Starsailor - All This Life (Album Review)

It’s difficult for any band to fashion a long-awaited comeback album that both satisfies existing fans and reboots their sound to fit in with a different musical climate. Fail to evolve and you risk being seen as a creatively bankrupt nostalgia act, change too much and you risk losing the audience who waited patiently. There are many impressive things about ‘All This Life’, Starsailor’s first album since splitting in 2009, but top of that list is the confident way they’ve negotiated such a quandary.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Thursday, 28 September 2017

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers (Album Review)

If we’re being blunt, Canadian collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor are one of the few second wave post-rock bands still worth a damn.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Wednesday, 27 September 2017

Van Morrison - Roll With The Punches (Album Review)

Alongside the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, Van Morrison is now firmly in the septuagenarian rock idol club. As such, he can be forgiven for relaxing his creative output, and his decision to release an album chiefly comprised of bluesy standards mimics recent release by the Stones (‘Blue and Lonesome’) and Dylan (‘Triplicate').

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 27 September 2017

The Killers - Wonderful Wonderful (Album Review)

On the Killers’ fifth studio album, ‘Wonderful Wonderful’, the Las Vegas natives open with the title track, which is a sprawling overture that recalls U2’s ‘Achtung Baby’ in its gritty, industrial production.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 26 September 2017

Black Country Communion - IV (Album Review)

Is there anything less final than an acrimonious rock ‘n’ roll break up? Hell froze over and the Eagles reformed. Axl Rose and Slash have reconciled in this lifetime and it surely won’t be long until Oasis stop looking back in anger and reunite. Cynics, or possibly realists, will cite money as a key factor in those instances, but Black Country Communion’s return likely won’t reap any kind of financial whirlwind. As such, this is one truce motivated by friendship and music. And boy, does it show.  

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Tuesday, 26 September 2017

Metz - Strange Peace (Album Review)

The current political climate has been a spark of inspiration for many musicians. A growing number have written lyrics that call attention to important issues, while others have less directly alluded to more general concerns. Metz, though, have bottled up all that anxiety in order to sell it back to us in the form of their third album, ‘Strange Peace’.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Monday, 25 September 2017

Foo Fighters - Concrete and Gold (Album Review)

Setting aside the fact this boundary-pushing release from the Foo Fighters is already being praised and pilloried in equal measure, you have to applaud Dave Grohl. Well aware of the creative coma many stadium headlining bands slip into, he’s spent the last decade trying to make sure his gang don’t follow suit. Such artistic restlessness has largely been successful, so why does ‘Concrete and Gold’ flatter to deceive?

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 22 September 2017

Enter Shikari - The Spark (Album Review)

“Enough. Our next album will bring our message to the masses. I want to reach as many people as possible. We will give this everything. No more self-indulgence. We’re coming for you narcissistic pop. We will replace you.”

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Friday, 22 September 2017

Emily Haines - Choir of the Mind (Album Review)

Since the late ‘90s, Canadian songwriter Emily Haines’ creative output has seen her release solo records as Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton, as a member of baroque pop collective Broken Social Scene, and with indie stalwarts Metric.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Thursday, 21 September 2017

Gary Numan - Savage: Songs From A Broken World (Album Review)

Despite three successive UK number one albums between 1979 and 1980 and over 20 top 40 singles, Gary Numan’s legacy tends to boil down to the same two songs: Cars and Tubeway Army’s Are ‘Friends’ Electric?.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 21 September 2017

Ariel Pink - Dedicated To Bobby Jameson (Album Review)

Sometimes it’s not clear whether Ariel Pink is a genius or a talented fool. Perhaps he’s both. Something that is readily apparent, though, is that he is a master when it comes to making intricate, considered tracks sound lo-fi and off the cuff. Therein seems to lie the secret of his appeal.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Wednesday, 20 September 2017

Sløtface - Try Not To Freak Out (Album Review)

Photo: Martin Høye  ‘Try Not To Freak Out’ would be a great soundtrack to a teen movie, if it wasn’t already accompanying the lives of a group of young Norwegians in a punk band called Sløtface.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Wednesday, 20 September 2017

Rostam - Half-Light (Album Review)

Since Rostam Batmanglij officially went solo in January of last year, the New Yorker has been busy. A production CV that already boasted work with Frank Ocean and Solange Knowles has added RAC, Haim and indie dreamboy du jour Declan McKenna, and while his debut solo album ‘Half-Light’ features music that has been released over the past six years, it is clearly the result of intense studio workshopping.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 19 September 2017

Arcane Roots - Melancholia Hymns (Album Review)

There’s something special about Arcane Roots. Upon the release of their mini-album, ‘Left Fire’, six years ago, the press pushed, shoved and slapped each other to cover them. They wanted to proclaim ‘I got to them first! I uncovered this hidden gem!’ before dumping them just as quickly. The usual.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Tuesday, 19 September 2017

Queens of the Stone Age - Villains (Album Review)

Now approaching the 20th anniversary of their self-titled debut, Queens of the Stone Age have largely jettisoned the brooding stoner rock core that dominated their early albums. On their seventh studio LP, ‘Villains’, the echoes of classic rock remain but they have been coated in a dance-funk infusion introduced by Mark Ronson.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 18 September 2017

Prophets of Rage - Prophets of Rage (Album Review)

Here’s the Prophets of Rage recipe: Rage Against the Machine without vocalist Zach de la Rocha, Chuck D and DJ Lord of Public Enemy, B-Real from Cypress Hill. Looks a right mess on paper, right?

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Monday, 18 September 2017

Jonny Lang - Signs (Album Review)

Whether you’re Walter White post cancer diagnosis, Michael Douglas’s D-Fens stuck in traffic or the most mild-mannered person on the planet, everyone has a breaking point. In the case of Jonny Lang, who’s been moulding his beloved blues into fresh new shapes for two decades, this follow up to 2013’s genre-busting ‘Fight For My Soul’ finds him blowing a proverbial gasket. It’s a thrillingly primal album bleeding with anger, defiance and exasperation.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 15 September 2017

Alvvays - Antisocialites (Album Review)

When you sound like Alvvays do, it can be hard to find room to move. On their self-titled debut, the Toronto band navigated a rich world of gauzy reverb and longing indie-pop melodies so successfully that it immediately became difficult to imagine them doing anything else.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Friday, 15 September 2017

Death From Above - Outrage! Is Now (Album Review)

No, it’s not a typo. The 1979 is on the scrapheap and Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger are sticking with the name Death From Above. Whether James Murphy and DFA Records have anything else to say on the matter is a question for another day, because first we have ‘Outrage! Is Now’ to deal with.

Written by: Ben Gallivan | Date: Thursday, 14 September 2017

The National - Sleep Well Beast (Album Review)

Album seven from the celebrated miserablists in the National finds the band sticking to the same winning formula of gloomy, reflective melancholy. But its outside influences do vary from the usual personal, introspective themes dispensed through their lyrics, co-written here by Matt Berninger and his wife, the editor Carin Besser.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Wednesday, 13 September 2017