ALBUM REVIEW – THE SAXOPHONES: NO TIME FOR POETRY

“There’s a mighty judgment coming / But I may be wrong”, Leonard Cohen croons on “Tower of Song”, a career highlight from 1988’s dark, moody I’m Your Man. Whichever it is, he doesn’t sound overly concerned. No, he sounds like a fatalist with a dry sense of humour. On their fourth album, No Time for […]
“It’s your troubled hero / Back for season six,” Florence Welch sings on ‘The Old Religion,’ irony curling through that unmistakably captivating voice. But rather than another chapter in her story, Florence’s sixth album, titled Everybody Scream, feels more like a shared exorcism: a reckoning with the horrors and hopes embedded in womanhood. Weeks before the record’s release, Welch told The Guardian that its creation […]

ALBUM REVIEW – FLORENCE + THE MACHINE: EVERYBODY SCREAM

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 7 NOVEMBER 2025

It is a ludicrously busy week for new releases. The albums at the top of this list deserve to be getting full reviews. We desperately need more time. Could someone kindly arrange to extend the week beyond its measly seven portions of 24 hours a piece! Constant Smiles           Moonflowers    Though the band gradually grew from […]
The UK’s biggest music literature festival will be back at The Innside, Manchester from 14-16 November. The 2025 weekend will include author and artist conversations, panel discussions, book signings, workshops, writing surgeries and live performances. One area of the music business that still appears to be thriving is books about music and amongst the impressive […]
Louder Than Words

PREVIEW – LOUDER THAN WORDS FESTIVAL 2025

ALBUM REVIEW – THE MOUNTAIN GOATS: THROUGH THIS FIRE ACROSS FROM PETER BALKAN

Conceptually the most elaborate of their 23 albums, ‘Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan’ sees The Mountain Goats embark on a full-blown musical. It tells of a small crew consisting of Captain Peter Balkan, Adam and an unnamed narrator who are stranded on a desert island. Their struggle for survival amidst declining resources and […]
“Everything’s connected, the fibres intertwine.” For three decades now, Neil Hannon, performing under the name The Divine Comedy, has serenaded the world with his baroque, orchestrated pop, as well as his bespoke outlook on not just life itself, but himself too. But, as the old saying goes, time is of the essence. It had been […]

ALBUM REVIEW – THE DIVINE COMEDY: RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOON

ALBUM REVIEW – OMNIUM GATHERUM: MAY THE BRIDGES WE BURN LIGHT THE WAY

Melodic death metal is a subgenre within death metal that tends to explore the uniqueness of what a musician is able to produce, whether it is melodies or guitar solos. Omnium Gatherum pull this off to perfection. Despite the harsh vocals of frontman Jukka Pelkonen, which are absolutely brutal, where this band shines is in […]
Noura Mint Seymali’s third album and her first in nine years is a highly focused and impressive blast of desert psych. ‘Yenbett’ is a successful blending of tradition with innovation. A Mauritanian griot, Seymali comes from a significant musical family: her father, Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, was a renowned composer and scholar; and her stepmother, […]

ALBUM REVIEW – NOURA MINT SEYMALI: YENBETT

GIG GUIDE – NOVEMBER 2025

With Winter in full swing, November is looking to be an incredibly exciting month in Manchester, with iconic acts such as Mac DeMarco and Lorde, to the sheer brilliance in more intimate venues such as Sunday (1994) and Model/Actriz. if there is one way of escaping the oncoming rush of Christmas, going to see some […]
For some reason, I can’t pinpoint how I first discovered Luvcat, the persona conjured by Liverpudlian musician Sophie Morgan. Somehow, “Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel” made its way to my headphones with this sprawl, a message of longing and image conjuring an opulent night in Soho, and I was promptly hooked. A quick delve into what […]

ALBUM REVIEW – LUVCAT: VICIOUS DELICIOUS