fri 26/09/2025

New Music Reviews

Music Reissues Weekly: Rain - Tomorrow Never Comes: The NYC Sessions 1967-1968

Kieron Tyler

The Undertakers were central to the Merseybeat boom. The best of what they issued on single in 1963 and 1964 captured the raw, stomping sound adored by Liverpool’s audiences. But hits were elusive and they dropped off the musical map at the end of 1964. The Beatles never forget The Undertakers though. In 1968, former Undertaker Jackie Lomax was signed to their label Apple.

Read more...

Public Service Broadcasting, Barrowland, Glasgow review - history given euphoric life

Jonathan Geddes

The years may go by and the albums might change, but there are always a few constants with Public Service Broadcasting. There is the recorded message that precedes their arrival for one, a disembodied voice booming out to inform the crowd to put their phones away and not talk loudly.

Read more...

Album: Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal - Catching Fire

Kieron Tyler

Just before the five-minute point, a Mellotron’s distinctive string sound is heard. Three minutes earlier, a guitar evokes Robert Fripp’s characteristic shimmer. Uniting these might result in King Crimson but, instead, these are just two elements of “I Cover the Mountain Top,” the wild, 22-minute opening track of Catching Fire, a studio-quality live album recorded on 20 January 2017 at Oslo’s Nasjonal Jazzscene.

Read more...

theartsdesk on Vinyl 86: Molly Tuttle, Depeche Mode, Pharoah Sanders, Seefeel, Hinds, Sofi Tukker and more

Thomas H Green

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Hannah Scott Absence of Doubt (Fancourt Music)

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa

Kieron Tyler

In 2022, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce described his musical goal as "trying to find somewhere between Arvo Pärt and The Stooges.” Amongst the most arresting and explicitly Pärt-styled results of this quest to link the minimalist composer with Iggy Pop‘s pre-punk confrontationists was the affecting "Broken Heart," from his band’s 1997 third album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.

Read more...

Album: The Offspring - Supercharged

Ellie Roberts

With Warped Tour anniversary rumours in the air, Green Day and blink-182 touring the world, and 20 huge new tracks from Sum 41, The Offspring’s latest contribution to the thriving Pop Punk scene couldn’t have been timed better. Supercharged is landing in the open arms of an already excited fanbase, and the legends of the genre do not disappoint.

Read more...

Songs We Carry, Ana Silvera and Saied Silbak, Kings Place review - harmony between Arab and Jew

mark Kidel

As the Middle East continues to fragment in hate and horror, a tragic unfolding of events with roots reaching back to the middle of the last century, any sign of love and deeply felt collaboration provides a welcome beacon, and signals the possibility of understanding and reconciliation.

Read more...

Album: Permafrost - The Light Coming Through

Kieron Tyler

While it does get very cold in the north of Norway, it’s likely that Permafrost’s chosen name reflects a fondness for Howard Devoto’s post-punk outfit Magazine as much as it does their home country’s environment. “Permafrost” was a track on Magazine’s second album, 1979’s Secondhand Daylight. And, with respect to the title The Light Coming Through, the penultimate track on Magazine’s 1978 debut album was “The Light Pours Out of me.”

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Devil Rides In - Spellbinding Satanic Magick & The Rockult

Kieron Tyler

Just over two weeks before Christmas 1967, The Rolling Stones issued Their Satanic Majesties Request. The album’s title appeared to serve time on the peace-and-love, flowers-for-everyone good vibes of the psychedelic era. A year later, the Stones’ next LP, Beggars Banquet, went further. It opened with "Sympathy for the Devil." “Just call me Lucifer…or I'll lay your soul to waste,” sang Mick Jagger.

Read more...

Music Reissues Weekly: Why Don’t You Smile Now - Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65

Kieron Tyler

The Velvet Underground first played before an audience on 11 December 1965. A year earlier, their two founder members Lou Reed and John Cale were beginning a period of schlepping around New York and New Jersey as supposed members of an equally dubious band called The Primitives. The job was to promote a single titled “The Ostrich,” just issued under that name.

Read more...

Pages

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Mariah Carey Is Still 'Here for It All' After an E...

One of the great moments of Private Eye magazine’s fustiness in recent years was putting Mariah Carey in Pseud’s Corner, for the quote about how...

Joanna Pocock: Greyhound review – on the road again

Joanna Pocock’s second full-length book, Greyhound, tells the story of a single journey made and remade. In 2006, after the death of her...

Entertaining Mr Sloane, Young Vic review - funny, flawed but...

Playwright Joe Orton was a merry prankster. His main work – such as Loot (1965) and What the Butler Saw...

Helleur-Simcock, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester r...

Rachel Helleur-Simcock’s first appearance with the Hallé after appointment as leader of its cello section was auspicious – she became the soloist...

Tosca, Royal Opera review - Ailyn Pérez steps in as the most...

Forget Anna Netrebko, if you ever gave the Russian Scarpia’s former cultural ambassador much thought (theartsdesk wouldn’t). It should be...

iD-Reloaded, Cirque Éloize, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury revi...

It was the absence of performing animals that defined it in the 1980s, but contemporary...

Bacchae, National Theatre review - cheeky, uneven version of...

The word "after" can be elastic when a modern writer is inspired by a classic. Nima Taleghani here stretches it to breaking point, although, to be...

Album: Solar Eyes - Live Freaky! Die Freaky!

Solar Eyes are an indie dance two-piece from Birmingham’s Hall Green. With a sound that binds together psychedelic guitars, foot stomping beats...