New music
Album: Peter Perrett - The CleansingWednesday, 30 October 2024
That Peter Perrett is still alive after the decades of bad habits that he inflicted on himself must be something of a surprise to those who’ve followed his career since the mid-70s. First there was England’s Glory, then the truly exquisite Only Ones... Read more... |
Book Extract: Where Songs Come From - The Lyrics and Origin Stories of 150 Solo and Carter USM Songs by Jim BobTuesday, 29 October 2024
For a few months a couple of years ago, when you googled the name Jim Bob, although you’d get a lot of information about me, Jim Bob, the lead singer from 1990s UK indie punk heroes Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, the main image would be a... Read more... |
Album: Pixies - The Night The Zombies CameMonday, 28 October 2024
The ongoing trickle of quirky rock by Pixies reassuringly continues with 2024’s offering, The Night The Zombies Came. The album is the first with bassist and co-vocalist Band of Skulls’ Emma Richardson, who comfortably fits right into the existing... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Gerry and the Pacemakers - I Like It! Anthology 1963-1966Sunday, 27 October 2024
The name is so familiar it inhibits analysis. Gerry and the Pacemakers – Gerry Marsden and his band, a group with a designation pronouncing they made the pace, were with the trends. For a while, the case can be made that this is how it was. After... Read more... |
Album: Halsey - The Great ImpersonatorSaturday, 26 October 2024
For many performers, flirting with death is a pose or a distant metaphor, or simply don’t-give-a-damn insouciance. This is not the case with Halsey on her fifth album. She’s been assaulted, in recent years, by a range of serious illnesses and... Read more... |
Album: Underworld - Strawberry HotelFriday, 25 October 2024
Purveyors of extraordinary energy and euphoria, Underworld never miss a beat. The new album – 30 years on from their debut, and their exposure in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting – once again features music that will always be better live, in the... Read more... |
Album: Bastille - &Thursday, 24 October 2024
Grandiloquent indie-synth-pop outfit Bastille have been around for over a decade. Three of their four albums have been chart-toppers (the other one still made Top 5 and went Gold). They are no flash in the pan.Head honcho Dan Smith now presents a... Read more... |
Isabel LaRosa, Saint Luke's and the Winged Ox, Glasgow review - TikTok pop and a school disco atmosphereWednesday, 23 October 2024
The bar staff at Saint Luke’s will rarely have had an easier night than this one. Such was the youthful nature of the crowd for Isabel LaRosa that there was little for them to do, beyond handing over occasional cans of Coke.The atmosphere felt like... Read more... |
Album: Amyl and the Sniffers - Cartoon DarknessWednesday, 23 October 2024
Amy Taylor’s lyrics on Amyl and the Sniffers’ previous discs could hardly be described as demure – especially with song titles like “Don’t Need a Cunt (Like You to Love Me)”. So, it’s encouraging to hear that the band hasn’t decided to censor... Read more... |
Since Yesterday review - championing a neglected female music sceneMonday, 21 October 2024
Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands is one of those films that, perhaps embarrassingly, feels very necessary. An examination of the history of solely all female bands in Scotland since the 1960s, it is a great demonstration of... Read more... |
Album: Tess Parks - PomegranateMonday, 21 October 2024
Tess Parks’ fourth solo album is suffused with otherness. When lyrics are direct, they are destabilised by the etiolated, freeze-dried voice delivering them. “Sometimes it feels like everyone should be dancing, maybe I should be dancing,” she sings... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Rain - Tomorrow Never Comes: The NYC Sessions 1967-1968Sunday, 20 October 2024
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... Read more... |
