album review
ALBUM REVIEW: Check Masses – ‘Nightlife’
FOR MY money, Edinburgh is the most beautiful first-division city in these isles. Its architecture, its hills, its views north and east over silvered cold seas. And, god, the culture. But it’s also the city of Ian Rankin’s crime noir; of the graffitoed walls and burnt-out cars of Royal Academician Jock McFadyen; of some Irvine …
Album Review: PJ Orr – Tightrope Walker
There is a calming beauty in PJ Orr’s new album ‘Tightrope Walker’ which incorporates the vibrant genes of fellow Australian indie bands – both past and present – and packages this into its own distinctive, mellifluous tones. For PJ Orr are unashamedly Australian: the undisguised vocal twang, the raw lyrical exposition and a jingle jangly …
ALBUM REVIEW: Surprise Chef – ‘All News is Good News’
ALL NEWS Is Good News is the debut album by Melbourne instrumental funkmasters Surprise Chef. Originally released in a very limited pressing on the band’s own College Of Knowledge label last November, it was devoured by the breaks cognoscenti and sold out within a week. Receiving heavy rotation at that home of the contemporary groove, …
SAY PSYCH: album review: Venus Furs – ‘Venus Furs’
IT’S an album that’s been even longer in the creation than My Bloody Valentine’s legendary Loveless. Five years to write, five years to record and hone; but finally Montreal psych-shoegaze perfectionist Paul Kasner is poised to release Venus Furs’ self-titled debut LP. Paul says: “”This album has been a long time coming, and I could …
Album Review: Key Out – Anthropomorphia
Key Out are proving to be one of the more exciting bands in Sydney – even the world – at the moment and this is never evident than in their new album ‘Anthropomorphia’. It is brimful of shimmering guitars and songs that seems to perfectly reflect the bright blue summer skies of Sydney. Skies that …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Gist – ‘Interior Windows’
CARDIFF’S Young Marble Giants subverted the revolution while the fires were still lit. In an age when guitars were razor-loud and lyrics were spat, the Welsh four-piece turned it right back down to a female-led fragility. One album was recorded for Rough Trade before fragmentation and the group’s main protagonists went firing off in different …
ALBUM REVIEW: Car Seat Headrest – Making A Door Less Open
Car Seat Headrest – helmed by ridiculously talented and prolific songwriter Will Toledo – release much anticipated album “Making a Door Less Open” today, on Matador Records. It’s their first set of brand new songs since 2016’s awesome “Teens Of Denial” and for long-time Car Seat Headrest fans it will be both a challenging and …
ALBUM REVIEW: TRIVIUM – WHAT THE DEAD MEN SAY
Since releasing their debut album in 2003 there has been a sense Trivium have been searching for their own sound. Albums like ‘Ascendancy’ and ‘The Sin And The Sentence’ have been absolute smashes, but still that feeling of the band trying to find their way as they wander lost through the metal genre has prevailed. …
ALBUM REVIEW: BC Camplight – Shortly After Takeoff
BC Camplight, aka Brian Christinzio, returns with a new album “Shortly After Takeoff” on 24th April via Bella Union. It is the final chapter of his ‘Manchester Trilogy’, following 2015’s “How To Die In The North” and 2018’s “Deportation Blues”. All three albums were created after the native Philadelphian had moved to Manchester. It will …
ALBUM REVIEW: THUNDERCAT – IT IS WHAT IT IS.
Is there anyone since the turn of the new millennium as influential as Stephen Lee Bruner, a.k.a Thundercat? Proudly toted as a corner of the Brainfeeder family, Thundercat’s influence can be heard throughout some of the more soulful releases of 21st-century hip-hop and R&B, from Frank Ocean and Tyler The Creator to Childish Gambino and …