CDs/DVDs
Sebastian Scotney
Yussef Dayes brings a particular kind of collaborative energy to the band he leads. It is special, even life-giving. In this type of music, where jazz meets beats and EDM, it does tend to be the drummer who provides all the restless energy anyway, but it is the fact that he is able to do so completely on his own terms which makes it so refreshing. Yes, there are other, similar examples of great drummer/producers around: Makaya McCraven – who has grabbed the moniker "beat scientist" and generally has more hype around him – does not dissimilar things. And with more of a foot in Read more ...
joe.muggs
There’s been a lot of flak flying around this album already. It’s mainly been triggered by Burna Boy’s public activities which have included disparaging the wider Afrobeats music scene of West Africa, and some somewhat overcooked expressions of his pan-Africanist philosophy.And this has then been mapped onto his seventh album itself, with various suggestions that he’s hit creative stagnation reflecting embitterment or backstage political shenanigans. If you listened to it blind, though, it would be hard to square it with this scenario. Yes, the artwork and presentation is more swaggering and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Three albums in, Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons have proved themselves a proposition to be reckoned with. A solid live draw, they’ve supported Guns N’ Roses amongst others, and made the album charts in mainland Europe.They may initially have simply been a curiosity for Motörhead fans in the wake Lemmy’s death (Campbell was that band’s guitarist for 31 years) but they’ve now built their own heavy rock niche. Their latest album doesn’t exactly cut new ground but is a solid addition to its predecessors.The band have a new frontman, Joel Peters, having split with Neil Starr in 2021, but are Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Ken Russell’s horror comedy Gothic (1986) compresses into one nightmarish night the fabled three days in June 1816 when Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) entertained at his retreat Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva his fellow Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (Julian Sands), Shelley’s partner Mary Godwin (Natasha Richardson), and her half-sister Claire Clairmont (Miriam Cyr).Already in situ, Byron’s friend and physician John William Polidori, played by Timothy Spall as a sycophantic worm enamoured of his host but capable of kindness to Mary, made up the party.Both women are 18 and in Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ new album is a heady stew of the loud, the funky and the weird – and it doesn’t let up from the first riff to the last. Make no mistake, Data Doom really does have the band firing on all cylinders the whole way through, so anyone looking for mellow and relaxing tunes might consider moving along.With a new line up that includes Mike Watt’s drummer, Nick Aguilar and Death Valley Girl Nikki “Pickle” Smith on bass, long-timers Dylan Sizemore and Josh Menashe have embraced a sound that suggests proto-punkers Blue Oyster Cult at their most forceful getting down with Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Everything is Alive opens with all that could be wanted from a Slowdive album. “Shanty” is just-under six minutes of out-of-focus, shimmering aural fog in which guitars throb and drums are a distant pulse. An acid-house-type heartbeat is offset against a harpsichord-like refrain recalling Broadcast. Lines drift in about a burning candle and the arrival of night. It all seems to be about the passing of time.Text-book Slowdive then, on a line between their 1993 second album Souvlaki and its 1995 follow-up Pygmalion. The latter became their last release before they split the same year. They Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Let’s face it, well over 50 years into Alice Cooper’s career, you probably already know whether his umpteen-billionth album is for you. Over the last decade, he’s revitalised things by taking a meta look at himself, but, whether harking back to his proto-punk Detroit roots or creating sequels to classic albums, his genial schlock-rock has settled to a calculable pattern.Nothing wrong with that. Worked for Motörhead and The Ramones. As with the later career of those bands, if the listener is inclined, Road has its moments. It's a concept album about being on tour. This is an environment where Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Any surprises which Jump for Joy brings aren’t about the nature of the music or the unfailingly open lyrics recounting Hiss Golden Messenger main-man M.C. Taylor’s outlook on his life, but an intermittent undertone suggesting he’s been considering the rhythmic foundations of The War On Drugs. In the sixth song, “Jesus is Bored” there’s a hint of WOD’s fondness for a chugging, insistent tempo. It’s more to the fore on eighth track “Feeling Eternal.”In essence though, Jump for Joy adroitly showcases the mélange the North Carolina-based Taylor has perfected. In the studio here with his touring Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Thieves Like Us, Robert Altman’s 1974 evocation of 1930s Mississippi, wasn’t a commercial hit on its original release, even though Pauline Kael called it a masterpiece.This Depression-era tale of a trio of hapless bank-robbers was shot on location with no star names. Keith Carradine plays Bowie, the youngest of the thieves who have just escaped from a chain gang. In jail since he was 16, he has a naiveté that Carradine captures beautifully.Holed up in a small town, the loose-limbed Bowie falls for a local girl, Keechie, played by Shelley Duvall in her first major role. Struck by Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Ratboys have been around since 2010, knocking out their guitar-powered indie fare over three albums in their home city of Chicago. However, with album number four, they have decided to branch out and pay homage to the US alt-rock scene of the early 90s with a grunge-pop-athon that wears its influences heavily.The ghosts of Veruca Salt, the Breeders, the Stooges and Neil Young and Crazy Horse all stalk the grooves of The Window. There’s even an occasional sniff of 4 Non-Blondes’ pop sensibilities on the more commercial tunes, like “It’s Alive!”. In fact, this album is an indication of how Read more ...
joe.muggs
A little remarked fact of modern music is just how lush the sound of modern R&B and adjacent music is. A decade ago, the relative harshness of trap beats and EDM synths seemed to dominate sonically, or on the more bohemian fringes there was a meandering haziness derived from the UK influence of James Blake and Burial. But now, in the work of artists like Kehlani and Tinashe – and filtering outwards into pop from Billie Elish to Ariana Grande – all of this is folded together, the electronics smoothed into more traditional musicality, and with production that is sometimes as Read more ...
Tom Carr
Only a few artists can be said to have exploded on to the scene like Hozier. The solo, Irish musician – full name Andrew John Hozier-Byrne – shot to stardom with the omnipresent hit “Take Me To Church” back in 2014. Although his work since hasn’t taken over the pop culture zeitgeist in the same way, he has nonetheless gone on to be very successful.Unafraid to tackle weighty, thoughtful themes, such as LGBT rights, religion, or economic strife, married to his powerful vocals and heavy folk influences, Hozier has marked himself out as a poignant artist. He returns with his latest album and Read more ...