Album Reviews
Album Review: Diiv – Is The Is Are
Diiv tapped into that wandering soul we all have buried deep down(some deeper than others) back in 2012 when they gave us their big and dreamy debut Oshin. Guitars swelled in waves of reverb, as did pretty much everything else, as Zachary Cole Smith sang songs like he was lost in thought while emoting into the …
Album Review: SIA – This Is Acting
There is an uneasy amount of hype surrounding Sia Furler’s forthcoming album, This Is Acting – Sia is seen as the new bastion of hope within a bloated pop music scene with her offbeat musical output lauding her to not only critics but more crucially the general populous (no pun intended) of mainstream audiences. You …
Album Review: Foxes – All I Need
In 2014 Foxes released her debut album ‘Glorious’. It took pop music, added in a whole bunch of quirks and an edge, and went on to be one of the best albums of the year. Her Kate Bush-esque dramatic sound, laid over huge pop hooks and dirty electronic beats separated her from so many others …
Say Psych: Album Review, Magnetic Seasons by Mugstar
Normally when I review an album I sit down with it and really think about how it makes me feel, and generally just go with the flow. If I don’t like it, I don’t write about it…there’s enough cynicism in the world…right? When this new album from Mugstar popped into my in box I was …
Reissue: Julia Fordham – Julia Fordham
God, if this album was any more 1980s it would come with a free Ra Ra skirt and fluorescent leg warmers. But despite the overproduced tinny guitars, hideous fretless bass and synthesised keyboards, that are so redolent of the time, it is saved by Julia Fordham’s gorgeous smoky jazz tinged voice. Fordham was one of …
Album Review: Dr. Dog – The Psychedelic Swamp
Over the last couple years or so every time Dr. Dog have released a new album I’ve worried it would be the last album of theirs I’d like. While every record they’ve put out has had three or four real gems, there seems to have been a good number of songs that seem to just …
Album Review: Turbo Kid – Hard Times In The Wasteland
So last Friday night I watched one of the best low budget sci fi epics I’ve seen in a very long time. I think had I seen this movie when I was 10 years old I’d probably still look at it as a classic now. As it stands, this movie didn’t exist when I was 10. …
Say Psych: Album Review, TBWNIAS Live 2010 Dominion Tavern
If you are reading this chances are that you love genuinely independent music (not the sort that is passed off as independent by big corporations), and support bands, labels and others who love to promote music for music’s sake and not to feed a business machine. Part of this eco-system are countless numbers of radio …
Album Review: The Crookes – Lucky Ones
Sheffield band The Crookes have returned with their fourth studio album, titled Lucky Ones, accompanied with a full UK tour this February and European and USA excursions not long after. Lucky Ones is a 10-track wonder which lets go of all the bitter anger of Soapbox and the blind hope of Hold Fast; it lands somewhere in …
Album Review: All Them Witches – Dying Surfer Meets His Maker
With their new long player ‘Dying Surfer Meets His Maker’, Nashville four piece All Them Witches have stepped up to be everything their almost legendary live sets suggest. Mining the likes of early Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and the like, they’ve imposed their own brand of hard/slacker-rock, tripped out psych-blues on that template, and decorate …