indie albums
Not Forgotten: They Might Be Giants – They Might Be Giants (a.k.a. Pink Album. a.k.a. First Album)
Released into a musical landscape over-populated by purveyors of synth-pop, stadium rock, post punk, underground alternative, heartland rockers, disposable pop and The Smiths (the band that pretty much defined what the mainstream thought indie / alternative music was in the mid 80s, at least here in the UK), the eponymous debut of They Might Be …
Album Review: Honeyblood – ‘Babes Never Die’
Honeyblood haven’t just survived second album syndrome – their triumphant sophomore record, ‘Babes Never Die’, proves they’ve thrived on the challenge. The follow up to the 2014 eponymous debut album from the Glasgow-based duo, of Stina Tweeddale and drummer Cat Myers, has been eagerly awaited. Having appropriately fallen for Honeyblood around thirty seconds into ‘Fall …
Not Forgotten: Super Furry Animals – Fuzzy Logic
Released at a time when seemingly every reasonably new(ish) band within the UK and Northern Ireland who featured at least one guitar player was pigeonholed as Britpop, Super Furry Animals’ Fuzzy Logic is an album that could have been mistakenly dismissed as landfill indie by those who found the whole scene devoid of inspiration. I …
Not Forgotten: XTC – Skylarking
To the casual observer, by the time Skylarking was released in the mid-80s XTC looked washed up. Having had to stop touring in 1982 due to Andy Partridge’s crippling stage fright, their subsequent pair of albums, the pastoral Mummer and the industrial The Big Express hadn’t achieved the sort of commercial acceptance that anyone had …
Album Review: Kristin Hersh – Wyatt at the Coyote Palace
October 28th sees the release of the third book/album combination of Kristin Hersh’s career. The title, Wyatt at the Coyote Palace, is inpsired by her autistic son’s fascination with an abandoned building taken over by Coyote’s, and while the album features much of the confessional and personal songwriting that has littered her career, it’s not …
Not Forgotten: Babybird – Ugly Beautiful
It’s difficult to comprehend just how much airplay Babybird’s “You’re Gorgeous” received back in 1996. Listening back to it now, it still stands up as a great pop song, albeit one with far more dark and sinister lyrical content than it’s success suggests. It was a massive crossover hit, and something quite unexpected for Sheffield’s …
Not Forgotten: The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
By September 2006 The Hold Steady had already released Almost Killed Me and Separation Sunday, two of the finest rock and roll records of the millennium, and were poised to release Boys and Girls in America, just at the very point that the wider world was starting to take notice of them. Having already established …
Album Review: The Wedding Present – Going, Going…
In 1994, my irrepressible* psychedelic band (*back then, rip-off promoters, total lack of press or record company interest, and poor quality drugs were seen as challenges, compared to today’s climate, where the literal end of the world is a “no” from Simon Cowell) landed a management/publishing deal with Brian Hallin, the long-time manager of The …
Album Review: Cymbals Eat Guitars – Pretty Years
I can remember hearing “…And The Hazy Sea” for the first time back in 2009 and being completely floored. Cymbals Eat Guitars had created this musical world that encapsulated all those wonderful elements that made the early 90s indie rock movement so magical. Bombastic guitars, quiet moments, tinkling keyboards, wobbly vocals that go from fragile …
Album Review: Luke Haines – Smash The System
Former Auteurs frontman Luke Haines has had a varied career. As part of his former band he was responsible for some of the best albums of the nineties, including (in my opinion) his finest work to date ‘After Murder Park’. As a solo artist he has created a series of conceptual albums. His last release …