CDs/DVDs
Guy Oddy
It may be half a decade since The Kills graced us with their Blood Pressures album and its more produced take on their original grubby punk blues sound. The wait for something new has been largely due to Jamie Hince undergoing several operations on his hand, and consequently having to relearn how to play his guitar, rather than to any great sonic re-evaluation and revamping of their shtick. For, despite band claims to the contrary, not that much has changed and Ash and Ice, like its predecessor, is a not-too-glossy bluesy art-rocker that exudes angst and misery and a more than slightly Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Penda’s Fen has so many constituent parts it could burst its seams. Almost-18 schoolboy Stephen Franklin is struggling with determining the nature of his sexuality. His school is about regimentation and promotes the army with drill, uniforms and expectations that commands are to be followed. With his father, the Reverend Franklin, Stephen has prolonged discussions about the nature of faith. The local landscape is mystical, and seems able to manifest historic and mythical figures from its own past. Reawakened Paganism is upsetting the Christian present. All this is happening against a backdrop Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Just over three years ago, I was swooning for this very site over Tegan and Sara’s masterful shift from indie rock to full-bodied, floor-filling, retro-inspired electropop. But as catchy and cathartic as that album, Heartthrob, was, ultimately it only hinted at the ability of the Quin twins to write an all-consuming, gigantic pop song. Their eighth album, Love You to Death, is the one on which the longest build in the history of modern pop finally breaks: that song is called “Boyfriend”, it’s a giddy rush of gender-bending sugar-spun queer-pop, and it deserves to be absolutely massive.As, too Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Last May, Malmö trio Death and Vanilla issued the To Where the Wild Things are album and it seemed they had arrived as a fully formed post-Broadcast proposition, harmoniously fusing vintage influences like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Italian giallo soundtracks and The United States of America. With its cover imagery evoking the British Ghostbox label, To Where the Wild Things are could have been dismissed as havng thumbed a ride on a musical excursion begun by others. But the album was so assured and stuffed with such dreamy melodies it transcended the inspirations. Death and Vanilla were Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Kevin Rowland, throughout his career, has been a man who doesn’t brook compromise, whatever the consequences. He seems to have mellowed slightly with age but he still appears to do precisely what he wants, however bizarre, unexpected and possibly commercially suicidal.That he has followed up the enjoyable, witty and critically acclaimed 2012 concept album One Day I’m Going To Soar, and the magnificent theatrical shows that accompanied it, with an album of Irish songs – seasoned with a side order of Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Joni Mitchell, LeAnn Rimes, and Jerome Kern – shouldn’t raise too Read more ...
joe.muggs
In 2016, grime is facing a new test of its ability to operate on its own terms. At the start of this decade the genre was flirting with major label crossover that resulted in a few great pop records, but all too often diluted its musical impact or left its stars stuck in contractual or “artist development” limbo. Other urban genres pushed it aside, and it was no longer the only game in town for inner city youth.By stages, though, it reasserted itself. Around 2012-13, its instrumental side became respected as a serious force within clubland, and the Butterz organisation proved that it was Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The latest in a long tradition of Russian Second World War films, Sergei Mokritsky’s Battle for Sevastopol itself emerged out of conflict. Initiated as a "status" joint project between Russia and Ukraine well before relations between those two countries soured, production continued despite the rift that deepened between them. The film premiered in both on the same day in April 2015, earning considerable – and equal – box office success on both sides of a border riven by war.It’s also that rare thing, a Russian-language mainstream film that has the potential to travel beyond its original Read more ...
Graham Fuller
In a Lonely Place (1950) contains one of the most harrowing night-time drives in all of film noir. Dix Steele (Humphrey Bogart), a volatile screenwriter suspected of murder, accidentally learns that his new girlfriend, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), has been freshly interviewed by detectives. In one of his uncontrollable rages, Dix slaloms through the Hollywood hills, the terrified Laurel in the passenger seat, and scrapes the paint off another car. He beats up the young driver for yelling at him and is about to smash his skull when Laurel screams at him. Is it any wonder she starts to regret Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There’s been wave after wave of successful acoustic singer-songwriters this century, whimpering so-and-sos from David Gray onwards, through Damien Rice, Newton Faulkner, James Blunt, Ed Sheeran, and on and on and on. Every year sees a new heap of them dumped on the public like bowls of flea eggs. Meanwhile, and here’s the real point, one of the genre’s giants remains relatively unheard. Malcolm Middleton’s dourly humorous, existential albums are studded with gems of heartache, wry gloom and inspired observation. Unfortunately, after five of them, he closed up shop in 2009. Until now.Middleton Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Journalism is not what it was and nor quite is the journalism movie. Spotlight is released as a home entertainment with a sticker on the packaging announcing its Oscars for best picture and best original screenplay. It is certainly a gripping story of old-school hacks speaking truth to power. In this case the honours go to the Boston Globe, which took on the might of the Catholic Church to expose the cover-up in which the names of 90 priests linked to cases of historic sexual abuse were locked in a bottom drawer and out of the public domain.The film tells of the efforts by the newspaper’s Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Transmission fades in with “Metal Box”, a droning minimalist soundscape that evolves with a steadily building pulse that is brooding, cinematic and a tasty hint of things to come. Icy European synths dominate the sonic pallet of Death In Vegas’s sixth album, with Richard Fearless and new collaborator, the artist, writer and former porn actor Sasha Grey, dumping the restraints of guitars and song structure and laying down some enthralling electronic sounds and grooves that make for quite a trip.Transmission’s ambience takes the same cues from JG Ballard’s dystopian visions as sonic pioneers Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Over the horizon they come; the anniversaries; joyous, arduous, remorseless.” The opening words of Stuart Maconie’s fine, nuanced essay in the book accompanying this 20th-anniversary reissue of Manic Street Preachers’ fourth album acknowledge the inescapable fact that today’s heritage rock industry is indeed largely about anniversaries and their close cousin the reunion. Bands tour to air one of their past albums in track-by-track order. Others reform to run through their catalogue of 20, 30 years ago. These living jukeboxes seek to revitalise music that was frozen in time, so kept fresh Read more ...