Album Reviews
Album Review: Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You really Feel
Courtney Barnett is swiftly developing global adulation for her low-fi, heartfelt vignettes of life which capture with great honesty her trials and tribulations and insecurities. Like Jonathan Richman, there is a brutal honesty in her lyrics that reveal a bruised innocence, backed with an increasingly muscular instrumentation that creeps up and surprises. Themes reflect her …
Album Review: Tracyanne & Danny – Tracyanne & Danny
Tracyanne & Danny’s eponymous debut album couples unblinking reflections on moments in life – and love – with a wonderfully timeless sound. Tracyanne & Danny brings together Tracyanne Campbell and Danny Coughlan. Campbell is the singer and songwriter from the much loved Glaswegian band Camera Obscura. Bristol-based Coughlan is known for his work as Crybaby …
Say Psych: Album Review – Wooden Shjips – V.
Wooden Shjips, long-time leaders of the contemporary psychedelic movement, expand their sound with V. which is released on Thrill Jockey Records this Friday. The quartet of Omar Ahsanuddin, Dusty Jermier, Nash Whalen and Ripley Johnson augment their already rich sound with laid back, classic summer songs. The songs were written during the summer of 2017 …
ALBUM REVIEW: Arctic Monkeys – Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino
Before I say anything at all, I think it’s best you and I agree: nothing the Arctic Monkeys could have produced would have been enough. They are simply too loved – and for that, they are damned. We can take a look in that rose-tinted lens of retrospect, through each fleeting, transitory era: from ‘Whatever …
Album Review : Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks’ ‘Sparkle Hard’
I think it’s safe to say that Stephen Malkmus the solo artist has outlived the legend of Stephen Malkmus the dude in Pavement. His output with Pavement, which lasted between 1992 and 1999, was five Pavement records, several singles, and two Silver Jews albums(I’m sure there were one-offs here and there.) From 1999 on Malkmus …
Say Psych: Album Review: Hund – Matches
We spoke to Venetian’s Hund not long ago about their forthcoming release, and the anticipation that surrounded its release. Last week it came out on WWNBB Records and its been a pleasure to listen and review. Born in early 2014, they met among school benches in the province of Venice, Italy. One of their home …
Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit – No-One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut
Fourteen albums in, and those who have not followed their thirty four year career might expect Half Man Half Biscuit to be showing signs of cultural irrelevancy. That is to miss the point of Half Man Half Biscuit though. For nearly three and a half decades Nigel Blackwell and his loyal opposite number Neil Crossley …
ALBUM REVIEW: Five Finger Death Punch- And Justice For None
The last couple of years have seen some turbulent times for Vegas five piece Five Finger Death Punch. From addiction, to rehab, to claims they had disbanded following members quitting- these things have all helped weave the angst riddled web that is their newest album And Justice For None. Fake is the stomping opener that …
Album Review: Pinkshinyultrablast – Miserable Miracles
Pinkshinyultrablast, Russia’s finest export, have released their third album ‘Miserable Miracles’, out now digitally and on vinyl through premiere shoegaze ambassadors Club AC30 (UK) and Shelflife (USA). With vocalist Lyubov recently moving to LA, the band have been exploring new ways of composing and collaborating. Partnered with a line-up refinement, the new material sees Pinkshinyultrablast …
Say Psych: Album Review: The Third Sound – All Tomorrow’s Shadows
The Third Sound is the solo project of Icelandic musician Hákon Aðalsteinsson who used to play in cult Reykjavik rock’n’roll bandits Singapore Sling and currently plays in Brian Jonestown Massacre. Now residing in Berlin with a fleshed-out line-up, The Third Sound released their fourth album All Tomorrow’s Shadows on Fuzz Club last week. The Third …