Album Reviews
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 …
Album Review: Elvis Valentine and The Ghosts of Chance – The Book of Numbers
Out on Bandcamp is ‘The Book of Numbers’ by Elvis Valentine and The Ghosts of Chance, an offshoot of the Scottish Shoegaze band, Wozniak. This album is a fuzzy, alternative rock long-player, evoking the poppy edge of Big Star, Neil Young, Steelers wheel and Dinosaur JR. At times, there’s a Garage-Punk snarl, which can then fly …
Album Review: Erland Cooper – Hether Blether
I’ve never been to the Orkney Islands. In fact my only reference before this has been the other two of Erland Coopers albums about, and based on, the Islands where he lives. After an album about the birds that inhabit the island with Solan Goose, and the sea which surrounds the islands in Skule Skerry, …
Album Review: Lady Gaga – Chromatica
Lady Gaga blasts us off to the land of Chromatica in her brand new album, released on 29th May 2020 via Streamline and Interscope Records. In this follow-up record to 2016’s country-pop hybrid Joanne, Gaga has truly returned to her dance-pop roots in a big way, not really seen since her 2008 debut The Fame. …
Album Review: The Silent Boys – Tilt-A-Whirl
Out now, is the new album, ‘Tilt-A-Whirl’ from US IndiePop band, The Silent Boys. This group of likely lads from Richmond, Virginia, have been creating poppy songs with added jangle for the last three decades. Right from the off with the effervescent title track, the new album sees The ‘Boys embracing different genres and going …
Droppin’ Knowledge: On Dre Island’s Debut Album, Now I Rise, All Praises Go To The Most High
Seven years is an eternity in popular music. Trends, styles, tastes, and popularity divide, replicate and morph at an exhausting pace and even the greatest pop artists struggle to keep up. Social media enhances the difficulty of staying atop the pop culture firmament and, before you know it, an artist who was up today, tomorrow …
Album Review: Eyeless in Gaza – Act I: The Protagonist
Armenian band Eyeless in Gaza are due to release their debut album titled ‘Act I: The Protagonist’ May 29th via Solitude Productions. ‘Act I: The Protagonist’ is an abstract conceptual album, where each track is a stage of experience, full of existential thoughts about the ideas of destruction and new beginning. This is a dreamy …
Album Review: Katatonia – City Burials
By Chris Gibbons Lockdown has certainly had an impact on my listening habits. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to keep up with weight training in a garage gym and it is during training sessions that I get time away from work and family long enough to enjoy a metal playlist or two. Whereas …
Album Review: Deerhoof – Future Teenage Cave Artists
This four-piece, originating from San Francisco predominantly, punctuated the year with a string of singles from upcoming album “Future Teenage Cave Artists”. Previous singles had fans salivating and the album will undoubtably sate fans and beyond; with leaps, hops and skips into unfamiliar territory. With over a dozen albums since their first in 1997, it …
Say Psych: Album Review: Kooba Tercu – Proto Tekno
Arriving via a triangulation of Athens, Crete and London, yet existing at a psychic intersection between the ruins of crumbling infrastructure and an intimidating future dystopia Kooba Tercu have seen fit to take arms as only they see fit. This week they unleash their latest offering Proto Tekno on the world, via Rocket Recordings. Led …