Reviews

Shoegaze never really died, it just set sail to the Netherlands and, like the social leper it was, failed to make eye-contact. Last year the Radio Dept carried its torch with a new geek-chic and luscious frost-kissed efficiency; a reliable glow to oppose the impending cold. And just as the nights draw in again, how’s this for a toxic burst of renewed warmth, like a showering under a welter of sparks? Norway’s Serena Maneesh (they’re a filthy band of blokes, Continue Reading

This album really isn’t as bad as you think it will be. It is still quite bad, granted, but you thought it was going to be really awful didn’t you. Which might be a rather closed statement to start a review with, but it’s the truth. There are aspects of harmless redemption – mostly located on the first half of the album, which would have been very useful if we still bought music on cassette tape. A group of session Continue Reading

North London’s five-piece geek-core future-rock eclectic car-crash of zeroes, ones and bile, Twentysixfeet, have shown promise on every occasion Crud has witnessed them on a stage. They’ve been a hectic pneumatic-crusher full of progressive rock and computer chips, that’s for sure. There’s been an air of the geeks rising to inherit the earth, a Matrix style conspiracy, which is exciting, empowering, certainly. But for that same reason things felt just too meticulous at points and rather than becoming the sum Continue Reading

Ten years on and I’m still beating myself up about Fatboy Slim. I desperately want to draw attention to the shockingly proletarian, cymbal-shaking, bone-rattling, party-mixing joyful ordinariness of our Norm’, but the bastard gets in there before me with his disarming and self-reflexive ‘I May Be Shit: But Why Try Harder?’ catchphrases, his doleful air of inconsequence, his shameless surprise at his own success and his now rock-solid marriage to Miss Ordinary-Lass-On-The Street, Zoe Ball. Dissing a man when he’s Continue Reading

Of course, by now, we all know punk rock to be an utter sham, a charade at best hijacked by those who don’t give a fuck when in fact the opposite has to be the key to its appeal. But it is still a thrill to find somebody breaking all the fucking rules, if they’re doing it properly. Not just that, but doing it in a way that leaves some residual trace of its existence behind. And to do this Continue Reading

Australia are hardly notorious for fielding successful leftfield electronic artists. In fact, I can’t name one. Not outside new spiky electro outfit, The Presets, anyway. True, our buzzin’, beeping, boopin’ love affair with the early eighties is nothing new. Fischerspooner, She Wants Revenge, Clear Static, Miss Kittin, Ladytron, Goldfrapp all heap on the Mode, the Order and the League in one way or another, and ‘Beams’ is really no different. In fact the resemblance to any of the above is Continue Reading

A band without a vocalist does not an instrumental band make, and though the lush thrill of the arpeggio guitars, the bee-like drone of the bass and the thumping apocalypse of the drums on album opener ‘It Must Be Called Intelligence If People Stop When They Realize They Are Not To Become What They Are Wishing To Be’ teases and cajoles with its warm, fuzzy logic, Té are not the next Sigur Ros on the evidence of this release alone. Continue Reading

He’s lovely isn’t he? The boy in the beaten-up velvet jacket, the dashing mutton-chops, the combined musical ability of a 32 piece symphony orchestra, the lightly inebriated inconsequence, the delicious melodies? Ed Harcourt turns up at our backdoor again, bottle of chardonnay in one hand, cigarette in the other, a copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘Sonnets From The Portuguese’ stuffed down his ample breeches, and scores of gentle scars on his soul. The rakish collector of weird and wonderful instruments Continue Reading

Mansfield. A market town but without remarkables. At least that’s what economic journalist, spy and Robinson Crusoe novelist, Daniel Defoe said in his book ‘A Tour Through The Whole Island of Great Britain’ in the late 1700s. But things have changed a bit since the late 1700s. Now Mansfield has a town, a theatre, a population of 99,300 and Alvin Stardust. Mansfield also used to play host to Venue 44, birthplace of the ‘Renaissance’, ‘Hot to Trot’ and ‘Vibealite’ club Continue Reading

For a moment there I was almost hoodwinked into believing that Viva was an abbreviation of ‘Vegetarians International Voice for Animals’. But that’s bloody search-engines for you. Now I know it’s a different kettle of fish entirely. More bums than buns and more tits than tatties. Viva is one of the those Ibiza things. A sun, sea and shagging thing. I’d love to say I’ll see you there, but I’m much more likely to be tipping deckchairs in Cleethorpes this Continue Reading