punk
Kieron Tyler
“Punky young girl needs a middle aged man/ Whose mid-life crisis you began/ …such a work of art…lift up your skirt, let me lick the alphabet/ …what’s under there? I hope to Christ it’s lingerie.” The voice is sinuous, cajoling. The creepy, ridiculously catchy Kate Moss-inspired “Punkyoungirl” immediately grabs the attention on the former dandy highwayman’s first album since 1995. Along with “Stay in the Game”, a spindly, eerie dirge which could have been in Adam and the Ants' repertoire circa 1977/78, it revisits an era when whips were withdrawn from the valise.Adam Ant is the Blueblack Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Was there ever a band to generate such passionate fan adulation as Dropkick Murphys? Keeping up a chant of "Let's Go Murphys" for a good 10 minutes before there was any sign of the Boston seven-piece on the city's most famous stage, the Glasgow punks were in fine voice even before the raucous singalongs began.But begin they do right away with "The Boys Are Back", the track that kicks off the band's new album Signed and Sealed in Blood. It's a song that's perfectly pitched to open every punk rock slam-dance party ever both in lyrics and chugging, clap-along rhythm; though it will doubtless Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
“The boys are back and they’re looking for trouble.” So goes the opening chorus on Signed and Sealed in Blood, the eighth album from cult Celtic punks Dropkick Murphys. As battle cries go it’s a sight more rousing than the similar one by Thin Lizzy, belted out as it is by a choir of Hell’s Angels against a backdrop of squalling bagpipes.You’d think it would be a tough call to make the beleaguered instrument so beloved by those kilted walking tourist traps that peddle their wares on the high streets of Edinburgh sound hardcore, but backed with shipyard shouts and Al Barr and Ken Casey’s Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
Support bands tend to get short shrift, but it would be criminal not to give Evil Blizzard their due here. Made up of three bass guitarists with assorted effects pedals and a drummer who also sang, three members of the band were in pink pyjamas and wearing masks, while the fourth was in black leather and a Hawkwind hairdo. They produced industrial levels of noise around steady riffs and a variety of filthy bass sounds.One member removed his silver, robotic mask to reveal a scarecrow hood underneath, and a song later removed that too, only to be left with a third, featureless rubber face Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Even before listening to the third instalment of Green Day’s 2012 trilogy, it’s hard not to feel generously disposed towards it. Not only has poor Billie Joe recently had a stint in rehab, but after three quick-fire back-to-basics albums, few could deny their current work ethic is impressive.There are, of course, others who refuse to join in the enthusiasm. Many accuse the California punks of being middle-aged fraudsters with pantomime songs. But what’s so wrong with 40-year-olds singing teen anthems? Surely, the issue is quality, not age. Some have suggested, after the the Read more ...
theartsdesk
10cc: TenologyKieron Tyler10cc occupied a strange place. Balancing cleverness and humour, pop and the musically complex with an archness that was never far, they nonetheless managed to fix themselves, limpet-like, to charts. As this, their first box set, amply makes clear, they were about more than the singles and well-known albums like The Original Soundtrack. The four CDs and DVD reveal 10cc as mad scientists whose inventions were more disciplined than the complex stew of ingredients would suggest.Tenology – geddit: a typically 10cc-ish pun on phrenological head on the cover – Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s been a bumper year for fans of Public Image Ltd. John Lydon took his new version of the band out on the road and issued the This is PiL album. His former PiL colleagues Jah Wobble and Keith Levene reworked the landmark 1979 PiL album Metal Box live, as Metal Box in Dub. Now, the duo have re-cemented their relationship with Yin & Yang, their first new work together since co-writing Gary Clail’s “Beef (How Low Can You Go?)” in 1990.The motives for these reunions and restatements of ownership are rendered moot by the forceful, and sometimes perplexing, Yin & Yang, an album which Read more ...
theartsdesk
The Blue Nile: A Walk Across The Rooftops, HatsGraeme ThomsonThe Blue Nile occupy a unique spot in the musical landscape. Formed in 1980 by Glasgow University graduates Paul Buchanan, Paul Joseph Moore and Robert Bell, four albums in 30 years suggests a certain neurotic creative sensibility which resulted in a pretty slim legacy but served the music well.From their first single – 1981’s “I Love This Life”, included on these expanded reissues – to their last album High, in 2004, a dedicated and deliberate artistic ethos has driven the music. Aesthetically, there is something immensely pleasing Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Julien Temple’s directing career has been struck seemingly stone-dead twice. After working with Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols on The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle (1979), then again after the flop big-budget British jazz musical Absolute Beginners (1986), he was made a notorious cinema untouchable in the UK. Exiled in Hollywood, he fell back on his parallel life as a landmark pop video auteur.But during the last decade Temple has bounced back to become the world’s most exhilarating and influential rock documentarian, with films using cut-up, rapid-fire film grammar to tell a story of post- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Ennio Morricone: In ColourKieron TylerThe recent release of Berberian Sound Studio raised the level of interest in Italian film soundtracks. From the moment Ennio Morricone’s compositions for the spaghetti westerns of the Sixties attracted attention, it became obvious that Italy operated to a different metronome than the other filmmaking nations. Morricone will always be a prime interest, not least because he has made so much music, in a bewildering array of styles. This exceptionally good value, neatly packaged clam-shell box collects eight of his soundtracks from 1969-1979 over four discs. Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The concept album can be a tricky beast; Titus Andronicus’s 2010 epic The Monitor more so than most. How to follow up an album that loosely ties your frontman’s break-up to the American Civil War, complete with spoken-word interludes voiced by contemporary punk artists playing historical figures, in which rousing choruses bounce surprisingly out of 14-minute rock operas? The answer, as provided by Local Business, is that you don’t.Titus’s third full-length is instead probably as close to a straight-up rock record as they have in them, bearing in mind that we are talking about a band from Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The three-act drama has an established formula: setup, confrontation, resolution. This first part is rarely noted for its thrilling highs and gasping lows - tension builds organically as characters and themes are introduced before that first dramatic turning point.Contemplating ¡Uno!, the appropriately-named first of three albums Green Day are set to release at six-weekly intervals going into 2013, I am reminded of this structure and wonder whether in making this album something of an anti-climax the California punk veterans know exactly what they are doing. It wouldn’t be the first time they Read more ...