Album Reviews
Album Review: Nigh/T\mare – Katharsis
Overview: From the depths of an ancient dark underworld, Nigh/T\mare has conjured a powerful offering of burning emotions that light the fires of one’s demons and invite thebeginning of an epic journey through the unknown. Via Thrènes Records from Switzerland, this offering is on point with their consistent releasing of top quality industrial/experimental techno. Entitled …
Album Review: Portico Quartet – ‘Monument’
I can still remember the kerfuffle Portico Quartet sparked off at Womad 2012…Where’s the hang drum? What’s this, loops? Is this dance music? For a crowd expecting the pastoral acoustic soundscapes of their first two records, the Mercury nominated ‘Knee Deep in the North Sea’ and follow up ‘Isla’, the sweeping electronica fused with upfront …
Album Review: Venus Grrrls – Potions EP
Venus Grrrls have released their new EP, ‘Potions’ on November 5th 2021 via Monomyth Records. The EP is a collection of songs that digress into integral parts of human emotion and consciousness. Exploring themes such as friendship, body image, and love, the band showcase their most intimate body of work yet. The band are also …
Album Review: JESSICA’s ‘With Reverie’ has a gorgeous ghostly presence filled with longing and loss.
With a delicate piano filigree dusting a series of gorgeously quiet and reflective songs, the new album from Sydney artist JESSICA has the elegance and enigma of an Eric Satie piece fronted by Dusty Springfield. ‘With Reverie’ is essentially a series of haunting vignettes deliciously encapsulated into (mostly) three minute interludes, filled with emotion and …
Album Review: Pluto Jonze releases a multicoloured universe of pop in his vibrant album ‘Awe’
The new album ‘Awe’ by esteemed Sydney-based artist Pluto Jonze (Hey Geronimo) is ten dollops of sweet ethereal goodness, filled with indelible melodies and dreamy, cloudy and hypnotic soundscapes. Jonze displays an ear for melody brushed with a degree of theatricality which makes for a thoroughly enjoyable listen. This is an ambitious album presented in widescreen with …
EP: Teenage Dads release a magnificent dosage of ‘Club Echo’ and announce launch tour
Teenage Dads are a familiar indie quartet from the Morning Peninsula. Their glittery indie music has been winning over fans and listeners throughout the country, and rightfully so when every song they write radiates charisma and peculiarity. Their new eight-track EP ‘Club Echo’ is an idiosyncratic take on the concepts of transformation and perception; poignant …
Premiere: New Zealand’s enigmatic Birds of Passage gives us an exclusive listen to new album ‘The Last Garden’ before its official release
We are very honoured to provide you with an exclusive listen to the new album from New Zealand’s mysterious Birds of Passage, ‘The Last Garden’, ahead of its release on Friday, 5 November 2021 through Denovali Records. Other than being the nom de plume of New Zealand based poet and songwriter Alicia Merz, there is …
Album review: Penelope Isles – ‘Which Way To Happy’: Jack and Lily line up a second set of ambitious, technicolour pop psych
PENELOPE ISLES, the gorgeous Brighton combo led by brother and sister Jack and Lily Wolter, are releasing their second album this week – that’s cause for joy as winter looms. surely. Until The Tide Comes In, their album from 2019 and first for Simon Raymonde’s excellent Bella Union imprint, was a slice of shoegazey guitar …
EP review: Lindsay Munroe’s ‘Softest Edge’ packs so much into four tracks; she can sing literally anything the human soul can feel
MANCHESTER’S Lindsay Munroe is, it’s fair to say, someone whose voice you can fall for on first encounter. I speak from personal experience here; I’d been writing for Backseat Mafia for what? … days, really, when I got offered the chance to pick up a lead single from last year’s Our Heaviness EP; I went …
Album review: David Lance Callahan – ‘English Primitive I’: raw punk-raga and a septet of scorching tales
OVER two phases of potent reports from the real England, with an interregnum of two decades between, David Lance Callahan and The Wolfhounds have consistently filed detailed documentation from the real England – not the England of climbing roses and parental-secured internships and unearned increments, but the England I knew and grew up with: the …