Reviews

If you’ve been following this ball game since the whole Army of The Pharoahs thing got kick started with the Psycho-Social album in ’99 then you might really have seen the best of what these boys have to offer, but with guest appearances from undeground hip-hop luminaries Vinnie Paz, Sadat X, 7L, Esoteric, Immortal Technique, Celph Titled, Beyonder and King Syze this first full length offering from Jedi Mind Tricks protégés Planetary and Crypt the Warchild is as solid a Continue Reading

Finding yourself in the company of The Vacation’s steely, irascible debut ‘Band From World War Zero’ is a little like finding yourself in the company of ‘The Return Of The King’ right after sitting through ‘The Fellow Of The Ring’, ‘The Two Towers’ and both Magic Harry movies. It’s not that there’s anything particularly wrong with it, quite the contrary, on its own and in its own right it’s fairly bloody marvellous. It’s really just a matter of timing. Likewise, Continue Reading

Careful what you wish for, they say, because, they reckon, it might just come true. “Brilliant!”, you might utter squarely in return, missing the point but remaining perfectly snug in your ignorance. A genie bobbed cross-eyed out of a Guinness bottle and into the Dublin night a couple of years ago, stumbling into a hapless foursome wearing unimpressive stubble and busy putting the world to rights. The magical sprite, once he’d got their attention and knowing his rightful place in Continue Reading

By rights and for all their faults, mention of Embrace should give the Q readers of this world a bigger stiffy than Chris Martin suckling on Noel Gallagher’s teat backstage at Glastonbury to the shake of Ringo Starr’s maraca. If only they didn’t keep fucking it up. But saying that presumes that they’re capable of not fucking it up. And maybe they aren’t. It’s a perception thing, largely. You think you hate Embrace. To some extent you probably do, because Continue Reading

With two critically acclaimed albums under his belt – ‘My Beautiful Demon’ and ‘Spoonface’ – it wouldn’t be a surprise if we should find Ben Christophers in a particularly positive and buoyant frame of mind on new album ‘The Spaces In Between’ and lo and behold we do. Even Christophers himself describes it as the most ‘upbeat and optimistic record’ he’s ever written. No mean feat for a man dropped recently by those major dingbats at former label V2. The Continue Reading

You and I both know that February’s The Beginning EP promised and delivered more than we ever thought possible and that the dazzling, groovy coloured video which accompanied the kick-ass, razor cut single ‘That’s The Way It’s Meant To Be’ fulfilled every one of our crazy, psychedelic dreams. On top of bands like Hot Hot Heat, Stellastarr*, Franz Ferdinand and The Libertines we didn’t feel we really deserve another fiery little star trail sailing over our burgeoning rock firmament. But Continue Reading

So this is what it comes down to then, when all the debris has cleared? After the rucks, the rocks, the petty theft, the 12 steps, hotelling at Her Majesty’s pleasure, Dot Cotton, Thailand, the great escape, expulsion, court appearances, non-appearances, gig no-shows, arrest, smoking crack in front of countless journalists, candid monologues, bizarre web postings, doubtful tabloid hearsay, the splinter Libertines live sets, the separate interviews, the side-projects, the singles, the ups, the downs, the promises, the spontaneity. This Continue Reading

First it was the turn of the Windows Media Player on my computer. That didn’t do it. So I next tried my Boombox during a workout. That didn’t achieve anything. Neither did the workout. I’m still not anything to look at and neither was the record. So I tried it in the bathroom, forgoing my usual five-minute finger workout for something that so far hadn’t threatened to yield the same brief momentary pleasure. So in the end I just kept Continue Reading

Another week and another timely terrorist atrocity keeps Bush’s anti-terrorist, pro-oil spin turning wildly in his favour. It happened on September 11th 2001. It happened in Madrid in March 2004 – just as the anti-terror campaign itself was about to blow in the face of mounting evidence supporting prisoner abuse. We now know pretty much for certain that the Bush administration deliberately chose not to act on warnings of Al-Qaeda’s plans on September 11th. We can pretty much guarantee that Continue Reading

You remember The Prodigy, don’t you? Insane, hypoid-dancing punk-rock drawf, bombshell beats, curiously belligerent attitude to the press, contentious pseudo-masochistic misogyny in tow? Firestarter? Erupting egos? Sudden departure of dwarf? Thought you did. Well this time they’re back.: leaner, tighter, brighter but every bit as nasty as before. And for those who thought the ill-advised 2002 comeback single ‘Baby’s Got A Temper’ all but doused their mighty electro- punk flame, be heartily reassured that all those dirty, sleazy, crazy nasty Continue Reading