ALBUM REVIEW: GOD DAMN – EVERYTHING EVER

Last year I was lucky enough to see the Foo Fighters perform in Manchester’s Old Trafford cricket stadium. As the venue filled in the few hours before the main event, 2 young, long haired guys walked confidently onto stage and began playing; one on drums, one on guitar and vocals. The music was unapologetic, hard […]
*Guest Editor Pick After the fabulous anvil of an album ‘Vultures’ (2015) was, midlands duo God Damn return with a record no doubt of same weight, if not fatter. Thus, even more crushing… hold on to your heads folks! Blending a variety of heavy styles, there’s definitely a strong Melvins influence in the music. Pummelling […]

THANK GOD FOR GOD DAMN

Album Review: Kathryn Williams – Hypoxia

The new album from Kathryn Williams owes its origin to a commission from New Writing North for the Durham Book Festival, when she was asked to write songs inspired by Sylvia Plath’s book The Bell Jar. It was a daunting prospect for the Liverpool-born singer-songwriter and after returning to the source text, the initial five […]
A batch of remixes normally act as a subtle reminder that ‘THIS BAND STILL EXIST’ ahead of a more important release, and tellingly on the day Stubborn Heart’s ‘Penetrate EP’ is released, announcements have been made about the release of a new 27-track deluxe edition of their well-received debut. I am not suspicious. Deluxe editions […]

EP REVIEW: STUBBORN HEART ‘PENETRATE 12”’

NEWS: SAMARIS – DEBUT SINGLE ‘Góða Tungl’ + LP

Icelandic teenage wunderkind Samaris’ first UK release comes in the shape of an eponymously-titled album on 29th July. Samaris compiles their two Icelandic-released EPs, Hljóma Þú (2011) and Stofnar falla and includes 4 remixes. Combining disparate elements of electronics (Þórður Kári Steinþórsson), clarinet (Áslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir) and Jófríður Ákadóttir’s haunting voice, Samaris mix glacial electronica […]
Sudden Elevation may be Icelander Ólöf Arnalds’ third album, but it remains a landmark, being her first sung wholly in English. For this I’m awkwardly grateful as reviewing it is my first encounter with her otherworldly brand of folk. However, as a latecomer I find myself trailing behind an influential admirer of Arnalds who has already hit […]

Album Review: Ólöf Arnalds – Sudden Elevation

NEWS: STUBBORN HEART – DEBUT ALBUM / VIDEO / TOUR DATES

Stubborn Heart – aka Luca Santucci & Ben Fitzgerald – set ears buzzing last year with a then unidentified white label 12” and followed it up with their EP ‘Need Someone’ on Kaya Kaya records. Now signed to One Little Indian, their full length eponymous debut, Stubborn Heart (released on November 5th) revealed a stunning […]
Soul singer and funk guitarist Cody Chesnutt is back with his second album, a decade and a few EPs separating them both. Landing On A Hundred is a neo-soul and funk album with all the musical flex of a 70s classic. The sound he’s gone for is BIG in every sense –with bold melodies, a […]

Album Review: Cody ChesnuTT – Landing On A Hundred

SINGLE: Ólöf Arnalds – Innundir Skinni

I know that the current abiding image of Iceland is that of a country with no national bank, and an unpronounceable volcano intent on ruining our travel plans (I was in the US at the time and sadly it didn’t strand me there). But ever since a younger manifestation of myself became obsessed with “Agaetis […]
It is ten years now since Kathryn Williams’s second album Little Black Numbers garnered a Mercury Prize nomination. For a select few, including the likes of Dizzy Rascal – touted as Britain’s answer to the likes of Jay-Z but in reality rather more like our answer to MC Hammer – Mercury recognition has been the […]

ALBUM: Kathryn Williams – The Quickening