LIVE: WILD BEASTS – 16/02/2018

-APOLLO, MANCHESTER- Wild Beasts: A Love Letter Ah Wild Beasts, you broke my heart. Being one of my favourite bands of the last decade, releasing two all time classic albums (Two Dancers and Smother, fact fans), you decided to call it a day and go your separate ways. Having emerged in a storm of theatrics […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Perspective is an important thing. I’m at the front of Gorilla with my friend Eve, waiting for the support act to come on for tonight’s GoGo Penguin gig, and am trying to take my notepad out of my bag so I can remember things for this review (which you’re reading now, bloody hell […]

LIVE: GOGO PENGUIN / JENS KUROSS – 10/02/2018

ALBUM: WILD BEASTS – LAST NIGHT MY DREAMS CAME TRUE

In late 2017 Wild beasts (the 4-piece indie band from Kendal) announced that they would sadly be ending their journey after 14 years together, in which time they have released four studio albums. After their first album 2008’s enthusiastic, fresh sounding Limbo, Panto, they seemed to really polish their sound and refine their direction, defining […]
Belle and Sebastian have always produced the kind of music which is delicate on the eardrums, yet with a feisty rock n roll streak tearing through its core. They’re one of those bands who you think you’ve got figured out, then they go off and do something unexpected. Live, their gigs transform into a communal […]

ALBUM: BELLE AND SEBASTIAN – HOW TO SOLVE OUR HUMAN PROBLEMS

LIVE: A. SAVAGE / JACK COOPER – 01/02/2018

-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- Arriving early, I dawdle at the unmanned merch stand. Jack Cooper’s debut solo record Sandgrown is for sale. The cover is black and white and carries the effect of a woodblock print. A drawing of a straight-faced Cooper with his eyes closed foregrounds the silhouettes of key Blackpool architecture, notably the tower. […]
-THE EAGLE INN, SALFORD- Just two weeks after the release of their third album The Official Body, dance-punk trio Shopping are in town and tonight is a sell-out in the Eagle Inn – it seems we are in some need of some retail therapy and everyone who made it in tonight has bagged a bargain. […]

LIVE: SHOPPING – 03/02/2018

LIVE: MEAT WAVE – 07/02/2018

-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- Meat Wave do not mess around. The Chicago-based three piece are a road hungry band that have been going non-stop since the release of their superb LP The Incessant pretty much a year ago. I managed to catch the band last summer in Leeds and it was a fully pumping rock show. Therefore, I […]
-DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER- It’s Saturday night in blustery Manchester and it’s time for something loud, aggressive yet infectious all the same. Tonight’s supper is a run in with Doncaster’s latest and probably best export (because let’s face it the football team isn’t anything to write home about) which comes in the shape of a psych/punk […]

LIVE: THE BLINDERS / STRANGE BONES – 03/02/2018

LIVE: MOGWAI / BEAK / MUGSTAR – 04/02/2018

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- Certain bands have an air of anticipation affixed to their name. You don’t always expect glitzy, show-stopping stunts but you know you’re going to be in for a treat in some way. Mogwai is one such band. Having graced the prog-rock scene for well over two decades, their two nights at Manchester’s […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Hailing from the US, Gus Dapperton – the latest indie dreamboat to land on our British shores – lays the turnup jean loving crowd to waste in the nicest possible way imaginable. Blending 80s inspired indie with garnishes of dream pop and kitsch singer-songwriting, the 20-year-old certainly impresses with songs such as ‘Moodna, […]

LIVE: GUS DAPPERTON – 02/02/2018