Alt-J - Relaxer (Album Review)

At 39 minutes and eight tracks, you might expect Alt-J’s third album to to be their most focused, cogent and commercially viable. But it isn’t, and while that needn’t be a bad thing, ‘Relaxer’ is a disappointing offering from one of the most interesting British bands of their generation.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Tuesday, 06 June 2017

Wavves - You're Welcome (Album Review)

Wavves’ seemingly natural rebellious attitude and resistance to conformity is defiant and delicious. Having signed to Warner Brothers for their previous two LPs, Nathan Williams and band are back with ‘You’re Welcome’, a record that revels in their commitment to writing their own destiny (and melodies).

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Monday, 05 June 2017

Zac Brown Band - Welcome Home (Album Review)

Hit or miss retreat from one of country music’s most experimental groups? Heartfelt collection of fan-pleasing treats that finds the genre nomads returning to their musical roots? Take a fair amount of the former and a little of the latter and that’s an adequate summation of ‘Welcome Home’, the fifth album by the Zac Brown Band. It’s easily the most reflective and surprisingly unadventurous record they’ve made.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Monday, 05 June 2017

Danzig - Black Laden Crown (Album Review)

We could all see the cover art: a barely-clothed woman with a massive bat nestled in her cleavage. We could all hear Devil On Hwy 9: Glenn Danzig sounding like Abe Simpson as he scraped the bottom of the bikers’ barrel with lyrics such as “Pedal to the metal on a thousand miles”. We all thought ‘Black Laden Crown’ was going to be terrible, didn’t we?

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Friday, 02 June 2017

The Charlatans - Different Days (Album Review)

For their 13th studio LP, the Charlatans have wheeled in friends, legends and even a literary great to give ‘Different Days’ a distinctly collaborative feel.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Thursday, 01 June 2017

Machine Gun Kelly - Bloom (Album Review)

Eminem famously rapped on The Real Slim Shady that he had a million imitators who “might just be the next best thing but not quite me”. And that was verifiably true – he opened up a space in the mainstream for animated rabble-rousers who appealed to suburban white kids.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Thursday, 01 June 2017

Erasure - World Be Gone (Album Review)

Erasure make for an interesting musical case study.

Written by: Jacob Brookman | Date: Wednesday, 31 May 2017

!!! - Shake The Shudder (Album Review)

It appears that interest in !!! has waned somewhat over the last 10 years. ‘Shake the Shudder’ is the band’s fourth record since 2007, but their Wikipedia biography abruptly stops with that year’s ‘Myth Takes’.

Written by: Ben Gallivan | Date: Tuesday, 30 May 2017

Employed To Serve - The Warmth Of A Dying Sun (Album Review)

Heaviness isn’t really quantifiable. It can be sonic. Emotional. Lyrical. Employed To Serve’s second full-length, ‘The Warmth Of A Dying Sun’, is all of those things. It is the definition of heaviness. That malnourished, yearning sun on the front cover? Heavy. The whispered opening gambit to Void Ambition: “I am a slave”? Heavy. The walls of noise, the barrage of brutality, the gut-gripping screams from Justine Jones? Heavy.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Friday, 26 May 2017

White Hills - Stop Mute Defeat (Album Review)

On ‘Stop Mute Defeat’ New York’s White Hills have shelved their brew of Hawkwind-like psychedelic stoner rock and post-punk to take inspiration from the work of postmodernist writer William S. Burroughs. “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change,” Burroughs wrote in Naked Lunch. “Only those that can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.”

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Friday, 26 May 2017

Dreamcar - Dreamcar (Album Review)

We all have that one style or phase in music that we’ll defend to the hilt, no matter how badly it’s aged. It’s why the likes of goth-punks AFI and ska-poppers No Doubt still command sizeable cult followings. Music goes in cycles, so it makes sense they in turn would choose to work on side projects that commemorate their own teenage obsessions.

Written by: Jonathan Rimmer | Date: Thursday, 25 May 2017

(Sandy) Alex G - Rocket (Album Review)

At first glance, 'Rocket' is a sonically disjointed collection of tracks with no overarching lyrical narrative. Yet it’s not without a sense of cohesion. Inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and the work of John Steinbeck, here (Sandy) Alex G views the darker side of the American dream through a millennial, post-modern lens.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Thursday, 25 May 2017

Linkin Park - One More Light (Album Review)

Let’s have a little trawl of the internet to find out what people are saying about ‘One More Light’, Linkin Park’s seventh LP. Well, what a turn up! It appears that Chester Bennington is on the defensive about his band’s new direction, inviting naysayers ‘outside’ and promising a “punch in the fucking mouth”. Question their motives, meanwhile, and you can “stab yourself in the face”. Well, what’s there to say? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Written by: Ben Gallivan | Date: Thursday, 25 May 2017

Daddy Issues - Deep Dream (Album Review)

A loud guitar can cover a multitude of sins, from rote melodies to empty sentiments. It's one of rock music's last great tricks: where there's excessive volume there's somewhere to hide.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Papa Roach - Crooked Teeth (Album Review)

It’s OK. You can say you like Papa Roach. Honestly. You might get a few tuts from people whose favourite bands’ logos look like diarrhoea shotgun blasts, but so what?

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Girlpool - Powerplant (Album Review)

Girlpool are in the business of harmonies. On ‘Before The World Was Big’, their 2015 debut, they favoured stripped-back accompaniment in order to allow their often exuberant voices to take centre stage. ‘Powerplant’, though, finds Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad adding fresh textures to their musical backdrop, with the arrival of drummer Miles Wintner a notable talking point, and mellowing their vocals in the process.

Written by: Laura Johnson | Date: Monday, 22 May 2017

Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog (Album Review)

Mac DeMarco’s third album, ‘This Old Dog’, is reflective and meditative. The LP opener, My Old Man, speaks introspectively about how maturity has spontaneously found him in his mid 20s. Simple guitar chords play out on repeat as Mac proclaims: “Uh-oh, looks like I'm seeing more of my old man in me.”

Written by: Milly McMahon | Date: Friday, 19 May 2017

Paramore - After Laughter (Album Review)

The rock fan’s fear of the pop reinvention runs deep. It always lurks just off screen; the echo of a sell out chant they fear they might one day have to turn on a band that used to get them.

Written by: Huw Baines | Date: Friday, 19 May 2017

Inglorious - II (Album Review)

In this musical climate it takes real guts to be in a young classic rock band and announce that your goal is to take over from legends like Whitesnake, Deep Purple and Aerosmith as bona fide arena headliners. But with this scorching second album, Inglorious have taken a telling step towards achieving that aim and proved that such unabashed confidence isn’t misplaced.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 19 May 2017

Gnarwolves - Outsiders (Album Review)

Gnarwolves’ second album is called ‘Outsiders’, which is fitting. As a band they’ve long upheld that idea, having always carved their own path through the UK pop-punk scene by eschewing the slicker sound of their contemporaries.

Written by: Jennifer Geddes | Date: Wednesday, 17 May 2017