New releases on CD & DVD
Album: Coldplay - Music Of The Spheres
Friday, 15 October 2021
Chris Martin has talked, not for the first time, of this finally being the Coldplay era of “no rules or fear”.
Album: Finneas - Optimist
Thursday, 14 October 2021
This record is a heck of a metatextual experience to listen to. In releasing his debut album, 24 year old Finneas O’Connell is attempting to step out of the shadow of one of the biggest pop cultural behemoths of our time – his own sister, Billie Eilish, who he also writes and produces for – and mark out a creative lane of his own.
Album: Pokey LaFarge - In the Blossom of Their...
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
Oh boy, there’s nothing like slipping on an old pair of jeans and cowboy boots. That’s the comfy feeling you get from the opening notes of Pokey’s...
Blu-ray: The Lighthouse (Mayak)
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Mariya Saakyan’s 2006 debut feature is bookended by grainy footage of what looks like a fire-ravaged diary, the distressed, crumbling scraps of paper...
Album: Santana - Blessings and Miracles
Monday, 11 October 2021
Some guitar sounds are instantly recognisable. Carlos Santana blazed a trail in the late 1960s, with incandescent licks that made him world famous....
Album: James Blake - Friends That Break Your Heart
Our James Blake-phobic reviewer has to admit the singer's latest has much to admire |
Album: The Courettes - Back In Mono
Garage rock revivalists go-go girl group crazy |
Album: Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
The Geordie stadium singer-songwriter unleashes fury while maturing his sound |
Album: Ministry - Moral Hygiene
Uncle Al raises a battle flag against the US political right-wing |
DVD/Blu-ray: Another Round
Thomas Vinterberg's superbly ambivalent drama about drinking in Denmark |
Album: Efterklang - Windflowers
The Danish art-poppers balance the tension between reserve and forthrightness |
DVD/Blu-ray: Maigret - The Complete Series
Entertaining, idiomatic Simenon adaptation, brilliantly cast |
Album: BADBADNOTGOOD - Talk Memory
Jazz/hip-hop mavericks' psychedelic voyage has a Hollywood ending |
Album: Vangelis - Juno to Jupiter
The septuagenarian electronic don maintains his course to the stars |
Album: The Specials - Protest Songs 1924 - 2012
Raw, spirited covers set featuring well-chosen songs of dissent and satire |
Album: Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga - Love for Sale
A new Tony Bennett album...at 95 |
Blu-ray: Johnny Guitar
Nicholas Ray's operatic Western gets the revival treatment |
Album: Catherine Graindorge - Eldorado
Ambient reflections on lockdown and death |
Album: Black Dice - Mod Prog Sic
Twenty-three years into their career, the raw electronic trio get to the hub of things |
Album: Amon Tobin - How Do You Live
Perennial electronic wizard pushes yet further into unexplored, sometimes loud, always compulsive terrain |
Album: Nao - And Then Life Was Beautiful
The soulful singer goes for a more organic musical approach on her third album |
Album: Lindsey Buckingham - Lindsey Buckingham
A lovely reckoning with ambiguity, loss and Fleetwood Mac by their exiled leader |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Servant
Downton Abbey goes to hell: Dirk Bogarde captures the first of the three Losey-Pinter collaborations |
Album: Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic
Willgoose and Wrigglesworth celebrate Berlin |
Album: Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner's Mind
An intriguing album of music inspired by film |
Album: Lil Nas X - Montero
For better or worse, the Georgia-born star brings consistency to an extraordinary array of sound |
Album: The Eivind Aarset 4-Tet - Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey
Norwegian jazzers take on space rock |
Album: The Felice Brothers - From Dreams To Dust
Dark Western myths and heavenly dreams from visionary Americana veterans |
DVD/Blu-ray: Mr Klein
Alain Delon shines in flawed Losey take on the hunted man |
latest in today
Macbeth, Almeida Theatre review – vivid, but much too long
Remembering the months of lockdown, I can’t be the only person to thrill to this play’s opening lines, “When shall we three meet again?”, a phrase...
Manic Street Preachers, Brighton Dome review - solid gig occ...
There is a three song segment midway through Manic Street Preachers’ set which suddenly ramps everything up. For this brief while, the performance...
Tamestit, LSO, Ticciati, LSO St Luke's review - viola a...
Returning to LSO St Luke’s, formerly a beacon in the darkness of...
White Noise, Bridge Theatre review - provocative if not alwa...
"I can't sleep": So goes the fateful opening line of White Noise, the Suzan-Lori Parks play disturbing enough to spark many a restless...
Album: Coldplay - Music Of The Spheres
Chris Martin has talked, not for the first time, of this finally being the Coldplay era of “no rules or fear”. Swedish...
Album: Finneas - Optimist
This record is a heck of a metatextual experience to listen to. In releasing his debut album, 24 year old Finneas O’Connell is attempting to step...
Romeo and Juliet, Birmingham Royal Ballet & Royal Ballet...
Two households, both alike in dignity … and both launching their respective seasons with a production of...
Maximo Park, Saint Luke's and the Winged Ox, Glasgow -...
Time waits for no band, as Maximo Park’s lively singer Paul Smith opined early into his band’s set. “I am young and I am lost” he declared during...
Karine Polwart, Birmingham Town Hall Review: Expertly crafte...
With a few extra dates to her rescheduled UK tour, Scottish folk legend Karine Polwart returned to Birmingham Town Hall with some tunes from her...
Mary Wellesley: Hidden Hands review - passion in the parchme...
Outside Wales – even, perhaps, within it – few students will have...