Album Reviews
Album Review: Cassels – The Perfect Ending
Cassels are woke. That’s at least what the media surrounding their new album, The Perfect Ending, centres on. Climate change, victim-blaming, the far-right, millenial liberalism, sexual assault. These are all lightning-rod topics in today’s climate and can either be addressed with a certain nuance, an unbridled rage or, more worryingly, a clumsy heavy-handedness. Thankfully, it’s …
Album Review: Ezra Furman – Twelve Nudes
So, if you’re going into this, you need to prepare yourselves. You need to brace yourselves for the rawness, the thunder, the desperation, the tenderness, the rage, the love, the abyss, the hope. Don’t expect to be comfortable when you listen to this. Furman gives us one break – the remarkable lovesong ‘I wanna be …
Album Review: Meatraffle – Bastard Music
Nearly four years after their 2015 debut ‘HiFi Classics’, South London indie gang Meatraffle are finally releasing its follow-up, ‘Bastard Music’. It features the band making various left-wing yet parochial observations about modern life to a twee, whimsical musical backdrop. The album’s first song opens with the sound of the titular cyclops snoring and this …
Album Review: Press Club – Wasted Energy
Australian Garage Rock/Punk band Press club are set to release there 2nd studio album via Hassle Records on August 16th. Originating in Melbourne they have built up a reputation for heavy touring which involves no less than 200 live shows in Australia alone and then they have also made a name for themselves with sell …
Classic Compilation: Various Artists – Step Right Up: The Songs of Tom Waits
As an example of the Tribute Album sub-genre, it’s fair to say that Step Right Up is easily one of the best.
Album Review: Lizzo – Cuz I Love You
I’m not a Lizzo fan. For starters I’m too white, too male, too middle aged, too cis to appreciate Lizzo on absolutely every level that she deserves to be appreciated on. I am not part of her ‘intended audience’. However, the fact that when I saw the broadcast of her recent appearance at the Glastonbury …
Say Psych: Album Review: The Reverb Conspiracy – Volume 6
The mission statement of London-based independent label Fuzz Club is to uncover and celebrate the best in fuzz, reverb and drone from every corner of the globe. As well as via their extensive back- catalogue and their Fuzz Club Eindhoven festival, one such particular medium through which they do this is their annual Reverb Conspiracy …
Album Review: Jaco – You Know
Not quite a new player on the scene, Jaco, aka Jake Waitzman, has released his debut album packed with power pop, a zest for indie/garage pop and chorus’, and it’s an enjoyable 11 song romp. In actual fact, the Birmingham, Alabama man has spent the majority of his career behind a drum kit, playing with …
Album Review: The Hold Steady – Thrashing Thru the Passion
My relationship with the music of The Hold Steady is one that has evolved since I first heard their music back in 2007. I’d originally heard their name mentioned in passing a couple of times before I chanced my arm with their debut when I saw it cheap, however the first time I heard Almost …
Album Review : Ty Segall’s ‘First Taste’
That California Mad Hatter of indie rock Ty Segall is back with a new album. Coming down from the T. Rex grooves and Detroit City rock/funk of Freedom’s Goblin, his newest First Taste looks a little more inward. Segall still knows how to shake a tail feather or two, but this feels less like an …