The Cramatics - Like Gold (Single Review)

According to The Cramatics, ‘stars that shine the brightest are the stars that slowly die’. I have no idea if this is true or not - I’m not Stephen Hawking - but I do know that lots of interesting things are formed in the centre of dying stars, things like... gold. Incidentally, 'Like Gold' is the name of the Cramatics new track (did you see what I did there? I’m here all week), and it’s worth a listen if you get the chance.

Written by: V O'Hagan | Date: Thursday, 13 December 2012

Blur - Parklive (Album Review)

The summer of 2012 was all about London and the Olympics. Whilst the rest of the world watched the amazing sports on show, those of us here in the UK got to experience some of the special events held in the Olympics' honour. Music played a huge part in the games and sponsor BT hosted a series of gigs in Hyde Park under the banner of "London Live", the highlights of which were the two special nights to coincide with the opening and closing ceremonies.

Written by: Katie Territt | Date: Monday, 10 December 2012

Annie Dressner - Strangers Who Knew Each Other’s Names (Album Review)

The female singer songwriter space is a pretty difficult one to break into these days. With a wealth of options available from established names such as Laura Marling and Ellie Goulding to the well hyped up and comers like Ren Harvieu finding your own niche in a crowded genre is a real challenge. With her debut album ‘Strangers Who Knew Each Other’s Names’ that’s exactly what US transplant Annie Dressner is trying, and mostly succeeding to do.

Written by: David Ball | Date: Friday, 07 December 2012

Plastique - A Paper Cut From A Paper Kiss (Single Review)

If you’re a woman and you’re knocking on a bit (late twenties, that’s when things traditionally start going tits-up... or tits-south as the case may be) you understand all about the pressure to look young and stay young, even if it means hacking your body to pieces and injecting poison right into your lovely face. Plastique, an electro-rock trio based in London, describe their latest single as “a song about the ageing process... how woman are frequently told they have a best-before date.” It’s called ‘A Paper Cut From A Paper Kiss’, it’s out in January, and it’s kick-ass.

Written by: V O'Hagan | Date: Friday, 07 December 2012

Beans On Toast - Fishing For A Thank You (Album Review)

I cannot quite decide whether I hate Beans on Toast or really hate Beans on Toast. Whether for right and wrong I cannot help but take music quite seriously. No matter how much some bands prattle on about how, at the end of the day, they are just ordinary people doing whatever takes their fancy, in actual fact on some level they are all artists. Music is art. A great pop song is art as much as a technically proficient slice of prog metal and a haunting piece of ethereal drone. Yeah, the fact I feel I need to point it out probably makes me a pretentious bastard but for that you will get no apologies. Such a needlessly smart arse introduction has only been put to press so as to give a context to this record. After all, Beans on Toast (aka. Jay McAllister) makes music impossible to describe music as art.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Thursday, 06 December 2012

Boris/Joe Volk - Split Release (Album Review)

It would probably be fair to say that Boris are one of the most wilfully diverse, and often difficult, bands of the last two decades or so. Running the gamut through drone, sludge and good old fashioned hard rock with admirable ease, the Japanese group deserve their place near the very top of the experimental music tree. Having said that, in recent times Boris have occasionally flattered to deceive. Their records have remained consistently good, but it is the classics records, especially 'Heavy Rocks' and 'Pink' that remain most vigorously praised. Joe Volk (pictured, above), meanwhile, is likely to exist a bit off the radar even for fans of the avant-garde scene. Best known for his work as vocalist for Crippled Black Phoenix, whom he sadly left behind earlier this year, Volk is also a creator of delightfully melancholic folk. A bizarre pairing for a split release then?

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Tuesday, 04 December 2012

Tellison - Contact! Contact! (Reissued Album Review)

With the best will in the world, Tellison are never going to be big. You can just tell. Bands that are as good as they are at spiky, hooky alt-rock generally fall into three categories. They either get lucky and get big really fast, get big after somebody at a major label realises they could be made to look really cool on telly or remain acclaimed and loved by many but never break through into the mainstream due to a lack of the ‘cool factor’. Tellison sit very much in the last of those categories. The fact that they are awesome at what they do is neither here nor there. None of them can regularly be seen sporting red chinos, and that is what the currency of the British music scene seemingly is these days.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Thursday, 29 November 2012

Aerosmith - Music From Another Dimension (Album Review)

To say the response to the Bostonian bad boys first new studio album in over a decade has been lukewarm is like saying the good ol' gun lovin' people of Texas are a tad disappointed by Barack Obama's re-election. With mixed reviews and abysmal first week sales in the US you'd think they'd served up the biggest turkey this side of Noel. Thing is, despite numerous flaws 'Music From Another Dimension!' is actually pretty damned good. Although critics have rightly focussed on the album being too long, with too many ballads and too many contrasting styles, it's really not that black and white. Whilst far from perfect, at it's best this is Aerosmith on scintillating form, sweeping away the memory of 2001's characterless 'Just Push Play' with an album that's best described as a glorious mess. A bit like the band themselves really.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 23 November 2012

RNDM - Acts (Album Review)

It’s hard to know what to make of RNDM. They are not really a bona fide supergroup, but then the presence of Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam on bass is probably all they need to get a far greater than average amount of attention for this, their debut album. Musically, this is all solid meat and potatoes alt-rock. There is little of the restless creativity that has been an integral part of Ament’s main band for the last fifteen years or so, but then there is actually a rather distinct lack of... well, anything at all pretty much.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Thursday, 22 November 2012

Victoria Hume - Numbers (Single Review)

Oh God do I love this song. Although it reminds me (in a good way!) of the ‘Call Of The Yeti’ song from the Mighty Boosh, I’m assuming that London-based singer/songwriter Victoria Hume is going for something a bit more profound.

Written by: V O'Hagan | Date: Thursday, 22 November 2012

Seb Stone - Stand (Single Review)

Ealing-based Seb Stone has his finger in every pie. He engineers and produces all of his music, plays the drums, guitar, bass and piano, as well as penning his own songs and singing. His EP, 'Ordinary You' is out now, 'Stand' is the first single.

Written by: V O'Hagan | Date: Thursday, 22 November 2012

Madness - Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da (Album Review)

If you’re ever feeling bogged down with the amount of work you have to do, you really should have a quiet word with the lads from Madness. 2012 has been a stupendously hectic year for our favourite nutty boys; performing on top of Buckingham Palace, at the Olympic Closing Ceremony and a plethora of outdoor concerts was only a warm up for their extensive ‘Charge Of The Mad Brigade’ tour kicking off next week (yes, that was a shameless plug. Buy tickets here). All of this was achieved whilst the band were beavering away at their tenth full-length studio effort ‘Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da’. After their sumptuously conceptual 2009 masterpiece ‘The Liberty Of Norton Folgate’ was heralded by many as the best output of their entire career, Madness had one hell of an act to follow.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Thursday, 22 November 2012

Little Comets - Life Is Elsewhere (Album Review)

Summery indie rock with off-beat rhythms is a very marketable sound at the moment, with the likes of Vampire Weekend and Bombay Bicycle Club making waves on both sides of the Atlantic. With that in mind, it is perhaps surprising that Little Comets have not made much of a dent in the British mainstream. Whilst they're certainly derivative in the sense that they slide into such a chart-friendly bracket, the Sunderland quartet sound remarkably comfortable with the path they've carved on this sophomore LP.

Written by: Jonny Rimmer | Date: Thursday, 22 November 2012

Robbie Williams - Take The Crown (Album Review)

Can you believe it was pretty much 20 years ago when Robbie Williams burst onto the scene as a member of fresh-faced pop starlets Take That? Can you also believe that his return to the band was one of the most hotly-anticipated reunions since Led Zeppelin got together for THAT London show a few years back?

Written by: James Ball | Date: Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Amenra - Mass V (Album Review)

Amenra have always been biblically huge in proportions, even if much of the world has yet to sit up and take notice. 'Mass V' may change that, however, as here Amenra are so colossal that they sound set to engulf the whole musical spectrum in their bleak embrace. Only four tracks long, 'Mass V' pushes Amenra’s music ever further into the depths and, as a result, becomes a record of gargantuan strength and intensity.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Te’ - Therefore The Illusion Of Density Breach, The Tottering World ‘Forget’ Tomorrow (Album Review

Te’ are a nightmare for reviewers, and grammar freaks, in many ways. As if the album title (translated from its original 'ゆえに、密度の幻想は綻び、蹌踉めく世界は明日を『忘却』す。') wasn’t long enough, the Japanese math/post-rock band have made this record full of song names that are even longer; my personal favourite being the catchy 'Having fun at the boundary of the continuous and the discontinuous, the thread of life "sacrifice" a plaything'. Dodgy grammar aside, how seriously one is supposed to take their Red Sparowes on overdrive obsession with length titles is a moot point, but what is not is the seriously kickass nature of this record and the band that has created it.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Cradle Of Filth – The Manticore And Other Horrors (Album Review)

Cradle of Filth really are the musical equivalent to Marmite. Blackened, leather-clad marmite, that is. They are adored by open-minded metal enthusiasts and despised by others. You know who I mean, the ‘Dani Filth? I only liked him when he played in Feast of Excrement’ types of people. Cradle have soldiered on for nearly two decades now, ‘The Manticore And Other Horrors’ being their tenth full-length bestiary committed to tape. After a dodgy mid-noughties period (I like to pretend that their cover of ‘Temptation’ never happened), the British metallers have been on the rise once again since 2008’s ‘Godspeed On The Devil’s Thunder’. But can their latest album silence the critics whilst satisfying the ludicrously high expectations of their hardcore devotees?

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Christina Aguilera - Lotus (Album Review)

Christina Aguilera hasn't had the best few years; her last album, 2010’s 'Bionic' sold half a million copies which, in comparison to the 12 million sold of 2002’s monster hit 'Stripped' made 'Bionic' a commercial disaster leaving the record company’s coffers with much less money than they had started with. She also got divorced, released the box office turkey 'Burlesque' and to top off what has been referred to by some as her annus horriblis, became a size 12 (shock horror).

Written by: Jaspreet Kaur Takhi | Date: Monday, 19 November 2012

Black Country Communion - Afterglow (Album Review)

It was almost tempting to interpret the title of Black Country Communion's third studio album as a bittersweet postscript to their short lived career. Whilst 'Afterglow' is already the Anglo-American supergroup's most successful record - hitting Number 48 on the US Billboard charts for first-week sales - its release has been accompanied by a twitter based war of tweets between former Deep Purple bassist/singer Glenn Hughes and guitar god of the moment Joe Bonamassa. However, recent news suggests the pair have reconciled, with conspiracy nuts left wondering if the whole shebang was merely a clever piece of publicity. It's certainly a theory that makes sense whilst listening to 'Afterglow', a collection of songs boasting so much joyous chemistry it sounds anything but a band on the verge of meltdown. In fact, what's delivered is a stirring musical adventure that takes the seventies hard rock hero worship of the first two records and embellishes it with an increased array of colours, shadings and dynamic textures to create Black Country Communion's most accessible album to date.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Wednesday, 14 November 2012

The Chevin - Borderland (Album Review)

I’m not sure whether I’m being prematurely Christmassy, but this album has real wintery notes, with falsetto vocals mixed with the big-band style percussion making for a fitting yet emotive soundtrack to the cold months. It’s an album that you can build memories to, nurse a hangover to, cry to, and laugh to.

Written by: Joey Green | Date: Monday, 12 November 2012