folk albums
Album Review: Lavinia Blackwall – Muggington Lane End
Moving on from a treasured band when you were pivotal to their sound is a difficult manoeuvre in music. Nearly two years after leaving the pioneering psych-folk explorers Trembling Bells, multi-instrumentalist and singer, Lavinia Blackwall has taken that very step and made it look easy. Her debut solo album ‘Muggington Lane End ‘(released on 1st …
Album Review: Lisa Hannigan and Stargaze – Live In Dublin
The amount I love music is sometimes overwhelming. I want it pretty much everywhere, all the time. Given that, I have a pretty weird relationship with seeing and hearing it live. I’ve never been to a festival, I can’t reel off an impressive list of all the acts I’ve seen or all the iconic venues …
Album Review: Larkin Poe – Venom & Faith
Larkin Poe have brought the music of their roots bang up to date on progressive third album ‘Venom & Faith’. Larkin Poe, aka Atlanta-born sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell, have spent the last eight years releasing music that continues to surpass all expectations. From their ‘Band For All Seasons’ series of four EPs (one for …
Album Review: Jethro Tull – 50 for 50
50 for 50 is the new 3CD career-spanning collection released to celebrate 50 years of Jethro Tull, and I just so happen to be a big Jethro Tull fan. But I just don’t ‘get’ it. Tull’s 20th anniversary in 1988 was marked by a tour, a TV documentary, and a lavishly packaged 3CD box set …
Album Review: Thievery Corporation ‘Treasures from the Temple’
Thievery Corporation Treasures from the Temple (ESL Recordings) released on April 20, 2018 Rating: 7.5 Washington DC based electronic duo of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton known as Thievery Corporation’s latest release of Treasures from the Temple is a companion to their chart-topping 2017 Temple of I & I album release. The 12-track compendium includes a trove of original recordings …
Album Review: The Hanging Stars – Songs for somewhere else
Since their first album London’s The Hanging Stars have changed band members and opened their eyes a little beyond the charming indie/americana of their first full length. For their second full length – Songs for Somewhere Else, Recorded in Bark Studios, Walthamstow – hardly Laurel Canyon I grant you, but it can get sunny there …
Album Review: AWOLNATION – Here come the runts
I was as confused about the title of this record as most people. It sounds like the title of a whacky new cartoon someone is pitching to Nickelodeon. So understandably I was more than curious to listen to this new offering from AWOLNATION. Aaron Bruno and his gang are what I would define as truly …
Album Review: Jim Ghedi – A Hymn for an Ancient Land
A Hymn for Ancient Land is not an album I could listen to while doing anything else. It would be like texting while taking a walk in a breath-taking landscape – missing the beauty. Inspired by his home in Moss Valley, the Peaks and the Dales, this is exactly what Jim purports he is doing …
Not Forgotten: Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding
Music changed forever in 1967, primarily because in the wake of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it was firmly established that the long player had finally wrestled the mantle of definitive medium for rock and roll statements from the single format. Sure, it was already in the pipeline anyway, as acts like Pink Floyd …
Album Review: Pale Bird – Ten Things Which Aren’t Love
Pale Bird, aka Martin Austwick, or the artist formerly known as the Sound of the Ladies possesses an instantly identifiable folkish indie sound. Part of this is down to Austwick’s oddly soothing voice, his guitar work, or the feeling of space his production techniques provide between each instrument. It acts as an audible thread connecting …