New music
Album: Khruangbin - A LA SALAFriday, 05 April 2024
This is a reviewer’s nightmare: it’s literally just Khruangbin doing what Khruangbin do. As ever, the Texan trio are rolling out laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western Tex-Mex country-soul-funk groove after laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western... Read more... |
The Hives, Brighton Dome review - Swedish power-pop dynamo are as entertaining as everThursday, 04 April 2024
The joy of The Hives on record is encapsulated by their 2012 micro-song “Come On”. Despite being one-minute long and consisting solely of the title phrase, it fizzes with righteous, effervescent buzzsaw euphoria. They open their encore with it,... Read more... |
Album: The Black Keys - Ohio PlayersThursday, 04 April 2024
It’s been a winding road to album number 12 for blues rock duo Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, better known as The Black Keys. Albums one to five – from debut The Big Come Up to 2008’s Attack & Release – all played in a modern,... Read more... |
Album: The Libertines - All Quiet on the Eastern EsplanadeWednesday, 03 April 2024
Carl Barat and Peter Doherty are "the Glimmer Twins" of their own wayward trajectory through the worlds of rock and roll, stardom, drugs, distraction and destruction.The noughties indie stars, releasing their first album in a decade,... Read more... |
Thundercat, The Halls, Wolverhampton review - jazz-funk bassist lets looseTuesday, 02 April 2024
Thundercat is known for his love of having a good old noodle on his six-stringed bass guitar – and there was plenty of that going on at the Halls in Wolverhampton on Easter Sunday. But this was far from the whole story of his show that threw in sci-... Read more... |
Album: Beyoncé - Cowboy CarterMonday, 01 April 2024
The second act of a trilogy, launched with “Renaissance” (2022), Beyoncé’s latest release has been loudly proclaimed as her “Country” album. In a tradition of surprising and controversial self-reinventions that includes among others Bob Dylan’s... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Status Quo - The Early YearsSunday, 31 March 2024
“So Ends Another Life” is strange. Very strange. The song’s dolefulness is immediately set up with a strummed guitar along the lines of the intro to The Bee Gees’ “New York Mining Disaster.” “In a world of agitation, there’s no time for compassion”... Read more... |
Album: Anoushka Shankar - Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before DawnSaturday, 30 March 2024
We’ve come a long way since 1971, when the audience at Madison Square Garden for the Concert for Bangladesh applauded when Ravi Shankar tuned up. Western audiences were first exposed to the sitar in 1965 when George Harrison played one on Rubber... Read more... |
Album: Jane Weaver - Love In Constant SpectacleFriday, 29 March 2024
“Motif,” Love In Constant Spectacle’s fourth track, is the closest Jane Weaver has come in over a decade to the folk influences embraced on her 2007 and 2010 albums Cherlokalate and The Fallen By Watch Bird. Not that her new album is rooted in past... Read more... |
Album: Ride - InterplayThursday, 28 March 2024
What a time to be alive it is for fans of late Eighties, early Nineties indie – the proverbial 6 Music Dads – with so many of the best acts from the era on the form of their lives. Even in just the last year we’re spoilt for choice of quality... Read more... |
Vossa Jazz 2024 review - Norwegian festival embraces William Parker’s spaciness, Karin Krog’s classicism and much moreWednesday, 27 March 2024
“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as “William Parker, bass” – is firm about the designation under which the three musicians on stage are... Read more... |
Album: Sum 41 - Heaven :x: HellWednesday, 27 March 2024
Sum 41 honour their 27-year career with Heaven :x: Hell, a 20-track double album, due to be their final, without a single skip. Harking back to their widely acclaimed debut All Killer No Filler, the album that gave us “Fat Lip” and “In Too Deep”,... Read more... |
