LIVE: STAY FRESH FEST 2 – 28/01/2017

– DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – For a lot of people, the new year takes a few weeks to get properly started. But with the cobwebs cleared and the post-Christmas diets given up on, Trof and The Skinny have joined heads to get the 2017 live music year up and running for good. Following on from […]
– STAR AND GARTER, MANCHESTER – Belgian post-metal expansionists Oathbreaker have been twisting the wrist of blackened, avant-garde metal since 2011’s Maelstrom, but have found themselves breaking the bones of the genre with what could be considered the band’s haunting, line-blurring masterpiece, 2016’s Rheia: a glacially vulnerable, boundary dissolving record that is as violently naked […]

LIVE: OATHBREAKER – 27/01/2017

LIVE: THE HOTELIER – 23/01/2017

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – I’m pretty overjoyed that The Hotelier is my first gig of 2017, even on a Monday night (seriously, Monday night gigs should be banned…). The start of 2017 has been tainted by the swearing in of that monster in America, and even the heart swelling scenes of the millions joining in […]
– NIGHT & DAY, MANCHESTER – “I WANNA FUCK YOU UP!” Rakel Mjöll screams at us under piercing stage lights and over crashing cymbals on opener and new single ‘FUU’. A statement rather than an introduction; “we’re here and mean fucking business”. Mjöll is flanked by Alice Go (guitar, vocals) and Bella Podpadec (bass, vocals). Together […]

LIVE: DREAM WIFE – 24/01/2017

LIVE: CASS McCOMBS – 23/01/2017

– DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – It’s Monday night and the Deaf Institute is heaving. In fact, the audience must be double the one that came to see Cass McCombs’ last Deaf Institute show. ‘Mangy Love’, Cass’ most recent record, is a large reason for this swell in the audience. His most concise record to date, […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – Before us is an outfit of matching suits, and in the air a requisite bass riff with some dandy horns. The back wall of Gorilla is newly decked out, so says my plus one. It’s a nearly all-white family providing the instrumentals – The Expressions – with a DJ occasionally poking […]

LIVE: LEE FIELDS & THE EXPRESSIONS – 13/01/2017

LIVE: HALFNOISE – 11/01/2017

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – It’s always a nice feeling when a project that you’ve been following for a good few years finally makes it to your city. I was entranced by the debut EP from HalfNoise back in 2012, thanks to both the silky smooth vocals of its leader Zac Farro, and the […]
– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – It is fair to say that 2016 hasn’t been a vintage year. Without getting too morose its one that’s best forgotten. That said, there have been some shining lights in amongst the gloom. Anything involving The Wonder Stuff, for one, has been cause to forget all else that’s going on. […]

LIVE: THE WONDER STUFF – 21/12/2016

LIVE: THE UNDERGROUND YOUTH – 17/12/2016

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Tonight in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, something special is unfolding in the Soup Kitchen. A three band bill compiled by the venue itself is about to unfold and if the faces in the room are anything to go by, we are certain to be entertained. Opening tonight we have Rongorongo, a […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Known as being one of Cate Le Bon’s favourite venues, tonight she returns for the second night in a row to a packed Deaf Institute. “I wish I could play Manchester every night”. Her latest album ‘Crab Day’ somehow managed to upstage her superb 2013 album, ‘Mug Museum’, and so […]

LIVE: CATE LE BON – 14/12/2016