Reviews

It would be imprudent of me to try and better the description already put out by the press release: ‘tangled guitars, lounging organs’ and ‘brush-beats’. But imprudent I am, and for this I’d like to add ‘sonorous, comforting and melting three part harmonies basking in the dusky glow of twilight’. How’s that for imprudence? The Autumn Defense, consisting of multi-instrumentalists John Stirratt of Wilco and Pat Sansone provides the kind of lilting, cosy sunshine not heard since the likes of Continue Reading

The words Drawn, Badly and Boy have been freely bandied around in the company of this Mancunian folk troubadour more than once. But he really lacks the defining qualities that Mr Gough hitched a dim, trailblazing ride into the mainstream on, and is all the better for it. In fact strip all of that clutter away and you’re left with an acoustic guitar. Which isn’t all that much of a similarity, really. You might as well compare him to that Continue Reading

Based on the evidence of this album, Cale’s preceding release, the ‘Five Tracks’ earlier in the year, was merely the peeling away of old skin to reveal the first itchy flakes of regeneration. And whilst similar in terms of sounds, ‘HoboSapiens’ is a much meatier body of work; more consistent, more direct and less dependent upon the multifarious layering of samples and sketchpad ideas. Cale would be the first to admit that he was testing out new materials and working Continue Reading

‘Dirty funk’ – ‘shuffle techno’ – ‘noisy trash disco’? What are we critics like, eh? When we’re not clutching at straws or lurching off at an impossible tangent, we’re squeezing some outrageously square peg into a round hole of some dimension or other. Music fans are not much better. The only people who don’t seem to give a toss about genre fixing are the artists themselves, and T.Raumschmiere perhaps less than most. The latest in a long line of agent Continue Reading

Virgin revisit four classic albums. That what it says on the tin and that’s what you get, by golly. In fact, in an era where the likes of M83 and Sigur Ros have managed to somehow tickle the nation’s high brow with their mean and pernicious brand of existentialism and aching miserablism, it probably feels more vital now, than it did then. Back in the early1980s Japan straddled the happy divide between New Romantism and something else. What was that Continue Reading

‘Charmed’ enters the same fray as those feisty, cutesy, supernatural dramas like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Currently airing on cable and terrestrial here in the UK and the WB Network in the US, ‘Charmed’ follows the conflicts of life and love amoug the three unique and clashing Halliwell sisters. Sounds simple. Well not quite. Petty sibling differences have to be overcome in order to fulfil an ancient witchcraft prophecy. Well don’t they always? Starring Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan Continue Reading

At the beginning of last year these four civil white t-shirted kids came to our attention, spilling out of their native Bolton and into the provinces with a self-financed mini album called ‘Worship Yourself’, using the visceral power of The Pixies as kindling and the acidic lyrical nous of early vital Manics as their fuel. Then they struck a match. They were young, naïve and a little timid, but dissatisfied, determined and beyond their years in influence, intellect and political Continue Reading

In the spring of this year it was beginning to look for all intents and purposes like the sun was setting on the autumn of Belle & Sebastian’s necessity. For that was when The Hidden Cameras ceremonially crossed the Atlantic in Y-fronts and balaclavas to snatch the Glaswegian’s presumably safe twee-indie crown with a determined and effortless superiority. And it wasn’t only that their songs gushed out with an inherently religious twinkle, but also that there just seemed to be Continue Reading

Vitality is one thing. Shouty, pedestrian punkiness is enough. There’s nothing substantially wrong with the Toronto-based Billy Talent debut release, but with the exception of the blistering and the grungey single, ‘Try Honesty’ there’s nothing substantially remarkable either. Perhaps more emotional, edgy and less bubblegum than their animated peers, Sum 41, this is still the kind of breezy, featherlite punk the US has been peddling now for years. However much the anarchy is provided by proxy; Johhny Lydon vocals, serial killer Continue Reading

There’s nothing to get excited about on the surface. Go on, scratch it. Maudlin acoustic tap-alongs, 4/4 beats, tales of rotten loves and life straying off the tracks. It’s the ingredients of a scene that for its chosen moments a few years ago nobody broke a heartstring forgetting about in a hurry. But just listen. That colloquially mesmeric, warm, leathery, North-Western English vocal twang. It’s like John Lennon clambered to his feet and staggered off into the New York night Continue Reading