A recipe that’s labelled ‘disaster’. A starter that’s prefixed by ‘non’. A kind of birth that rhymes with ‘drill’. You can take your pick, but none illustrate the notion of an uphill struggle with greater exactitude than the following mission statement: ‘The goal was to make an album that sounds and feels like the sample based hip-hop records the band love, yet capture the un-hip hop ‘band’ element of the group.’ Doesn’t bode well now does it? New York City Continue Reading

If having a ubiquitous hit by way of a TV ad was criteria enough for slating a record, then everyone from Groove Armada to Röyksopp would be guilty as charged. As it is, Steriogram and their chirpy rock-pop-punk-rap hybrid for the Ipod ads, ‘Walkie Talkie Man’ provided a refreshingly unpretentious moment of glory for the New Zealand outfit. And just as inevitable as their spots exploding, or their chewing losing it’s flavour on the bedpost overnight, ‘Schmack’ should see the Continue Reading

In time everyone of us has to grow up, throw away the cheeky attitude, the cute one-liners, the endlessly cycling riffs, the cheesy non de plumes, the subtle as a brick innuendo and get down to crafting something truly unique for ourselves – and sure enough – The Donna’s latest offering sees a maturation of the frenetic two-minute power-pop blitz and a move toward a more complex, more fully-dimensional lyrical and sonic approach. The chord-changes are more frequent, more unpredictable Continue Reading

If Metallica’s therapy centred ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ revealed a band in crisis and falling apart, then Iron Maiden’s The Early Days Part 1 reveals a band falling apart and falling together again courtesy of that dedicated rock Robocop and bass-player, Steve Harris – a Jonah if there ever was one – but alternately a committed, serious, reasonable, intense and fairly ruthless pursuer of excellence. But whereas ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ exposes the likes of Lars Ulrich and James Hertfield Continue Reading

You have to feel sorry for Eighties Matchbox. Really, you do. It’s got to be lonely up there at the summit of that jagged rock formation they fester atop; an unprecedented geological phenomenon in noisyfuckingmusic terms. Look around, see any peers? Anyone else erupting irritably from the earth’s core with a comparable command of the Richter scale? Their debut ‘Horse Of The Dog’, foamed over by just about anyone who had the stomach for it, was a blitz of the Continue Reading

Proving Scotland has more to offer than a shit football team, heroin and the chocolate covered sounds of Snow Patrol, Biffy Clyro, kings of the unlikely time signature return.  Much like Idlewild remained a hidden gem for many until ‘The Remote Part’, ‘Infinity Land’ brims with ingenuity and character.  If it was a Disney film think Beauty and the Beast.  Taking churning hardcore, uncanny riffs and the articulate if unstable nature of Simon Neil, this is an album of elevated Continue Reading

You have expectations. You make certain presumptions. Chances are in this case they’re driven as much by morbid curiosity as anything more reasoned, that’s only natural. This first (and last?) posthumous release from Elliott Smith will undoubtedly shift big units to death tourists in search of a suicide note they can clap along to, coded allusions to a big exit or just a piece of rock memorabilia to file alongside ‘You Know You’re Right’ and the “legacy” edition of ‘Grace’.  Continue Reading

Life’s fun, largely, isn’t it. But then it does have a habit of throwing up spanners of discomfort, just to fuck around with your day, or your very moral foundations, from time to time. Like, for instance, feeling conscience bound to watch the leader of the free world (that’ll be the President of the United States of America, if you were wondering) grump his way through an important internationally televised debate with the eloquence of a 6 year old forced Continue Reading

In a strict linear universe where time was not problematized by the ad hoc release schedules of US and UK imports and exports, this would actually predate the release of March’s third album, Virginia Creepers and come just one year after the critically acclaimed ‘Mobilize’ release of 2001. And listening to it, it makes a whole lot more sense that way, than this. If March’s Virginia Creepers album was a bit of a slow-burner, this album has been practically taken Continue Reading

The American High School. Let’s face it, much of what Western culture has learned about the yanks has been through the cinematic corridor of the high-school. From Breakfast Club, Porky’s, Animal House, Pretty In Pink, Scream right through to American Pie and Screwballs all we’ve accrued in apple pies, sneakers and pantyhose has been at the perennial behest of the now legendary ‘teen comedy’. And Mean Girls is a variant on the same: life’s a jungle and the cruelty of school is Continue Reading