(Partisan) The Bristol punks return with more precision-tooled muscularity and a hint that they won’t be hidebound by genre The ascent of Bristol punks Idles from thrilling cult live proposition to unlikely Top 5 album stars in 2018 was remarkable. It was even more so when you consider that their sound owes far less to …
Idles: Ultra Mono review – pummelling riffs and desolate beauty Read More »
(Wax Nine)The US multi-instrumentalist stops at nothing on her ambitious yet playful second solo album The indie rock of Speedy Ortiz – Sadie Dupuis’s main vehicle – has often taken wayward musical paths. Dupuis’s music has DIY roots, but has long eyed up more grandiose sounds. On her second solo outing as Sad13, the east …
Sad13: Haunted Painting review – the singular vision of Sadie Depuis Read More »
(Reprise)The Sacramento band’s ninth album streamlines their experimentalism and adds a hit of 90s nu-metal Deftones’ dedication to expanding the boundaries of metal has set them apart from their contemporaries. Nonetheless, their experimental bent doesn’t dampen their music’s equally potent hit of 1990s nostalgia: their ninth album, Ohms, feels more pre-9/11 America than Fred Durst’s …
Deftones: Ohms review – fighting time and tide with undimmed ferocity Read More »
Walter Trout – Ordinary Madness Provogue Records www.waltertrout.com 11 songs time – 57:45 Guitar slinger Walter Trout has a prime resume’ that includes time spent as one of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, member of Canned Heat, work with John Lee Hooker as well as his long standing solo career. Given his reputation as one of the …
Janky – Hill Country Foot Stomp Reverb Unit Records www.getjanky.com 9 tracks A student of the music of Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside, Janky is an Austin, TX based musician who prefers up close and personal performances to the big concert hall. Mentored by Texas bluesman Reverend KM Williams and having produced and played …
(Skint/BMG)Pop outsider and lockdown living-room star Murphy distils her disco expertise and musical idiosyncrasies in songs pulsing with dancefloor power The first thing you hear on Róisín Murphy’s fifth album is a snatch of spoken word, an extract from a monologue that appears in full later. “I feel my story is still untold,” she says, …
Róisín Murphy: Róisín Machine review – still inventing new moves Read More »
Lucius Parr – Blues and Me: Going to Texas Self-produced CD 12 songs – 48 minutes www.luciusparrband.com Phoenix, Ariz.-based vocalist Lucius Parr is an old-school bluesman with strong Texas roots, which comes through loud and clear on this pleasant mix of soul-drenched music that’s chockful of stinging, single-note guitar runs and themes that deal with …
Lucius Parr – Blues and Me: Going to Texas | Album Review Read More »
Late legend’s masterpiece gets a massive overhaul that documents period of creative explosion. Continue reading…
Crooked Eye Tommy – Hot Coffee And Pain Blue Heart Records – 2020 9 tracks; 49 minutes www.crookedeyetommy.com Crooked Eye Tommy made a strong impression with their debut release Butterflies And Snakes back in 2015. The band is led by brothers Tommy and Paddy Marsh, the strange name deriving from Tommy’s eye condition. As on …
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Big Pacific – Welcome to the Party Self-produced CD 12 songs – 47 minutes www.bigpacificband.com Based out of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Big Pacific is a four-piece ensemble of veteran Canadian musicians who deliver guitar-driven music that melds West Coast blues and classic-sounding rock into a pleasant, original sound that’s all their own. Led …
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