rock
Kieron Tyler
Apparently, Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford’s snare drum broke during the first song of their set at Woodstock Festival. On the new double album Live at Woodstock, it’s impossible to detect this happening. As “Born on the Bayou” progresses, the band’s forward motion is relentless and their dedication to the groove is undiminished during this and the remainder of a blistering, paint-peeling set. This percussion hiccup and an allied perception that it was a sub-standard show prevented the band’s leader John Fogerty from allowing CCR to be included in the subsequent live album Read more ...
Ellie Porter
"Would you mind if I jammed on my new... castanets?" We’re halfway through Eels’ triumphant set at Hammersmith's Eventim Apollo and this is the kind of question we’ve come to expect from frontman Mark Oliver Everett, AKA "E". Expect the unexpected, it appears, is the theme of the evening, which began with an entertaining set from the hilarious and hungover Robert Ellis, a deadpan Texan in white hat and tails who boasted a fine line in self-deprecation, heartbreak and comedy (remind you of anyone?).
Ellis warns the fully seated audience that Eels are going to shake the grand old Apollo up Read more ...
Nick Hasted
This album’s title began as a reaction to fractiousness under Trump, but gained more intimate meaning when drummer Janet Weiss quit Sleater-Kinney shortly before release. With production by St Vincent’s Annie Clark pushing these knotty indie-rock veterans towards gliding electro-pop, the musical differences Weiss cited after 22 years of shared service are obvious throughout. Sleater-Kinney’s abrasive, post-riot grrrl American feminism, forged in the idealistic Nineties hotbed of Olympia, Washington, is the core of their enduring importance. The Center Won’t Hold coherently develops their Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Diamond Head was Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera’s first solo album. Released in May 1975 and recorded the previous December and January during a lull in his parent band’s activities, it hit shops between Roxy’s Country Life and Siren albums. Singer Bryan Ferry had done a short solo tour in December 1974 which culminated with a show at The Royal Albert Hall where he was backed by an orchestra. Manzanera took a different tack.Playing alongside him on Diamond Head were Eddie Jobson, Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson and John Wetton – sans Ferry, Manzanera assembled the whole of the then-current Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Foo Fighters are an unlikely candidate for one of the biggest bands in the world. There’s nothing workmanlike about the sheer joy with which Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins approach playing live. They’ll play the hits, sure, but they’ll stick a 10-minute long jam session on the end of each one, and they’ll also play the 22-year-old deep cut that you used to sing 'Pat Smear backing vocals' along to with your first boyfriend. And you, the audience, will love every minute of it.Here’s what a two-and-a-half hour open-air headline set from the Foo Fighters gets you: a selection of songs from Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
At recent live shows, Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn has taken to describing the band’s current lineup as the best it’s ever been. Boosted to a six-piece by the return of Franz Nicolay on keyboards, the Hold Steady of the band’s latter-day London residencies has been well worth the annual 800-mile round-trip: celebratory; poignant; communal; joyous. Thrashing Thru the Passion takes all of these moods, combines five of the tracks released digitally over the past 18 months with five new ones, and the result is the band’s tightest and most fun album since 2008’s Stay Positive.“Denver Haircut” Read more ...
howard.male
“I don’t want to talk, man. Let’s just fucking do it,” announces Ese Okoroduku, before crashing into the opening guitar chord of her debut album’s title track. This sums up the Nigerian-born, south London musician's whole ethos. Up In Smoke was recorded is just two days, with only a couple of overdubs added later, and analogue tape used to capture gorgeous valve amp buzz and vocal warmth. Such a cavalier approach could easily have backfired had she not already thoroughly learned her craft as a busker before then touring her band for 18 months.The material here oscillates between sophisticated Read more ...
Ellie Porter
Nile Rodgers, the beaming, beret-sporting curator of this year’s splendidly eclectic Meltdown, strolls on to the Royal Festival Hall stage tonight to introduce his “dearest friend in the world”. The appearance of the CHIC maestro is not entirely unexpected given that he was, earlier this evening, at an event across the way in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, but it’s still a delight. And when Johnny Marr makes his entrance, he greets Rodgers with a powerful hug that shows the feeling’s mutual (he did name his son Nile in Rodgers’ honour, after all).A compact, tanned figure in black bomber jacket, Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The perfect primer to The Regrettes comes towards the end of the colourful video for “I Dare You”, the bubblegum update to “Last Nite” by The Strokes that is the lead single from their second album. Teenage frontwoman Lydia Night delivers the title lyric for the first time in the song with a cheeky wink to the camera, but it’s so subtle - and her face is but one of four, off-centre on screen - that you’ll convince yourself you dreamt it. Besides, you’re but two beats away from the drums coming in again, kicking off another fizzy chorus about the all-consuming madness of first love.Now you, an Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Slipknot’s new album We Are Not Your Kind is to be let loose just as the band celebrate 20 years since their self-titled debut was released and five since .5: The Gray Chapter. Any idea that the misanthropic US shock-rockers might have turned down their shtick with time are far wide of the mark. Relentless tsunamis of guitar riffage and pounding drums with roaring vocals power such nihilistic monsters as “Nero Forte” and “Orphan”, as might be expected. However, there are also plenty of darkly psychedelic moments, like the quietly eerie “My Pain” and the whoozy jazz of “What’s Next” to provide Read more ...
joe.muggs
Founded in 1998, the Los Angeles based Anticon collective has become one of the most curiously individual of 21st century groupings. Taking the wordiest and nerdiest tendencies of hip hop – notably the slam poetry-informed tongue-twisting of fellow Californians like Freestyle Fellowship and Blackalicious – and the wordiest and nerdiest tendencies of electronically enhanced psychedelic indie as their starting points, they built a world of introspection and frazzled wordplay that they still inhabit to this day via several dozen collaborative and individual projects.Why? was originally the stage Read more ...
Russ Coffey
In metal circles, Volbeat are a phenomenon. For almost 20 years the Danish rockers have been filling venues with their iconic combination of bulldozer riffs and hip-shaking Elvis swagger. It's the tension between these two contrasting influences that underpins their success. Or, at least, so far. Now, the recipe has changed: the tension has gone. The flavours have merged. It all sounds a lot softer. Fans won't be altogether surprised. Songwriter Michael Poulsen's music has been getting progressively lighter for years. What really strikes you is how mainstream it now feels. Other than the Read more ...