album review
Album Review: Christian Fitness – You Are The Ambulance
It’s that time of year again. Actually, like the swallows, Mr Falkous is a a bit later this year with a christian fitness album. But, also like the swallows, it’s a joy to have back. Those insects won’t eat themselves. Probably. For all that his records have some fairly clear musical antecedents, Falkous has found …
Album Review: Richard Hawley – Further
Sheffield’s Richard Hawley is not only the King of Sheffield (anyone want to argue with that?), he is also the King of Consistency. That might sound like damning with faint praise but it’s not; it’s the greatest of compliments in a world of regular musical mediocrity. Hawley manages to put out albums of the …
Album Review: Tall Tree 6Ft Man – Boundaries
It’s amazing what potluck it can be picking up a reviewing assignment. Sometimes it’s an artist you know, sometimes someone you’ve asked for or hunted down desperately over the years. Other times it’s a leap in the dark: you open the email, click on the soundcloud link, start listening and pick through the bio and …
Album Review: Song, By Toad -Split 12″ Series Vol. 7
We’ve already lamented the announcement last year that Edinburgh-based Song, By Toad Records was calling it a day. If this is its last release then it’s appropriate that its one of its signature split 12″s. (Although don’t be fooled, it’s a 12-song album.) The idea is simple and speaks to the heart of the label. …
Album Review: Wreckless Eric – Transience
Wreckless Eric began his recording life on Stiff Records in 1977 with his enduring hit Whole Wide World when he was little more than an ex-teenage art student. 7 albums later and 4 decades of touring and he’s still able to churn out some interesting and unexpected material. Wreckless Eric has a distinctive voice, there’s …
Album Review: Mammoth Penguins – There Is No Fight We Can’t Both Win
Back from a voyage into the world of the concept album with the excellent John Doe, Mammoth Penguins have stepped back into slightly more familiar territory. There’s No Fight We Can’t both win is another slice of their grown-up guitar pop. Which might sound a bit grim to the uninitiated. Is there really a place …
Album Review and Interview: Gareth McLaughlin – Into The Ether
The great thing about the Internet age is that artists are now more accessible and searchable. For those artists, the means of production and distribution is now so immediately within their grasp that self-publishing is a real prospect for getting their music out there. Online platforms like Soundcloud and Bandcamp have enabled ‘bedroom troubadours’ to …
Album Review: Jim Clements – A Failure
Every so often Jim Clements puts out an album and not enough people cop on. It’s kind of understandable. There’s very much music to be heard and no shortage of downbeat blokes doing a broadly Americanaish thing with guitars, keys and strings. There’s definitely a temptation to think that life might be too short to …
Album Review – Gregory Alan Isakov – Evening Machines
Charles Spano’s review of Damien Rice’s “O” on All Music Guide has a fantastic description of the ‘special sauce’ that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary and takes seemingly simply songs and makes them soar: “Rice is master of what critic/ranter Richard Meltzer called “the unknown tongue” – basically the musical equivalent of the “punctum” in …
Album Review: Battery Operated Orchestra – Snare
Battery Operated Orchestra might hail from Brighton but, in a previous incarnation as Katsen, they emerged on Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation. Which seemed very appropriate even then given the quality of their Kraftwerk-inspired synthpop, which would never have been out of place in the Steel City at any time over the last 30-odd years. Now …