Album Reviews
Album Review: Morgan Delt – Phase Zero
The first thing that hits you on Morgan Delt’s excellent Sub Pop debut Phase Zero is the breezy, island sway of “I Don’t Wanna See What’s Happening Outside”. Vocals just shy of a whisper cascade along a mellow, shuffling rhythm with wobbling guitars, synths, and a prominent proper meaty bass line holding it all together. …
Album Review: Stranger Things S/T Volume One : Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein
I can’t remember the last time something enthralled the public’s eyes and ears like Netflix’ Stranger Things has. Maybe the Macarena? Or the Blue Collar Comedy Tour? The Pam and Tommy Lee sex tape? Regardless, none of those things lived up to the hype that preceded them, except for Stranger Things. This is a show …
Album Review: LTO – The Number From Which All Things Come
Bristol based musician LTO has released his debut album ‘The Number From Which All Things Come’ the title refers to the numerology of the number 10, 10 was described by Agrippa (an ancient Roman occult writer) as a complete figure marking the full course of life, he also attributed the number to a sense of totality and end achievement……for …
Album Review: The Divine Comedy – Foreverland
Now a dozen albums into their career, The Divine Comedy have steadily carved their own unique niche into the musical landscape over the last twenty seven years. While Foreverland breaks little in the way of new ground for Neil Hannon and his bandmates, it continues to steadily build on what has already proved to be …
Album Review: Dan Loops – An Album
All music fans look for something different in the songs they listen to. Some are suckers for a guitar riff, whilst others like the big power vocalists. Me, well I’m all about the lyrics. As a teenager I spent hours pouring over the words to the latest Tori Amos or Alanis Morisette, trying to dissect …
Album Review: Ed Harcourt – Furnaces
In a music scene still crammed full of post-Jeff Buckley singer songwriters, Ed Harcourt has been criminally overlooked down the years, especially when you consider that he’s only released one album and one single which have hit the top 40 charts here in the UK. Having released a critically lauded debut in Here Be Monsters, …
Album Review: Dolly Parton – Pure and Simple
I can’t remember a time when I hadn’t heard of Dolly Parton. As I grew up during the 80s, Parton always seemed to be part of the cultural background noise, and as the years have progressed she has seemingly remained a constant fixture. As my taste in music developed through the years, Parton was never …
Album Review: Pascal Pinon – Sundur
Pascal Pinon prove that absence makes their songwriting grow stronger with the chilling beauty of new album’ Sundur’. If Pascal Pinon’s 2013 album ‘Twosomeness’ was about sisters Ásthildur and Jófríður Ákadóttir being together, new album ‘Sundur’ – from the Icelandic proverb “sundur og saman” meaning “apart and together” – reflects on their separation. While Ásthildur …
Album Review: The Chris Robinson Brotherhood – Anyway You Love, We Know How You Feel
When The Black Crowes went on hiatus a few years ago, it’s probably fair to say that few of their fans held any great hopes out for either of the Robinson brothers releasing anything but sporadic niche-appeal vanity projects until the band regrouped. The fact that Anyway You Love, We Know How You Feel is …
Album Review: Warhaus – We Fucked a Flame into being
Essentially the solo project of Maarten Devoldere of the Belgian group Balthazar, We Fucked a Flame into being (a direct quote from Lady Chatterley’s lover) see’s Devoldere abandon some of the dark, editors like indie rock for dark, at times intimate pop/torch music, that references the likes of Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg …