Album Reviews
Premiere: Mako Bron’s ‘cloudbites’ EP is an effervescent and glorious pop masterpiece, with a dark heart and uplifting melodies.
Mako Bron is the brainchild of one musician/producer Chris Brookman, and the single ‘Straight Down’ went to straight up to my top five Australian/New Zealand single releases for 2021. We at Backseat Mafia are therefore absolutely thrilled to be asked to premiere Mako Bron’s new EP, ‘cloudbites’, set for release on 3 January 2022. Brookman …
Album Review: The Scarlet Hour – Blink EP
Formed in 2021 from members of Alternative/Post-Punk trio The Seventh Victim, The Scarlet Hour are a Synth Darkwave duo based in the North East. Delivering brooding bass hooks from Mel Butler, and dystopian lyrics from a tormented mind courtesy of Tim Synistyr, all sprinkled with Synth-Pop melodies. ‘Blink’ is the first release by the band. With …
Album Review: Vis-A-Vis – The Best Of Vis-A-Vis In Congo Style
Remember those stellar studio bands of the late sixties/early seventies – The Meters, The Section, The Wrecking Crew, Muscle Shoals – defining the sound of where a record was made and fuelling the hit factories. Switch over to West Africa and you find the same thing, the tightest groups of session players at the source …
Album Review: Tout Bleu – Otium
London, New York, Paris Munich, everybody’s talking about…well it’s got to be Geneva, home to one of the most vibrant European scenes that gets broadcast to the rest of us through the antennae of Bongo Joe records. The label has offered up some fine home town releases this year from Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, …
Album Review: End Scene’s debut album ‘All My Ghosts’ is a masterpiece that jangles with a dark pop intent and an indelible shimmer.
There is a recognisable antipodean jingle jangle thrum in Sydney band End Scene‘s debut album ‘All My Ghosts’. Essentially, End Scene is James Jennings and Tom Dufficy and together they have produced an indie pop delight with instrumentation that chimes and rings, given a celestial reach by an acerbic and droll undercurrent in the vocals and …
Say Psych: Album Review: The KVB – Unity
The KVB are back with a new album, Unity, which was released recently via Invada Records. Movement – and lack of movement – is a crucial backdrop to the latest album from the audio-visual duo of Wood and Kat Day. The seeds of the album were sown in demo form in Spain, shortly followed by …
Album Review: Dark Sky Burial – Omnis Cum In Tenebris Praesertim Vita Laboret
“Omnis Cum In Tenebris Praesertim Vita Laboret” is the 4th album from Dark Sky Burial, the new musical venture from Napalm Death’s Shane Embury. The album’s title translates as, “Life is one long struggle in the Dark.” The dark ambient soundscapes and unsettling industrial noise textures, with disorientating, electronic moments were composed by Shane Embury …
Album Review: String duo Balladeste shine with sublime ‘Beyond Breath’
Balladeste are string duo Tara Franks ( cello) and Preetha Narayanan ( violin). Their much anticipated sophomore album, ‘Beyond Breath’ was released earlier this year in October 2021 to rave reviews, and quite frankly , it’s really no surprise. A reflective collection of new compositions taking inspiration from a set of Indian devotional songs from the …
Album review: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Bill Callahan – ‘Blind Date Party’: a rolling thunder lockdown revue of the Drag City stable, cast in cover versions
NOTHING at all, really. That, for a lifer musician with new songs in the back pocket, older ones to take out and share with fans on the road across the country and the world, no chance to get into a proper studio even, if it is only to kinda dick around and have a laugh …
Album Review: James McVinnie – Counterpoint
What is it about the tags neo-classical or contemporary-classical that often brings out that immediate ‘not for me’ reaction in people? Too much baggage, too many connotations associated with that word to the right of the hyphon. It’s musicians like organist and sound sculptor James McVinnie who can help shift mindsets . He may be …