Reviews
Heaven Can Wait - We the Kings Single Review- ‘Heaven Can Wait’ is the first single to be released in the UK from We the Kings’ second album ‘Smile Kid’. The single and album are to be released alongside a sold out tour from the band with You Me at Six.Formed in 2003, We The Kings are one of the most exciting and o...
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Alcatraz - Sound of Guns Single Review- Driving fuzzed up old style rock that coasts along courtesy of versatile vocalist Andy Metcalfe, is oozed out by this live-wire Liverpudlian troupe. Who seek to continue to leap and bound off from the momentum given by their Zane Lowe endorsed debut EP, ‘Elementary of Y...
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Dead Waves - Kyte Album Review- A coasting and, at times, relaxingly cruising hybrid of Snow Patrol and Zero 7 with a few genetically implanted musical genes of Sigur Ros hurled in for good measure. Is the lasting impression left by Kyte after the first few listens to this earnest twelve track debut f...
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Valleys Of Neptune - Jimi Hendrix Album Review- Hello, my friend, so happy to see you again – this wonderful postcard from the past sounds like it was recorded yesterday – class like this don’t age. Every time I hear Jimi, it’s like coming home, my wonderment, my smile that says, forty years on, “yep, you’re the man,...
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- More Than Dawn - Kah Album Review
- Released on March 22nd, More Than Dawn is the debut album from Kah. Part of Manilla PR and Joy lane Music, Kah is something of an…individual. Now I know what springs to mind at the mention of an ‘individual’: wannabes. The sorts of people that wear glasses WITH NO LENSE...
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Popfest Festival 2010 - The Wake @ The Lexington - 28/02/2010 - Live Review- This was only the second time that The Wake have played a gig since the late 80s and their first in the UK for 20 years. Considering their legacy (2 albums on Factory, 2 on Sarah and a pile of wonderful singles), it feels overdue somehow but I guess they have had a life...
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Lost Trails - Butterfly Explosion Album Review- Dream-pop and shoe-gazing – who thinks these terms up? Actually, they both describe the efforts of The Butterfly Explosions very well, probably better than their own name in fact. Spangly guitars, woozy keyboards, breathy-vocals and a bit of sonic feedback to boot – I m...
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Outbursts - Turin Brakes Album Review- There is always something re-assuring about the Brakes – warm sunny mornings, fresh ‘proper coffee’, a wander down to the river/beach and then home in time for a nice Sunday meal and a TV drama. And that is possibly the problem with their perceived audience, well the on...
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Nintendo - Chris T-T Single Review- Chris T-T is a Brighton born singer/songwriter, critically acclaimed for his lyrical genius and poetic ability.Following a fantastic acoustic set supporting Frank Turner at the end of 2009, Chris T-T is set to release ‘Nintendo’, the first single to be taken from his se...
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Know The Joy Of Good Living - Dead Like Harry Album Review- I was drawn to reviewing this album by the band’s name Dead Like Harry? Harry who? Secombe? Worth? Dean Stanton (can’t be he’s not dead). No clues on their website so I guess it will have to remain a mystery.Anyway, the music’s the thing so what of that?
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A Garden At The Top Of The Tree - Fraser Album Review- Fraser Gregory is the voice behind Fraser – a London-based indie/folk-pop band – and he’s looking to make an immediate impact with their debut album ‘A Garden At The Top Of The Tree’.Unlike most new bands that arrive on the scene with a brand new collection of material,...
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The Alphabet Of Hurricanes - Tom McRae Album Review- The McRaenium rides again…and still doesn’t fall off.Tom McRae has consistently proved to be one of Britain’s most endearing songwriters. It beggars belief he hasn’t become a household name.
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Pride Of Nowhere - The Smoking Hearts Album Review- Bloody nora – The Smoking Hearts don’t hang about. At just under half an hour and no breaks between songs, I’m knackered after hearing this thrash rock ‘n’ roll album that is no-nonsense, heads down, hair-swishing-against-the-mic, ball-breakingly loud and rampant. If yo...
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The Sea - Corinne Bailey Rae Album Review- Nu-soul songbird Corrine Bailey Rae, 31, hasn't had a very good time of things since the death of her husband, Jason Rae, a couple of years ago.Now she's back with a new album, The Sea.
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Outbursts - Turin Brakes Album Review- Wobble over, well almost.It’s been some five years or so since this reviewer last heard a Turin Brakes album, the excellent Jack In A Box.
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- Thomas Truax,The Spirit of John,Juffage @ Oporto - 02/03/2010 - Live Review
- It’s only a movie, it’s only a show. The Oporto stage, if that is how it can be described, stands quite literally inside the vast front window of this bar in The Calls area of Leeds. If you were on the outside looking in this evening you would have variously seen the C...
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S.E.C.R.E.T - Delorentos Single Review- Oh I’m really up for this Irish band and it’s no surprise that they have picked one of the standouts for their debut single. It’s murderously catchy without being cheesy and I wonder just how good this sounds when pumped up in a ‘live’ environment.Don’t think for one mi...
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Great Things - Ian McNabb Album Review- Ok, a quick synopsis – McNabb formed and formulated the Liverpudlian anthemists The Icicle Works back in the 80s, a band who really should still be making quality albums. Instead, they imploded and leading-light-cum-raconteur Ian McNabb opted to take the bulk of their t...
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First-Rate Pretender - Yeti Lane Single Review- I got all woozy over the Yeti Lane album released recently, an assemblage of psychedelic coast-rock that contained its fair number of memorable hooks and summer ear candy. However, extracting a song from it and dressing it up, as a single seems an odd idea at best. Ther...
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Hairdo’s & Heartaches - Jack Rabbit Slim Album Review- Round up the usual rock ‘n’ roll suspects of Elvis, sweet Gene Vincent, Billy Fury, and Eddie Cochran as major influences, toss in some Buddy Holly, Cramps and a generous slice of sleaze and you have “Hairdo’s and Heartaches”, the fourth studio album from the English fo...
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Disconnected - Shy Child Single Review- Disjointed and fuzzed up dance-indie-pop proponents Nate Smith and Pete Caferrella. Whose combined enthusiasm and fuzz, makes up Shy Child, have smoothed over a little, the rugged intonations of their last album ‘Noise Won’t Stop’. This is sacrificed in favour of a catc...
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- Reason To Believe - Wishbone Ash Single Review
- There was a time that Wishbone Ash was huge. Stadium size huge in the days long before arenas were de rigeur places for live music. They strode the globe in the early to mid-seventies like some twin-guitared colossus, punching sizeable holes in the UK and Billboard alb...
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- If It’s Good For Me - Stars And Sons Single Review
- Belle & Sebastian collaborating with Guillemots whilst trying to break the record for the fastest ever recorded single, is how Brighton’s piano pushing indie-pop Mike Lord led quintet Stars And Sons, comes across here. Tongue-in-cheek yet strangely convincing lyrics are...
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What Does Anything Mean? Basically - The Chameleons Album Review- How many times have I read the immortal exclamation, “The Chameleons? They should have been huge”? Probably about 100 times at a guess and it IS a question that even eluded Mark Burgess’ point of reason when I met home some 20 years ago at his Rochdale home. “Perhaps we...
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- Hadouken!,This City @ Academy [1, 2, 3 and Club Academy] - 24/02/2010 - Live Review
- Hands sway towards the front like six year olds who have just gotten the hang of the six times table and teacher is asking questions on it. As the rugged edged disco-rock and punk twisting Brighton quintet This City, provides earthy rhythm, urgency when needed and oodle...
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