Album Reviews
Album Review: Bryce Vine Shines On Sophomore Album ‘Motel California’
Bryce Vine shines on the sophomore album Motel California. Pop facing, yet genre blending, musically intelligent and vibrantly playful (a sentiment that’s hammered home by the albums title, a tongue in cheek ode to Eagles ‘Hotel California’), the album continues to showcase Vine’s ability as both a writer and performer. Showcasing radiant Alt-Pop songwriting which …
Album Review: Cecilie Strange – ‘Beech’: Compelling Nordic Jazz with a subtle strength and singular sound.
When an artist settles into their groove, over time the spark in their music can dim. Listening to ‘Beech’ the new album by Danish saxophonist Cecilie Strange it’s more than clear that she’s not going to follow that flat line. It’s her fifth album for Copenhagen’s modern jazz curators April Records and the fourth to …
Album Review: Ty Segall – Possession; inventive, melodic and one of his best yet
Ty Segall’s Possession is a technicolor journey through the underbelly of modern America—psychedelic, melodic, and bursting with invention. His 16th album is one of his most sonically adventurous yet, moving effortlessly from gentle acoustic brushwork to brass-fueled psych-pop blowouts, stitched together with Segall’s uniquely off-kilter charm. It’s an album that invites you in with sweet melodies and …
Album Review: Trá Pháidín – ‘An 424’: Dynamic and distinctive experimental post rock from the illusive Galway collective.
So let’s get philosophical. In the mid-fifties Guy Debord developed the idea of ‘Psychogeography’, the influence a place has on its inhabitants, their attitudes, values and how they go about their day to day. If you put that into a pop music perspective could you imagine Joy Division without Manchester, Bjork from anywhere but Iceland, …
Album Review: An aural delight ‘By Design’ – With yet another landslide of impeccable songwriting, The Electorate unveil their new album.
The Electorate are finally back with a follow-up to their magnificent 2020 album ‘You Don’t Have Time To Stay Lost’ (see my review here). ‘By Design’, out tomorrow, puts on full display what has been missed during the intervening five years since their last album. Masterful songwriting with intelligent lyrics and a pop sensibility combine to …
Album Review: Matthew Nowhere’s debut ‘Crystal Heights’ is a transformative shimmering blend of gothic synth pop and Californian sunshine.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer Matthew Nowhere has just released the widescreen beauty of the album ‘Crystal Heights’: an ethereal collection of eighties-influenced shimmering synth pop that unfurls with a statuesque grace. it is incredible that this is a debut album. Opening track ‘Transmission’ is an atmospheric melange of sounds and a vocoded voice: a fittingly mysterious alien entry …
Album Review: Tidal Peak unveils the breathtaking beauty of ‘Treasureville’ – a dreamy evocation of sunshine and vast oceans with a glittering melancholia.
Capricorn Coast band Tidal Peak , essentially the work of musician/producer Kyle Lacko, has just released an expansive, glittering album entitled ‘Treasureville’. It’s a collection of sparkling gems that seem to take inspiration from the glittering sun-soaked environment where it was written. Opening with ‘Capricorntown’, the geographic connection is evident. A swell of synths and strings create …
Album Review: ‘Yorkston/ Jaycock/ Langendorf’: A thrilling electro-acoustic escapade from the alt-folk-jazz luminaries.
If ever there was a singer/song-writer laureate being bandied about then surely James Yorkston would be one of the names in the frame. Staggering to think that we’re getting on for a quarter century since ‘Moving Up Country’ swanned over the alt-folk horizon, starting a sequence of unpretentious, profoundly real albums, much loved and much …
Album Review: Brian Bilston & The Catenary Wires – Sounds made by humans; Guest review by Sarah Records founder Matt Haynes
Should Bob Dylan have got the Nobel Prize for Literature? Of course not, he wasn’t a poet; as he famously said, he saw himself more as a song and dance man. And did Wordsworth, senses working overtime after a surfeit of daffodils, ever just scrawl awopbopaloobopalopbamboom across the page before hitting the laudanum? Of course …
Album Review : Steve Von Till – ‘Alone In A World Of Wounds’: Powerful, soul-searching psychedelic Americana from the post-metal pioneer.
With last year taken up with a triptych of expansive Harvest Man albums released to coincide with each new moon, the irrepressible post metal pioneer Steve Von Till might have been expected to take a sabbatical and re-charge, but no. Here we have ‘Alone In A World Of Wounds’ a new solo album recorded in …