CDs/DVDs
joe.muggs
There's something oddly innocent, gauche even, about the US-based Anglo-Finnish trance trio Above & Beyond. They are almost implausibly huge – their weekly radio show, called "Group Therapy" after their 2011 second album, has some 25 million listeners, and polls consistently rank them among the most popular DJs in the world. Yet in a global scene dedicated by oafish American EDM bros and Dutch and Scandi DJs engaged in an arms race with said bros to achieve maximum empty audiovisual bang-per-buck – ultimately approaching something resembling something vaguely totalitarian in its Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
On paper Django Django seem a perfect band. The four-piece, half Scottish, quarter English, quarter Northern Irish, boast an indie songwriting sensibility, but filtered through a natural pop suss, an engaging sense of psychedelia, a desire to rave it up, and a ripe capacity for harmonisation. Their third album is fat with melody and interest, right from its ballistic opening title track, yet in the end, why is it eminently likeable rather than loveable?See, I keep trying to have a love affair with Django Django’s music. Their last album, Born Under Saturn (2015), sounds luscious but in the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Adapted by Raymond Briggs from his best-selling graphic novel, When the Wind Blows was released in 1986 and stands up so well that you’re inclined to forgive its flaws: namely David Bowie’s leaden theme song and an abundance of fairly flat black humour. Though, in hindsight, Jimmy T Murakami’s deadpan, quasi-realist look at nuclear Armageddon as it befalls an elderly working class British couple shouldn’t be amusing.As with all the best animated features, the storytelling grips to the extent that you forget that you’re not watching a flesh-and-blood cast. Not that there’s much story, other Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The Time is Now sees Craig David's career well into its Indian summer. The story of how he got here is well known: back in the early noughties a series of hits like "7 Days" made him the toast of the UK Garage scene. Then comedian Leigh "Bo' Selecta " Francis turned David into a figure of fun. The singer relocated to Miami to become a club DJ. Finally, he returned to the UK and released the Number One album, Following My Intuition.It wasn't just the latter's sales figures that were impressive. Over the past two years, David has also picked up a MOBO and filled London's 02 arena Read more ...
Guy Oddy
If sunny tunes that put a spring in your step and a positive spin on the day are what you are looking for to blast away the Arctic-powered January Blues, then Hollie Cook has them in spades. Vessel of Love is the daughter of Sex Pistol Paul Cook and the former Slit’s third solo album and one that is awash with lilting lovers rock grooves that bring to mind the classic pop reggae sounds of the legendary Janet Kay and even has hints of Lily Allen’s summery debut album Alright, Still on occasion. This is mellow music for swinging hips and, as the temperature plummets, it’s just what the doctor Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Rungano Nyoni’s debut feature premiered at last year’s Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, and immediately marked the Lusaka-born, Wales-raised director down as a figure to watch. Putting her film into any category is more challenging, though, with its elements of fable and somewhat surreal satire, although “surreal” and any associated hints of the absurd risk saying more about the perspective of the observer than the world Nyoni herself depicts.But however you look at it, I Am Not a Witch is a startling, vibrant piece of filmmaking. Over a spare 90 minutes Nyoni follows her nine-year-old Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The third album from Thomas White under his Fiction Aisle moniker is a match for its delicious, under-heard predecessors. White remains best known for his output with The Electric Soft Parade and Brakes but the prolific Fiction Aisle (three albums since 2016) deserve to gain wider purchase. This time round the mood is more tentatively upbeat than previously, and White’s Pink Floyd-ish tendencies are on the back burner, but, at its core, cosmic easy listening is still the game.The Fiction Aisle aspire to John Barry’s cinematic orchestrated scope, but tinted with hints of Morrissey’s vocal tics Read more ...
howard.male
Growing up with the music of David Bowie is probably not the best grounding for being a music critic because it raises expectations unreasonably high for every other adventurous musician one happens upon. When I first heard the intense, bordering-on-hysterical music of Merrill Garbus (the main creative force behind Tune-Yards) eight or so years ago, I actually had to get up from my desk and pace the room. I was so excited to hear something that both acknowledged pop and rock templates and crushed them underfoot. But with love comes responsibility. But unfortunately Garbus seems to have Read more ...
Katie Colombus
With the tragic passing of Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, I've been thinking a lot about the importance of the soundtrack to youth. I spent days wailing along to "Ode to My Family", raging out to "Zombie" or bouncing around the local indie disco with friends to "Linger". They are moments that now seem frozen in that time, that were reflected in the quirks, uniqueness, newness and message of the Cranberries' sound.What strikes me with First Aid Kit's Ruins is a similarity (perhaps imagined as I'm consumed with memories of one of my old faves) in the uniqueness of Swedish Read more ...
Owen Richards
Hounds of Love is the latest in a long line of small-budget Australian horrors “based on true events” – it must be something about the heat. However, stellar performances and a refreshing depth in characterisation make this thriller stand apart from its genre mates.On paper, Hounds of Love sounds grimly formulaic: sociopaths John and Evie White abduct a young girl from the streets of Perth, chain her to a bed and perform gruesome acts on their new plaything. But where lesser films would find twisted thrills in torture, first time director/writer Ben Young instead draws tension from the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Many hard rock aficionados say that Motörhead’s greatest work was all with the “classic” line-up of Lemmy, drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor and guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke (who died last week aged only 67 - this review was written before that news came through). While there’s no denying their 1976-82 output was storming, Motörhead’s later career contained multitudes of gems that were its match. The band’s guitarist for this period, for 31 years from 1984 until Lemmy’s death, was Phil Campbell. He now releases the debut album by a band he formed with his three sons shortly after his Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The Limiñanas are considered something of a musical jewel across the Channel but, like many fine mainland European bands before them, have been somewhat criminally ignored in the UK over their nine-year career. In a just world and with the wind blowing in the right direction, Shadow People, their latest album of beguiling and psychedelic guitar pop, however, would certainly change that. Well, if the anglophone world was more prepared to listen to pop songs that aren’t necessarily sung in an approximation of the Queen’s English, it might.Taking its cues from the more relaxed end of the Velvet Read more ...