CDs/DVDs
Guy Oddy
The Hives must be one of the most self-assured bands around – but not without good reason. Ever exuberant, all their tunes are short and sweet, speedy and sharp – just the way that rock’n’roll is meant to be.These Swedish garage punks first came to public attention in the early 2000s and were soon lumped in with the garage rock revival of the time. Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist and his energetic gang of Vikings, however, have far outlived any of the competition by continuing to plough their particular furrow and steadfastly refusing to experiment or tinker with their sound. Mind you, it worked for Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
During the opening seconds of Mirra, an unusual sound leaps out – a grunting. It’s integral to a shifting aural pallete which also features a bowed violin and chiming percussion along with a recurring grind like that of a rotating waterwheel. The mood is chilly, suggesting an environment where unalloyed nature has the upper hand, a place where the seasons define what comes to pass.It turns out the grunting is a recording of a wild reindeer. Norwegian hardanger fiddle (the hardingfele) player Benedicte Maurseth’s thematically related follow-up to 2022’s Hárr interweaves recordings of the Read more ...
graham.rickson
British audiences of a certain age will note Finis Terrae’s similarity to Finisterre, one of the 31 sea areas listed in the BBC’s Shipping Forecast. Or previously listed – it was renamed Fitzroy in 2002 to avoid confusion with another Finisterre off the coast of Spain.This title translates as "End of the Earth", an apt one for a silent film which depicts a community and way of life largely untouched by the industrial revolution. Director Jean Epstein had recently completed an acclaimed but troubled 1928 adaptation of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Feeling exhausted and burnt-out, he Read more ...
Tom Carr
For Nova Twins, the alternative rock/metal duo of Amy Love and Georgia South, the years since 2020 have been a non-stop journey of evolution. Exploding from the independent UK rock scene, to sharing the stage with headline names like Bring Me The Horizon; attention has come very quickly for the now twice BRIT nominated duo.Their first two albums (2020’s Who Are The Girls, and 2022’s follow-up Supernova) were taken completely in their stride, brimming with a confident, sickly-sweet concoction of electronic infused rock with hip-hop and industrial tones. They were both exciting offerings; Read more ...
Joe Muggs
The more time goes by, the more it seems like Dev Hynes might be the antidote to what Guy Debord called “the society of the spectacle”. As is documented in the fantastic recent book Songs in the Key of MP3, Hynes is representative of a type of modern musician whose relationships to mainstream and underground, art and pop, just don’t make sense in the traditional “star” framework of the post rock’n’roll era. He’s defined not by having the biggest shows or iconic moments, but by his connections, his ability to cover ground, his success best defined not as a “rise” to fame but an expansion Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Wolf Alice are a band who consistently over-deliver. Their presentation is so staid, their cited influences so safe (The Beatles! Blur!), their politics so “bad things are bad, m’kay?”, that they give every impression they’re going to be bland and generic.Yet over the past decade and a bit, they’ve consistently built a sound that is super distinctive: a kind of supersized shoegaze that allows their relatively straightforward songwriting to grow into something oceanic and dreamlike. It’s no wonder they fill stadiums, and it’s great that it’s not spectacle, personal soap operas Read more ...
Ibi Keita
Deftones’ Private Music arrives as the band’s long-awaited tenth studio album, carrying with it the weight of expectation built from nearly three decades of powerful records. Known for mixing aggression, atmosphere and vulnerability in equal measure, Deftones have rarely missed the mark. Sadly, this latest release does not live up to their impressive past.The album opens with “my mind is a mountain,” a track that shows flashes of the band’s trademark energy, and later presents “milk of the madonna,” another single carrying even more aggression and melody, making you wonder what happened to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A sticker on the cover of American Dust is says it’s “an ode to the beauty of the American Southwest,” specifically the High Desert area within the wider setting of California's Mojave Desert. North-East of Los Angeles, this region contrasts with the city’s urban and suburban sprawl by incorporating scattered settlements.Eve Adams lived in Los Angeles. Now resident in the High Desert, this landscape is primary to her fourth album. In contrast with its title and inspiration, American Dust is not a desiccated rumination on the impact of remoteness with sparse arrangements and instrumentation. Read more ...
graham.rickson
"Crazy comedy" was a recognised subgenre in post-war Czech cinema. Turn to this disc’s bonus features first and watch Michael Brooke’s video essay Those Crazy Czechs, an entertaining whistle-stop guide which piqued my curiosity about films such as You Are a Widow, Sir!, I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen! and How About a Plate of Spinach?Jindřich Polák’s time-travelling Nazis comedy Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea has been reissued by Second Run, and it’s now followed by Václav Vorlíček’s Who Wants to Kill Jessie? Released in 1966 as Kdo chce zabít Jessii?, this features Read more ...
Guy Oddy
UK dub maestro and producer, Adrian Sherwood is hardly what anyone might call a slacker, but it’s 13 years since the release of his last solo album, Survival and Resistance. Those who have been eagerly anticipating more of his particular take on one of Jamaica’s greatest musical exports, however, need wait no longer.While The Collapse of Everything doesn’t offer too many surprises to those familiar with the On-U Sound, it does bring in plenty of other textures along the way. Smouldering, moody and intoxicating, it is an album that may not hit the extremes of some of Sherwood’s previous Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The history of popular music is littered with bands who fulfilled everything needed to make it. Then fate kicked them in the teeth. Goofin’ good time Brit heavy rockers Dinosaur Pile-Up have had some rubbish luck.In 2019, after slogging the circuit for a decade, their fourth album was signed to Parlophone, they supported The Offspring and Sum 41 on US tours, and their new song “Back Foot” was an ebullient pop-metal classic. They were on the brink of breaking big.We all know what happened next. That virus closed the world. But, worse for the band, frontman Matt Bigland became seriously ill, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Who’d have guessed that a dude who first came to attention a decade ago guesting on a cheesy Chase & Status drum & bass track would likely now be heading for his third chart-topping album? Tom Grennan’s done well.His first two albums lent into singer-songwriter territory. His last one became playful. On his fourth, the convolutedly titled Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn't Want To Be, he’s aiming for the Olly Murs mountaintops.By Tom Grennan we mean Grennan, regular collaborators Dan Grech-Marguerat and Mike Needle, plus new associate, US mega-songsmith Justin Tranter. Between Read more ...