Album review: I Am Kloot – Hold Back The Night
It seems to be a great mystery why smug dullards like Elbow are packing out arenas when the infinitely superior Kloot are operating a couple of levels below. This splendid live album provides the answer as the sort of people who love soulless stadium shows would pee their pants faced with John Bramwell’s twisted poetry …
Album Review: 10,000 Maniacs – Twice Told Tales
‘In my Tribe’, the third album by Jamestown, New York band 10000 Maniacs released in 1987 remains in my top 50 albums of all time. The Wishing chair, their second album is in my top 100 and the MTV Unplugged sessions from 1993 still makes me shudder slightly…for the right reasons. So imagine my joy …
Track: Fehm – Eyes Full
Leeds based band Fehm have unleashed new track ‘Eyes Full’ from their EP ‘Animal Skin’ following on from the epic, ‘Hand To Mouth’ Fehm clearly have a love of 70’s goth punk, but that only fuels the songs with a dark brooding ferocity. ‘Eyes Full’ starts off with a razor sharp bassline that pins …
Live Review: Smoke Fairies – Hebden Bridge Trades Club, 26.4.15
After their second album got mixed reviews Smoke Fairies had a crisis of confidence questioning whether they should go on but this confident show made you glad they did. One of the reasons the critics turned on them was they lurched from a faintly twee folk duo to a full blown rock band almost overnight. …
Live Review: The Gluts & White Hills – Bloom, Mezzago (Milano) 25.04.15
Ever since I had first clapped ears on The Gluts‘ debut LP ‘Warsaw’, I had been longing for the opportunity to see them play live. There was the small matter of their being based in Milan, which is only 1475km from Belfast as the crow flies… No matter, when the opportunity for The Gluts to open for White …
Live Review: Nai Harvest / Best Friends / Pins – The Harley, Sheffield 24.04.2015
Friday night in Sheffield saw one of the most explosive, and certainly most popular, gigs The Harley has ever seen. First up were Pins, a female four-piece to be reckoned with. Faith Holgate’s haunting, eerie voice is akin to Siouxsie Sioux, and the Manchester group stirred up the crowd for the two homegrown groups to come. …
Say Psych: Album Review – Keeper of the Dawn by Ancient River
At a time when every man and his bong can be said to be exploring the final frontier with cathedral reverb plastered all over their stoned guitar noodling, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand apart from the rabble. Ancient River try their best at saying something new by, perversely, not saying very much at …
New Music: Whoop-Szo release the post-metal of Mirror North
Guelph, Ontario. Maybe not quite internationally recognized as a musical hotbed, but in Canada it is well known as a centre for the non-conventional. Enter Whoop-Szo. Even for Guelph this quartet is a little out there. Uncompromising, they make the music that they want to make — it’s what they believe in. Their latest, “Mirror …
Album Review: Sonic Jesus – ‘Neither Virtue Nor Anger’
‘Neither Virtue Nor Anger’ by Sonic Jesus, is perhaps 2015’s most eagerly anticipated debut LP, certainly for those fortunate souls who take their music with more than just a pinch of gravitas. Few releases have me contemplating the juxtaposition of Platonist preponderance over Aristotle’s ‘Ethica Nicomachea’, combined with Blake’s adherence that “there is no suffering except …
Live Review: Hands Off Gretel – Mine, Leeds 23.04.2015
Fast rising grunge band Hands Off Gretel are in Leeds tonight to play Move, Leeds traffic being what it is I arrive slightly late walking in during their song Be Mine. What is immediately apparent is how they sound exactly the same live as they do on record with Lauren Tate’s fierce vocal like razor …