Album Reviews
Meet: We chat with Jez Williams from Doves about Northern Soul, getting the band back together and the new album, plus we review ‘The Universal Want’
The new album from Doves, ‘The Universal Want’ is a blistering rebirth from the Mancunian band. It’s much more than a return to form – their previous albums were uniformly brilliant – but there is a sense of identifiable development and growth in the intervening eleven years since ‘Kingdom of Rust’ was released. Songs such …
ALBUM REVIEW: Floodlights – ‘From A View’: another great Antipodean guitar salvo
IF THERE’S one area of the world that has always seemed to have had a dialogue and a response to a certain strain of British indie guitarpop, it’s been Australia and New Zealand. Witness the Flying Nun scene and related bands that brought so much to our ears in the late 1980s: The Chills, The …
ALBUM REVIEW: Kelly Lee Owens – ‘Inner Song’: leftfield tronica beauty soars
IT’S been a quite a journey that’s led Kelly Lee Owens to the place where she is now, garnering critical praise from all quarters and Welsh queen-elect of that sweet spot where halcyon pop meshes into intelligent dance music with a deft touch. I really don’t think there is anyone else who has such nuance …
SAY PSYCH: ALBUM REVIEW: Moon Duo – ‘Escape’: fuzz psych-meisters’ debut, expanded
TIME can really slip by. It’s ten whole years – yep, a decade – since Moon Duo span out of Wooden Shjips with that band’s Ripley Johnson teaming up with keyboardist Samae Yamada to forge a psych-side hustle. Hell, that means it’s almost nine years since I saw Wooden Shjips at End of the Road …
EP REVIEW: Max Cooper – ‘Earth’: cutting-edge IDM for our life on it
IN FORMER times, he’s what you would call a renaissance man, a polymath, Max Cooper: active and proficient in so many fields of creativity and science; jack of all trades, oh; master of them, too. A childhood dalliance with the violin proved a false dawn; instead he pursued biology and was awarded a PhD in …
ALBUM REVIEW: ENO/CALE – WRONG WAY UP (REISSUE)
A simultaneous anniversary re-release alongside ‘Spinner’, Eno’s collaboration with Jah Wobble five years later, this is another meeting of great minds with John Cale. The former was very much immersed in Eno’s ambient soundscape world, whereas this album draws from his brace of accessible yet slightly skewed pop albums in the seventies. For many, this …
ALBUM REVIEW: Fritz Pape – ‘From My Guitar At Homes’: inventive sonic studies for the ambient-minded
FRITZ PAPE began his musical journey under the alias Zijnzijn Zijnzijn!, under which banner he undertook to create impenetrable, even frightening, waves and barrages of guitar, right up in your face a la Swans or Boredoms. With an eye to the trail laid by Glenn Branca, he’s also been known to put together ensembles of …
Album Review: The Killers – Imploding the Mirage
Following a huge delay (thanks again, coronavirus), Las Vegas’ The Killers have finally released their bombastic sixth album Imploding the Mirage. Coming at us via Island Records on 21st August, the album comes just one year ahead of the band’s 20th anniversary, and with it comes some interesting sonic changes for the band, whilst keeping …
Album Review: Eno/Wobble – Spinner (Reissue)
Originally released 25 years ago, this reissue comes remastered with a booklet and two bonus tracks. The music started life as the soundtrack to Derek Jarman’s final film ‘Glitterbug’, which was a Super-8 scrapbook of his life. Eno then gave it to Jah Wobble to do with as he saw fit, who added a kind …
Droppin’ Knowledge: There’s A Fervor In The Music – A Profile of the Rap Artist Chimezie
Chimezie, the rapper, first discovered hip hop when he was around eleven years old. The artist, who is also a prolific reviewer of rap albums on YouTube, grew up in a religious family. He heard gospel music around him, both in church and at home. He attended a Baptist church when he was a child, …