Album Review: Pretend – Tapestry’d Life

Tapestry’d Life is the brand new album from post-rock American quartet Pretend, released on October 9th. The group have been playing and writing together since 2004, and the time taken to mould their experimental sound and approach to music certainly shows, creating one of the most exciting albums I’ve listened to this year. A musical […]
– MANCHESTER ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – I woke up on Sunday morning with ‘Harmony In My Head’ hammering in my head. It’s far from a hangover, it’s such a nice feeling. “Whenever I’m in doubt about the things I do…”. A couple of hours before Buzzcocks’ gig at The Academy in Manchester, I watch an old […]

LIVE: BUZZCOCKS – 10/10/2015

LIVE: LOW – 07/10/2015

– MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL, MANCHESTER – Tonight’s line-up in the celestial surrounds of Manchester Cathedral would have been on my fantasy gig list as a student in the early 2000s. The crowd tonight reflects that age range – seasoned indie brooders making a twilight trip outdoors for what is an unusually long set in a slightly […]
– THE SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Promoters Strange Days are known for bringing a wide variety of international guitar musicians to Manchester, ranging from solo acoustic folk, to manic garage rock. Tonight, our headliners are Spanish fun-loving surf garage 3-piece, The Parrots. They’ve recently released a split 7″ of covers on Burger Records with Hinds, who […]

LIVE: THE PARROTS – 10/10/2015

Chaika

LIVE: CHAIKA / THE BEAR AROUND YOUR NECK / JOHN HAYCOCK – 09/10/15

– THE OLD PINT POT, SALFORD – Curiosity has brought me out tonight. I have little to no knowledge of the bands, whether that makes for an unbiased neutral review or just reveals an incompetent lack of research is up to you. There were two elements that convinced me. The revamp of the Pint Pot […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – Thank you to those who bought The Silver Globe! Jane Weaver merrily says a few songs into the set, her blonde hair half-covering the facial glitter around her eyes. It’s strange to hear an artist thank their audience, in a quite genuine manner, for a purchase made in the age of […]

LIVE: JANE WEAVER – 08/10/2015

ALBUM REVIEW: THE DEAD WEATHER – DODGE AND BURN

Dodge and Burn is Nashville supergroup The Dead Weather’s 3rd album, through Jack White’s own Third Man Records. The band are an amalgamation of Raconteurs, with bassist Jack Lawrence and Queens of The Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertita joining Jack on Drums and The Kills Alison Mosshart on vocals. Any project of Jack’s is guaranteed top billing, and this […]
This one is hot off the press – not much is known about Gnoomes. Google, inevitably, will insist that you actually want to search for ‘gnomes’, but persistence leads you to Facebook and Twitter pages that are yet to take off. This needs to be put to rights. Gnoomes are vocalist/bassist Alex Pyankov, drummer Pavel Fedoseev […]

ALBUM REVIEW: GNOOMES – NGAN!

Album Review: Protomartyr – The Angel Intellect

It is evident that Protomartyr singer Joe Casey, ten years senior to the rest of the band, is on a mission to make the band stand out amongst the flotsam of modern music. In recent interviews Joe Casey explains that he “needed this, needed Protomartyr”. He states that he didn’t want to end up singing […]
If you were to judge the new album from John Grant on the title alone, you may surmise that this was going to be heavy going. Especially when you find out that Grey Tickles… is the literal Icelandic translation for mid-life crisis, and that Black Pressure… is from the Turkish word for nightmare. Having listened to this […]

Album Review: John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black Pressure