Album Reviews
EP: Just Lions – Paper Cage
A heavy, heavy sound. Juddering with bass and muscle, particularly from the guitar. This isn’t the sweet, wishful Just Lions of “Monsters” from earlier this year. Perhaps it’s the basements and bedrooms in which they’ve been tracking their latest EP influencing what is a more claustrophobic sound on this new 3-track EP. Title track “Paper …
NOT FORGOTTEN – EELS – HOMBRE LOBO: 12 SONGS OF DESIRE
Lust, desire and romance have been the most popular subject matter for songs for millennia now – it’s pretty much what keeps the whole music industry going regardless of genre, fashion or the political background of the era. Some of the greatest wordsmiths throughout history have spent their whole lives trying to write the perfect …
Say Psych: Album Review – Lupus by Dead Sea Apes (Cardinal Fuzz)
Ding! The bell at the beginning of this album seems to tell us that we are entering some sort of sacred space, and certainly the processive drone of the first track, Pharmakon, sounds to me like it could be set in a Buddhist monastery. Although the title of the track would suggest otherwise, it is, …
Album Review: The Provincial Archive – Maybe We Could Be Holy
“We hope for a warmer November But we’re changing with the air It’ll be colder soon And we’ll be in the darkness through the daytime Waiting for phone-calls from your shaking voices” Such a sad autumn, young as it is. I can’t and won’t explain the sadness. There are many things that have helped to …
NOT FORGOTTEN – DREAD ZEPPELIN – UN-LED-ED
On paper it sounds like a terrible idea, a bunch of stoners playing reggae versions of Led Zeppelin tunes, fronted by an Elvis Presley impersonator. Leaping from your speakers it’s a different matter. The thing is, Dread Zeppelin could really play. They weren’t just playing for laughs either, they were accomplished musicians with a deep …
NOT FORGOTTEN – CUD – ASQUARIUS
Love at first sound, that’s what it was. The riff that literally tumbled out of the speakers and then that voice. I knew I’d accidentally discovered one of music’s great lost groups and they spoke to me in a way that very few bands did. This wasn’t a passing phase or a temporary thing either, …
Album Review: Harleighblu: Forget me not
If the loss of Amy Winehouse left a soul shaped heart in your record collection, and (as it happens, labelmate) Alice Russell isn’t enough for you, then the answer might just have come from Nottingham songstress Harleighblu. Her new album ‘Forget me not’ dropped today, and immediately she has forced her way to the front …
Not Forgotten – The Bonzo Dog Band – The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse
One of my favourite anecdotes from the history of rock music recalls the Bonzo Dog Band touring the USA in the late 60s and their minibus being stopped by a local Sheriff. The law officer asked if they were carrying any firearms or drugs. When they denied possession of either (preferring alcohol to drugs at …
NOT FORGOTTEN – TORI AMOS – STRANGE LITTLE GIRLS
I must have stood here, staring at my CD collection for half an hour or so. I had known I’d wanted to do an ongoing series of articles for Backseat Mafia that would build up to be an A to Z of unfairly overlooked and forgotten albums through the decades, but I just didn’t have …
Album Review: Sleigh Bells – Bitter Rivals
Far from being bitter rivals, Sleigh Bells third album actually shows they may be working towards more equality. The Brooklyn duo, singer Alexis Krauss and guitarist Derek Miller met when he served her and her mother at a restaurant. According to legend (admittedly not the most famous of legends, but a legend none the less) …