electronic albums
Album Review: Battles – La Di Da Di
Listening to Battles is like plugging into the mainframe of some futuristic generator. You are instantly pulled into this stream-of-consciousness robot groove that acts as some sort of virtual yellow brick road to meet the fantastical Oz. But Oz isn’t some little man that flew in on a hot air balloon. No, Oz is this …
Album Review: Lloyd Cole – 1D electronics 2012-2014
The opportunity was there, no doubt, for Lloyd Cole to jump on the revival bandwagon. After all, the way he dropped literary references into his keenly observed tales of life and love were second only to a certain Stephen Morrissey at his height. However, his new record, 1D Electronics is, as the title suggests, a …
Album Review: Halsey – ‘Badlands’
It’s a rare thing to find an album that is a complete experience, where it’s emotions, themes and atmosphere jump right out of the audio and leave you with the knowledge that you’ve felt something as opposed to just hearing it. The debut album from Halsey is exactly that. There’s going to be artist comparisons …
Album Review: MG : MG
MG is actually Martin Gore. Martin Gore is actually that guy that pretty much makes Depeche Mode Depeche Mode. Songwriter, guitarist, keys, angelic backing vocals…that’s Martin Gore. MG is what he’s going by this time around on a new solo LP. This solo LP is all instrumental and filled with analog synth buzzes and whizzes. …
Album Review: Mark Morriss – The Taste Of Mark Morriss
Bluetones frontman Mark Morriss has been a busy boy of late. The singer and his former band mates recently announced they would be going back on the road to celebrate their twenty-year anniversary. And now Morriss has just released his brand new solo album, ‘The Taste Of Mark Morriss’ on Acid Jazz. Basically speaking it’s …
Album Review: The Chemical Brothers – Born In The Echoes
Bands that produce dance music are rarely known for their longevity. There are no long term benefits, and certainly no pension plan. Dance music trends move on so quickly that the most you can hope for is a few hit singles and maybe even a moderate selling album. Make your money while you can, then …
Album Review: Kelpe – The Curved Line
On his fifth album, The Curved line – Kelp, aka London producer Kel McKeown, doesn’t reinvent the electronic wheel, rather just polishes his own version of it a little bit. He’s long been able, as seen through his various releases on labels such as DC Recordings, Black Acre, Fremdtunes, Svetlana and Myor, to produce these …
Album Review: LA Priest – Inji
There are two ways an artist can go when breaking free from the shadows of a former group and going it alone. They can either adopt the style of their band and continue with a well practiced formular, or go completely rogue and try something totally new. Rising from the ashes of nu-rave band Late …
Album review: Years & Years – Communion
2015 has been an amazing year so far for London based three piece Years & Years. They took the title of BBC Sound of 2015, scored their first number one hit with ‘King’, and performed triumphantly on the John Peel stage at this year’s Glastonbury. But the crowning of a great band always comes with …
Album Review: Act – Love and Hate – A compact introduction to Act
One of the blink and you’ll miss it bands from the time of synth-pop revolution, Act flashed and burnt out, pretty much before anyone noticed. The duo, Thomas Leer and ex-propaganda singer Claudia Brücken, convened after Propaganda fell apart over their contract with label ZTT, the band and Brücken (then Mrs Paul Morley, ZTT co-founder) …