Album Reviews
Album Review: Big Thief’s Double Infinity Finds Beauty in the Collision of Opposites
On their sixth album, Big Thief distill contradiction into melody—songs that hold sweetness and shame, mortality and permanence, all at once. Double Infinity is a luminous meditation on duality that cements Adrianne Lenker as one of the most fearless songwriters working today.
Album Review: CMAT’s Euro-Country Turns Heartbreak and Humour Into Pop Brilliance
On her third album, CMAT folds Irish politics, late-stage capitalism, and intimate confessions into a vivid pop-country palette. Euro-Country is at once biting and funny, sad and euphoric, proof of an artist who can turn a diss track about Jamie Oliver and a ballad about financial collapse into the same dazzling world.
Album Review: Deep within the ‘Winter Palace’ The Valery Trails unleash an indie pop master class filled with soaring anthemic tracks that jangle and sparkle.
The Valery Trails have today released their new album ‘Winter Palace – their first release since 2022’s ‘The Sky Is Blue’ (reviewed by me here) and absence certainly makes the heart grow fonder with the welcomed return of their indelible melodies and harmonies. Opening track ‘Another Time’ provides an anthemic entry point with its thundering, chiming …
Album Review: Rún’s exhilarating self-titled debut – an alchemic forging of psychedelic doom and dark folk.
The darker hues of metal, folk and other musics enticingly converge on the self-titled album from new Irish trio Rún, released by those perennial psych-rock discoverers at Rocket Recordings. A threesome of significant like-minds, all pivotal to the island’s leftfield scene, Rún brings together vocal artist Tara Baoth Mooney, Dublin composer/performer Diarmuid MacDiarmada and drummer, …
Album Review: Supergroup Bleak Squad – Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Mess Esque), Mick Harvey (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, The Birthday Party), Adalita (Magic Dirt) and Marty Brown (Art of Fighting) – gather together to brew the spectacular ‘Strange Love’.
Naarm/Melbourne’s gothic noir Bleak Squad consists of living legends Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Mess Esque), Mick Harvey (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, The Birthday Party), Adalita (Magic Dirt) and Marty Brown (Art of Fighting) today release the fruits of their collaboration with ‘Strange Love’ – a dark brooding collection of visceral and raw vignettes worthy of their genetic make …
Album Review: Fantuzzi – ‘An Open Heart’ : Re-issue of the Woodstock visionary’s absorbing seventies debut.
Following on from the exquisite folk-rock curio ‘Stargazer’ by Shelagh McDonald, DJ and selector Oz Adams’ Different Strokes For Different Folks label brings more crate diggers’ grail with ‘An Open Heart’ by hippy-dom’s mystical Fantuzzi. Born in Spanish Harlem in the Fifties, of Puerto Rican descent, Fantuzzi’s bio is shaped by movement, music and performance. …
EP Review: Radio Free Alice unveil their sonically iridescent third EP ‘Empty Words’ as they continue breaking records on their European and US tour
We have been closely following the rapid ascent of Radio Free Alice ever since premiering their video for ‘I (Gotta Fall In Love)’ back in 2023. This was followed by their signing to the massive and highly prestigious WME Agency for worldwide representation after their signing locally to the illustrious Double Drummer label. This is band that has been garnering world wide attention …
Album Review: Prefaces – ‘Acqua Marina’: Cinematic surf rock and dream-state instrumentals from the singular Beirut trio.
If you thought the limits of surf-rock had been reached by Gitkin or Ribot or Khruangbin then the Beirut trio Prefaces have other ideas. Formed around the mercurial and prolific multi-instrumentalist Charif Megarbane, convener of the Cosmic Analogue Ensemble and more, with Fender expressionist Salim Naffah plus drumming dynamo Pascal Semerdjian from the mighty Sanam, …
Album Review: TILE’s Human On Hold Vol. 2 Finds Power in the Unresolved
TILE’s Human On Hold Vol. 2 channels post-punk tension and 80s shadows into five urgent tracks, ending with the explosive “Answer.” A sharp, atmospheric sequel that thrives on the space between doubt and clarity.
Say Psych: Album Review: The Dirt – Monkeypunch
The Dirt are back with a new album after a thirty month gap. In that time they have scaled the length and breadth of the country and now hit us with a Monkeypunch. Released on independent label Sister9 Recordings. The Dirt are Pennines based Jack and Sachiko, a marital Anglo-Japanese couple who create alternative psychedelic …