Album Reviews
ALBUM REVIEW: A Certain Ratio – ‘ACR Loco’: taut Mancunian future funk and effortless electronic pop
“THIS album is a culmination of everything we’ve ever done,” says A Certain Ratio’s Jez Kerr. “We’ve got some real momentum at the moment.” He’s talking about A Certain Ratio’s first album in 12 years, ACR Loco, which drops this week. Excited much? You wouldn’t bet against a musician so steeped in the groove; A …
ALBUM REVIEW: Various Artists – ‘Sunrise On The Blues: Sun Records Curated By Record Store Day Vol. 7’
SAM PHILLIPS’ Sun Records imprint is arguably the first truly great label of the modern era. It was founded in Memphis in February 1952 by Sam, Alabama born, who lived through the great American depression and who cut his musical teeth at the Muscle Shoals radio station WLAY, which didn’t categorise its music by colour …
Album Review: Arrest! Charlie Tipper – ‘Red’
STARTING out in 2013 as The Charlie Tipper Experiment, then The Charlie Tipper Conspiracy and more recently adopting the Arrest! Charlie Tipper moniker, these Bristol-based indie stalwarts have certainly kept us guessing about their name whilst releasing a steady stream of quality albums and singles. I once contacted the band to ask who Charlie Tipper …
Album Review: Napalm Death – Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism
There are a few bands out there who have the years behind them yet are still rising to the challenge and blowing expectations. 2015’s Apex Predator – Easy Meat certainly did that and now five years later Napalm Death are back with another album, Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism’ which carries on the great …
Album Review: The Electorate – ‘You Don’t Have Time To Stay Lost’
We’ve already met and fell in love with Sydney band The Electorate after the release of their single ‘Decades in a Day‘. If life is a series of unrelenting miseries leavened by brief moments of sunshine, then The Electorate manage to capture the former and express them perfectly into the latter through their songs. ‘You …
ALBUM REVIEW: Big Bill Broonzy – ‘The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957’: music of truth delivered with power
BIG BILL BROONZY – he’s one of those names you hear in hallowed tones, whispered and discussed on forums and in the music press, alongside such company as Robert Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, as being right in there at the roots of modern black music; in the blues, the devil’s music, which of course …
Album: Matt Berry – Phantom Birds
Matt Berry’s debut album on Acid Jazz, Witchazel, included prog gems and a McCartney-featuring track; since then he’s released well-received albums like The Small Hours and Television Themes. New album Phantom Birds is no different to previous marvels, confounding expectations once more. This sees a simpler sound, with Berry accompanied only by pedal steel guitarist …
Say Psych: Album Review: The Asteroid No. 4 – Northern Songs
Psychedelic rock legends The Asteroid No.4 will release their new album Northern Songs this Friday through a partnership with UK-based Cardinal Fuzz Records and Portland’s Little Cloud Records. Stalwarts of the modern ‘psych’ genre, they are known for their prolific discography of reverb-drenched recordings and liquid-projected live performances. With a sound all their own and neo-psychedelic / shoegaze leanings, they are often compared to acts …
SORBET – Life Variations EP
SORBET is the new project from drummer and producer Chris W Ryan; his debut EP under the SORBET name, Life Variations, is a navigation through the key stages of life over three tracks in a suite of more than 20 minutes. Ryan states that the three tracks are borne from the same musical seed: “Every …
Album Review: A. Swayze and the Ghosts release the brilliant debut album ‘Paid Salvation’
Emerging from Hobart at the very edge of the settled world, A. Swayze and the Ghosts (AS&TG) are loud, noisy, abrasive, shouty, opinionated and – did I say loud? They are also, somewhat antithetically, the purveyors of some of the greatest intelligent pop songs around. ‘Paid Salvation’, their new album is a triumph – full …