indie albums
ALBUM REVIEW: Lambchop – ‘Showtunes’
Much as we’d all like to believe in a world of nuance, in most scenarios, the general population can be broken down into two rival groups. Marmite; the X Factor; Leeds United; Guinness – they all split us firmly into one camp or another. Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner creates a similar division, chiefly being between those …
Album review: Paul Jacobs – ‘Pink Dogs On The Green Grass’: Pottery man breaks out with a low-slung, psych-boogie blur of brilliance
SPREADING his wings from his excellent mothership, the wiry post-punkers Pottery, Paul Jacobs is shortly to unveil a gently slackercore beauty of a full debut solo album, Pink Dogs On The Green Grass. Which is, y’know, the reason we’re all gathered here today. Stepping away from the dependable sticksman role which is propelled Pottery right …
Album review: Lou Barlow – ‘Reason To Live’: a crisp Americana homecoming that reveals its beauties slowly
NOTHING less than absolute royalty of the US alt.rock scene, Lou Barlow, formerly of Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and Sentridoh, The Folk Implosion, is set to grace our ears with his first solo album in six years. Good things come to he who waits. That album, Reason To Live, will be out this very Friday, May …
Album review: Cheval Sombre – ‘Days Go By’: Chris Porpora’s second of the year delivers an airy, dreamy space-folk coda
IT’S ONLY his fourth album at all in the catalogue; the second, Mad Love, was almost nine years ago now; but the third, Time Waits For No One, is only three months old. Oh: more importantly, most importantly, Time Waits for No One was also absolutely beautiful. Chris Porpora, the thoughtful architect who guises as …
Album review: Raoul Vignal – ‘Years In Marble’: a solid third chapter in an accomplished songwriting career
A small miracle of the independent European songwriting scene
Album Review: Dinosaur Jr – Sweep It Into Space; file under essential
The last year has been, let’s face it, odd to say the least. The global pandemic has brought a horde of fearful anxieties and a desperate need for something solid to cling on to, a life raft to pin our hopes to and sail away from all this uncertainty. Enter then Dinosaur Jr, the somewhat …
Album review: TEKE::TEKE – ‘Shirushi’: a deliciously wonky, delectably trippy psych debut
RULE one: Japanese bands do brilliant, brilliant things with guitars: this is just fact. From the mind-blowing chaos of Melt-Banana to the heavy psych stylings of Acid Mothers Temple and Bo Ningen, down through the garage-rawk of Guitar Wolf and the dreamy, trippy-hippy psych of Ghost, new and deeper appreciations of how to wield and …
Album review: Dragon Welding – ‘The Lights Behind The Eyes’: a new ambient folk for a beleaguered island from The Wolfhounds’ six-string sufi
IF YOU consider yourself a fan of great British guitar music and you haven’t investigated the canon of East London-Essex borderlands’ The Wolfhounds, then jeez, do you ever need to put that right – immediatement. Coming out of the C86 wave of bands and featuring on that legendary/infamous tape (please delete according to personal taste) …
Album review: Beach Youth – Postcard; a beautifully disengaged debut LP
It might not be the most sensational trend-setting music revolution, but Postcard does represent a welcome addition to the count of heart-warming, easy listening records in contemporary independent pop music. Beach Youth is a young French band, Norman to be specific, and this can be considered their debut LP, after two long EPs.The band has …
Album review: Alaskan Tapes – ‘For Us Alone’: 39 minutes of tranquil serenity
ALASKAN TAPES has created a short but blissful sequel to his previously album Views From 16 Stories. It’s Alaskan Tapes, also known as Brady Kendall, second album of 2021: For Us Alone. The nine tracks are a tranquil journey through an array of peaceful melodies that will leave you feeling enchanted by the beauty of …