album review
Album Review: It’s all ‘In The Manifesto’ – Sacred Cowboys unveil a collection of attitude-laden gems that burn brightly.
Sacred Cowboys have been – and still are – a legendary bunch of misfits together in various forms since 1982, but always with Garry Gray as a mainstay at the reins along with Mark Ferrie. They essentially began in 1982 as a supergroup with Gray from seminal new wave outfit Negatives and Ferrie from the Models. …
Album Review: ‘I’m In My Brain Again’ – stunning debut from Slowcoaching reveals a luscious dreamscape and soaring melodies.
Slowcoaching is the nom de plume of Naarm/Melbourne musician Dean Valentino, and his debut album ‘I’m In My Brain Again’ is a delicious collection of dreamy songs that seem to float in the consciousness. Born in that fertile era of COVID isolation, Valentino says of the creation of the album: I’ve always been a notoriously …
EP Review: Sam McMeekin unveils her stunning pop collection ‘Amelioration’, heralding a bright future.
‘Amelioration’ is Lutruwita/Tasmanian artist Sam McMeekin‘s second release following her debut EP ‘Tempest’ released last year, and it portends an important new artist from the Apple Isle. While the release has ten tracks, which would normally be labelled as an album, McMeekin says it is intended to be an EP as it is not a …
Album Review: Lutruwita/Tasmanian band Lennon Wells unveil stunning debut album ‘Blink (and you’ll miss it)’ ahead of national tour
Lennon Wells first caught my attention last year when they supported iconic Australian band Jet celebrating 20 years since the release of their album ‘Get Born’ in Hobart – a special night bejewelled by the visible appearance of the spectacular Aurora Australia in the skies that evening. They put on an incredibly immersive performance lead by …
Album Review: All India Radio etch beautiful contrails of sound across the skies in new album ‘The Unified Field’.
After a long absence, the ethereal All India Radio triumphantly return with the exquisite ‘The Unified Field’ – astonishingly their 21st album. Their absence has much to do with member Marin Kennedy’s prolific creativity – witness in just the past couple of years the release of three albums with The Church’s Steve Kilbey (‘Jupiter 13’, …
Album Review: ‘Soft Monstrous Masses!’ – 208L Containers deliver an anarchic dose of sardonic humour on a bed of angular post punk with a buzz-saw blast
Lutruwita/Tasmanian outfit 208L Containers have just released a blast of iridescent joy from the intense furnace of their creative minds in ‘Soft Monstrous Masses!’. Sardonic and unashamedly Australian-accented voices sing of a range of familiar and alien concepts laced with humour and a thousand yard stare, a mix of political observations with tales of the …
Album Review: The epic beauty of The Apartments’ ‘That’s What The Music Is For’ is an elegant beacon of shimmering hope.
The Apartments‘ magnificent album ‘In And Out Of The Light’ was one of the brief rays of light of the grim 2020 – one of my favourite albums of that year. With one of Brisbane’s greatest singer/songwriters, Peter Milton Walsh (briefly an early Go-Between), The Apartments are possibly one of the most underrated bands coming …
Album Review: Tasmania’s Verticoli deliver bolts of cathartic thunder in their new album ‘Silverlinings’ with launch dates ahead.
The new album ‘Silverlinings’ from Tasmania’s Verticoli puts on show their musical versatility and range of expression. A mix of tangible anger with a punkish delivery, hard rock swagger and some more laid back tracks combine to deliver something that is quite exciting and very cathartic. Opening with the fittingly entitled ‘A Kick in the Teeth’, Verticoli …
Album Review: Sliver Fleet Ships set sail into the darkness with their atmospheric debut album ‘Before Never, After Forever’.
Nipaluna/Hobart band Silver Fleet Ships are signed to the tremendous Meanjin/Brisbane label False Peaks Records, and this is a sure guarantee of the quality you can except in their debut album ‘Before Never, After Forever’. It’s an album which bleeds atmosphere from every pore: statuesque and gilded with an Antarctic chill exacerbated by the sharp expressive guitar …
Album Review: Fiona Boyes & The Fortune Tellers – Live at Bluesfest 2004 featuring Hubert Sumlin and Chris Wilson
It was with a huge amount of anticipatory excitement that I listened to this album from one of Australia’s premier blues players, given the extraordinary legacy that this particular recording contains. Not only is this an early recording of Fiona Boyes which follows on closely from being the first non-American, and first female, to win …