Month: November 2009

Bleak, wailing walls of guitar melodies that harrow and sink and wallow, buried deep inside groundswells of resignation and despondence – it’s not a happy world The Twilight Sad inhabit. With shades of Editors’ grey monotony, James Graham’s dour vocals steeps ‘Forget the Night Ahead’ in a heavy storm of mournfulness.  It’s an album created in black and white; Graham’s sorrow and wistful reminiscence lashing against swathes of sonic melancholy in ‘Reflection In The Television’, bucking against coruscating eruptions in Continue Reading

New York-based shoegazers Asobi Seksu (Japanese for ‘casual sex’) have released a thing of tremulous beauty with their latest album recorded live at Olympic Studios, London, in November 2008. Made up of acoustic versions of songs previously released on their albums plus some covers it is a quietly striking session that shimmers and glows. If ‘empty’ was ever a compliment to be paid it’s now with this album which has emptied out so much effect and arrangement from previous releases Continue Reading

Ninja Tune, one of the most influential dance labels in the UK have set up a rock subsidiary and released a pay-no-more-than-£2.99 compilation album. Intrigued? My first thought was that it would be some kind of fusion, like when Martin Gore got his guitar out for Depeche’s Personal Jesus. In fact, what we actually get is a gloriously retro-feel to the collection, as if it were a history of imagined bands from the 70’s NYC punk scene and beyond. Rock Continue Reading

Hand-picked by Brakes partly from a hometown (Brighton, UK) show in August 2008, and partly from a May 2009 show in Cologne, Germany, this combination of tracks includes choice cuts and singles from their back catalogue – the tracklisting closely resembles a ‘best-of’ compilation, but the owners are quick to point out that this record is far more than a simple ‘hits’ collection (not least because they haven’t had any). As Crud knows only too well, ‘hits’ are necessarily the Continue Reading

It’s been a prolific ride – eight albums recorded with the cult Green and Red, nine solo studio albums, and tours with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Aimee Mann, Cake and Jonathon Richman. Chuck Prophet’s  latest album Let Freedom Ring! was written one summer in San Francisco and recorded in eight days in Estudio 19, Mexico, amidst an earthquake and a swine flu epidemic. There is, almost inevitably then, a grizzled swagger to proceedings, which is becoming the hallmark of Continue Reading