New Music Reviews
The Prodigy, Brighton Centre review - a proper bangin' night outTuesday, 06 November 2018
“That’s what we fucking do!” So says Maxim at the concert’s very end, surveying the sweating, raving carnage of 4,500 souls before him. One of The Prodigy’s two frontman, he stands still finally, after spending the rest of the gig pacing and rushing up and down the lip of the stage like a caged panther. We all know what he means. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: John & Beverley Martyn, Mott The HoopleSunday, 04 November 2018
Although John & Beverley Martyn and Mott The Hoople were both signed to Island, the connection went further than being with the same label. When Guy Stevens conceived the band he named Mott The Hoople, the producer saw them as uniting the essence of Bob Dylan with that of The Rolling Stones. Read more... |
Caro Emerald, Royal Albert Hall – an injection of sunshine for the weary soulFriday, 02 November 2018
“We will be taking you on a journey,” promises Caro Emerald at the start of tonight’s return to the Royal Albert Hall, which she last played back in April 2017 – and for the next 90 minutes, that’s what jazz-pop queen Emerald and her slick seven-piece... Read more... |
Slow Moving Clouds, Purcell Room review - a new take on folkFriday, 02 November 2018
The young Dublin folk trio fuse vocal harmonies with superb acoustic musicianship, primarily on cello, fiddle and Nyckelharpa. They bring together Irish and Nordic – specifically Finnish – folk traditions, building them to dizzying heights on a foundation of acoustic drones and group interplay. Read more... |
Corrosion Of Conformity & Orange Goblin, O2 Institute, Birmingham review – international gang of veteran rockers get drunk and get wildMonday, 29 October 2018
Winter came to Birmingham this weekend but fortunately, so did a modern-day, multi-national Viking band of rockers, consisting of Corrosion Of Conformity and Orange Goblin, ably assisted by Fireball Ministry and Black Moth. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Cocteau TwinsSunday, 28 October 2018
Think of Cocteau Twins. Their label 4AD will inevitably be high on the list of markers coming to mind. Whatever they were like as people, mysterious, oblique, shadowy and other similar adjectives were conjured for the band – and label alike. Despite interpretations of them as something other, their 1990 album 4AD Heaven or Las Vegas went Top Ten in the UK, entered the American Top 100 and sold quarter of a million copies. Read more... |
John Fogerty / Steve Miller Band, BluesFest 2018 review - keep on chooglin'Friday, 26 October 2018
Rock critic Greil Marcus observed that John Fogerty’s songs are “about as contrived as the weather”, and there can surely never have been such an easy and instinctive songwriter in rock’n’roll. Read more... |
Sŵn Festival 2018 – a welcome return to formWednesday, 24 October 2018
It’s been a tough few years for Sŵn Festival. Once a genuine rival to fellow urban festivals Great Escape and Sound City, recent events have fluctuated between one-dayers and a string of ticketed gigs. 2018 marked the biggest change yet, but also a return to the multi-day, multi-venue format. Read more... |
Duane Eddy, London Palladium - the twang's the thangWednesday, 24 October 2018
Fifty years after he first entered what was then known as “the hit parade”, Duane Eddy stepped on stage at the London Palladium, cheered to the echo by an audience old enough to remember 78 rpm. By and large, they’d worn less well than the man they’d come to hear, who looked trim in charcoal jeans and cowboy boots, and a jacket of the sort tailors on Nashville’s Music Row specialise. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The ActionSunday, 21 October 2018
From 7.30pm on Thursday 19 January 1967, George Martin and The Beatles spent the next seven hours at the Abbey Road’s Studio 2 working through takes one to four of “In the Life of…”, a new song which, when completed, would be retitled “A Day in the Life”. In late May, fans would hear it as the final track of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Read more... |
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