album reviews
Album Review: The Balladmongrels – Trouble
The Balladmongrels is a raucous new band featuring Dogs D’Amour frontman Tyla J. Pallas and Northern Irish singer-songwriter Matty James Cassidy. And with Trouble, released this week, they launch themselves firmly into rock n’ roll land with ten songs of dirty, sleazy, scuzzy raucous rock n’ roll. Yeah, it’s Dogs-y, but it’s Dogs-y in every …
Album Review: Slow Readers Club Release Anthemic 6th LP “Knowledge Freedom Power”
Band Image – Credit: Trust A Fox Photography One of the great things about being a music journalist is that you get early access to new music. The downside of that is that you have to keep it to yourself, until the day of release. Yes, you can talk about it, write about, tell everyone …
Album Review: Tin Man Falls – Tin Man Falls
Vienna-based music collective Tin Man Falls have unveiled their debut album, an enigmatic 10-track offering that levitates the listener with its rich layers and spatial sonics. The indie-electronic project is fronted by singer Joseph Robinson, who describes the album as a “reflection on the experiences of loss, letting go and stepping into our power that …
Album review: Duncan Marquiss – ‘Wires Turned Sideways In Time’: Phantom Band guitarist conceives of an instrumental, pastoral motorik for a place yet to exist
FROM disastrous events that upend your world can sometimes come good things; sometimes, I’m no Pollyanna here. Fortunately for Duncan Marquiss, guitarist with Chemikal Underground’s The Phantom Band, a major setback has led to another path, and a rather excellent one, albeit eventually. That quartet, with four albums such as Fears Trending and The Wants …
EP Review: Jeremiah Moon – Sputnik
Seattle-based singer/songwriter/classically trained cellist and illustrator Jeremiah Moon has released his debut solo EP – Sputnik. The EP was recorded with friend and producer Adam Black in a remote cabin in Florence, OR. “We laid down the main tracks during this time and pieced together the rest of the EP and arrangements over the next couple of …
Album review: Beirut – ‘Artifacts’: a masterful and beautiful voyage through Zach Condon’s early years in EPs, Bs and offcuts
MISSION CREEP. One of those pseudo-economic terms that make the decent among us go “eeep”, defined in dictionary terms as “a gradual shift in objectives, often resulting in an unplanned long-term commitment.” We’ve all seen it happen: something which starts to sprawl out of control in a Mandelbrot set of projects within projects within projects …
Album review: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Bill Callahan – ‘Blind Date Party’: a rolling thunder lockdown revue of the Drag City stable, cast in cover versions
NOTHING at all, really. That, for a lifer musician with new songs in the back pocket, older ones to take out and share with fans on the road across the country and the world, no chance to get into a proper studio even, if it is only to kinda dick around and have a laugh …
Album review: Various artists – ‘Home – Volume One curated by Ali Tillett’: a beautifully tessellated, warming set of old-skool chillout
Y’KNOW, it’s not just the people out front – the bands, the writers, the DJs – who know a thing or three about music; there’s plenty of people quietly working away behind the scenes who have incredible appreciation and knowledge of the sounds we fall for, too. One such gent is Ali Tillett, who’s deep …
Album review: Mumble Tide – ‘Everything Ugly’: a short, sweet-as mini-album burst from the insouciant Bristolians on their way to massive things
MUMBLE TIDE have a sweet and unusual back story: the Bristol bedroom pop duo of Gina Leonard and Ryan Rogers first met through a Gumtree ad which singer Gina had placed, looking for a bassist. But there was a proper meeting of minds, they saw that the musical thing they had going on was more …
Album review: Jim Wallis & Nick Goss – ‘Pool’: immersive, ocean-going, pastoral ambience
MODERN NATURE might be flying under your radar, but the Bella Union band who’ve just one full-length and one-mini album to their name – 2019’s How To Live and last year’s Annual, respectively – are someone you should be wrapping your head around, especially if the post-rock pastoral brilliance espoused by Mark Hollis and Talk …