recently released boxset from the group that helped to define the sound of indie guitar bands, Sadly with the passing of founder member Grant McLennan, The Go-Betweens ceased in 2006, but the phenomenal songwriting partnership of Robert Forster and Grant McLennan is immortalised in the latest edition of the […]
The opening track (Prologue) to Endless Voyage is a minute-long keyboard instrumental consisting of one repeated chord change, gradually building to a brutal segue straight into another instrumental ‘Defective Machine’ – which sounds exactly like it is described: like the pained cries of a fax terminal as it is subjected to prolonged white-noise,-electrodes-and-sleep-deprivation torture.  The […]

ALBUM REVIEW: SUNFLOWERS – ENDLESS VOYAGE

ALBUM REVIEW: ASH – TEENAGE WILDLIFE

‘Kung Fu, do what you do to me. I haven’t been the same since my teenage lobotomy.’ It’s been twenty five years now since Ash released their first full album ‘1977’. The band have had some up’s and downs throughout their career so far. Although considering the three Northern Irish punks practically walked out of […]
What do you get if you go shopping when stoned? Apparently a new Tame Impala album! Kevin Parker the man behind the Australian electro-psych-pop phenomenon, recently stated that getting out of his comfort zone, by doing things such as the aforementioned shopping trip, was all part of the creative process for ‘The Slow Rush’. It’s […]

ALBUM REVIEW: TAME IMPALA – THE SLOW RUSH

ALBUM REVIEW: DISCHARGE – PROTEST AND SURVIVE – THE ANTHOLOGY

What? Forty years since Discharge first released ‘Realities of War’? For a few generations, the idea that there was a time before punk rock seems devoid of logic. The household commodities that the first wave produced, are known worldwide and celebrated in their various meanings from politics, society and economic structure. But, to me, Discharge […]
Talking to sheep whilst making your ninth album, probably never crossed the mind of Nada Surf’s guitarist and vocalist Matthew Caws when he started writing the demos, yet for this quintessential U.S. indie band apparently that’s what he did on country walks during recording at Rockfield Studios in Wales, and the serene farmyard surroundings appear […]

ALBUM REVIEW: NADA SURF – NEVER NOT TOGETHER