fri 12/09/2025

New Music Reviews

BBC Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park review – Pet Shop Boys, Westlife and Status Quo deliver the hits

Ellie Porter

You might think that being first on the bill with a half-hour slot at 1.15pm would be an affront to a band who’d had a 12-times platinum album and ruled the 90s airwaves, but if they are offended Simply Red aren’t showing it.

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Muse, 02 review - bombastic Brit-rock with a sci-fi theme

Katie Colombus

For a band mostly known as a brilliantly ludicrous cocktail of other’s people’s sound-styles, the Simulation Theory tour is proof that Muse have become musical legends in their own right.

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Pere Ubu, Bush Hall review - terminal Americana

Nick Hasted

Pere Ubu are much like The Fall in their dauntless explication of one man’s vision, and commitment to an individual, primal rock’n’roll, initially called punk, but pushing far past its limits. Where Mark E.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Caravan

Kieron Tyler

Last week in central London, the Covent Garden branch of the book and music chain Fopp was selling CD sets branded as “5 Classic Albums” and “Original Album Series”. Each collected five CDs of the same number of albums. Amongst what could be picked up were collections by Kevin Ayers, Fairport Convention, Steve Hackett and Man. The asking price for each was £10.

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Gazelle Twin, Mirth, Marvel and Maud review - sardonic folk

Katherine Waters

Elizabeth Bernholz, known on stage as Gazelle Twin, comes straight from a line of musical visionaries  rebels and misfits whose influences fleet through her songs like will-o’-the-wisps.

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Edwyn Collins, Concorde 2, Brighton review - enjoyable evening of tight guitar pop

Thomas H Green

In March of this year Edwyn Collins released his ninth studio album, Badbea, his fourth since two life-altering cerebral haemorrhages derailed him in 2005. It’s a vivacious collection that runs the gamut of what guitar pop can be, from acoustic strumming to psychedelic riffing to lo-fi punkin’, all catchy as burrs.

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CD: Metronomy - Metronomy Forever

Owen Richards

According to Metronomy maestro Joseph Mount, his first attempt of album number six was a much snappier affair. But it wasn’t until he broke from his self-imposed immediacy that it started connecting with him. In its final form, Metronomy Forever clocks in at 17 tracks of singles, instrumentals and soundscapes, and though it skirts close to double-album indulgence, you’re never more than one song away from a winner.

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The Flaming Lips, Brixton Academy review - an explosion of joy

Nick Hasted

“Thanks for being in here with us tonight,” Wayne Coyne begins, “when you could be outside with the universe shining down on us.” Having clearly experienced a pre-gig epiphany from the unexceptional South London sky, The Flaming Lips singer seems primed to take us all higher.

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Prom 66: In the Name of the Earth review - John Luther Adams's ambitious choral spectacular

Bernard Hughes

This is the kind of thing that the Proms does well – indeed, where else would it get an outing?

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Slade - Feel The Noize

Kieron Tyler

Original UK pressings of Slade’s Seventies mega-hit singles like “Coz I Luv You”, “Everyday”, “Gudbuy T’Jane” and “Mama Weer all Crazee Now” sell for between £1 and £5 if they’re in decent shape. If a copy is needed to listen to, there’s little need to fork out more than £2.

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