Album Review: LYR- Call in the Crash Team
The debut album by LYR is an eclectic and ambitious new project, derived from a trio of producer Patrick Pearson, musician Richard Walters and poet Simon Armitage. Besides a slew of solo records and writing for the likes of Gabrielle Aplin and Alison Moyet, Walters previously worked with Simon Armitage on his solo track Redwoods; …
Album Review: Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
The bard’s long-awaited album, the first of new material in eight years, burgeons with a young man’s enthusiasm but an older gentleman’s wisdom and experience. The ten tracks produce an image of world-weariness and superiority with gusto, of a benevolent arrogance from someone unaccustomed to it, Dylan seeming like a town crier with bags of …
Album Review: Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
The solo artist, boygenius, and Better Oblivion Community Center member’s second album delivers modern perceptions on mental health and weighty musings on relationships, while displaying the effects and symptoms of relationships rather than simply being love songs, across a lurid but vivid instrumental canvas. The opener’s warped, sparse and eerie vocals resonate like an onomatopoeic …
See: The Cribs release Be Safe lockdown video featuring Lee Ranaldo
Coming over two years since their last album and tour, The Cribs’ lockdown version of their hallowed track Be Safe is even more poignant. As a band adverse to any form of inactivity or hiatus, their hefty break, alongside the indeterminable claustrophobia of the lockdown blues themselves, meant fans were clamouring. The band have often cynically dismissed their …
Track: The Wytches – Cowboy
The Wytches return with rambunctious and grimy psychedelic, noise-rock track Cowboy, with further psychedelically inviting visualiser artwork, courtesy of Samuel Gull. Cowboy commences a reinvigorated era for the band, as the first new release since 2016’s All Your Happy Life, after their drummer’s departure caused questions of the band’s future to arise. Now though, this emboldened energy …
Not Forgotten: Black Wire
A band with a ferocious but short-lived output, Black Wire were among the greatest who opposed the 2000’s indie/garage/DIY cluster of clones. They toured with The Cribs during their lifespan, whom they later supported in a one-off reunion show in 2013. Like The Cribs, Black Wire’s discography is light-years from the photocopied groups which flocked amid the post Is …
Track: The Lovely Eggs – Long Stem Carnations
The zany, genre-fusing organism that is The Lovely Eggs have released Long Stem Carnations on limited-edition orange clear vinyl, alongside a vinyl exclusive B-side: Voyage. With both I am Moron and the single’s extra-terrestrial themed artwork (by frequent collaborator Casey Raymond), plus Long Stem Carnation’s keyboard part; which surges the listener further into the euphoric Eggland, it is no surprise that …
Track: Ty Segall & Cory Hanson – She’s a Beam single resurfaces
Half a decade ago, the Aussie garage rock dynamo teamed with Cory Hanson of Wand to create this single and it’s equally enthralling B-side “Milk Bird Flyer”. Swiftly becoming a feverish Reddit discussion, “She’s a Beam” was first debuted as a similar but tamer acoustic version, before recently being rediscovered. All profits of the initial week’s sales …
Gang of Four announce new EP “Anti-Hero” and lead single “Forever Starts Now”
As the figurehead of Leeds hailing post-punk icons Gang of Four, Andy Gill sowed musical seeds across an array of artists with his four-decade spanning song writing reign: from the likes of St. Vincent, who declares Gill as her favourite guitarist, to the Red-Hot Chilli Peppers (whose debut album was produced by Gill). It is therefore the …
Album Review: Muzz – Muzz
The ‘supergroup’ moniker conjures a vast spectrum stretching from the cringey banality of 2010’s ‘McBusted’ revival, or the spectacular 60’s rock wet dream of ‘The Dirty Mac’. Contrary to the “pish” usually issued at the word, the debut album of Interpol’s Paul Banks alongside Bonny Light Horseman’s Josh Kaufman and The Walkmen’s Matt Barrick, shuns …