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

Steve Hauschildt - Sequitur (Album Review)

As part of Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt is involved with one of the most in vogue ambient / drone acts around (if any such acts can ever be ‘in vogue’ at all) but 'Sequitur' is something at once more accessible and yet more obtuse as well. Perhaps this is down to Hauschildt’s attempts to provide a more densely electronic release than anything he has done to date with his band, or maybe it is more down to a lack of focus.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Monday, 12 November 2012

Deftones - Koi No Yokan (Album Review)

Some bands are not just artists, they are forces of nature. They are unstoppable, no matter what the world might unjustly throw at them. Deftones are one of those bands. In the aftermath of 2006’s 'Saturday Night Wrist' the future for them looked somewhat bleak. Lukewarm critical receptions had replaced the indiscriminate praise that had surrounded their mid-career high point of 'White Pony', and then bassist Chi Cheng was placed in a coma after a car accident. Most bands would cave in at this point; very few would come back as strongly as Deftones did.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Friday, 09 November 2012

Funeral For A Friend - Best Friends And Hospital Beds (Single Review)

Funeral For A Friend’s follow-up single to 2011’s critically acclaimed 'Welcome Home Armageddon', an album which saw the band approach their music with a new sense of forceful application after the addition of new members, 'Best Friends And Hospital Beds' is set for release by Distiller Records early next week.

Written by: Catherine Rea | Date: Thursday, 08 November 2012

Calexico - Algiers (Album Review)

Ever since the release of debut album ‘Spoke’ in 1996, Calexico have been perfecting their unique, emotive blend of Latino-infused rock and with latest offering ‘Algiers’, they continue to evoke the darkest depths of your soul.

Written by: Brian Thompson | Date: Monday, 05 November 2012

The Enemy - This Is Real (Single Review)

Now that Oasis have left us, someone has to take the mantle of Britain's favourite parka-inspired lad rock. Only those who have an unhealthy obsession with a distortion pedal, write anthemic sing-a-longs designed for people holding plastic pint glasses and sneer vigorously through a microphone need apply. Beady Eye do not count, for the record.

Written by: James Ball | Date: Monday, 05 November 2012

Girls Aloud - Something New (Single Review)

Girls aloud are, without doubt, the UK's premier former reality-show girl group. Some may argue that due to the amount of time they consistently bothered the charts before their hiatus a few years ago, they could even unseat the Spice Girls from girl group domination. A lot of that was down to having a great mixture of catchy and emotional songs the kids loved, the girls loved, and the boys had guilty pleasures for secretly loving too, and in many ways 'Something New' ticks all those same boxes.

Written by: James Ball | Date: Monday, 05 November 2012

The Secret - Agnus Dei (Album Review)

'Agnus Dei' is not all which it immediately appears. This record seems very much to be the result of pent up fury all giving way to true rage in a series of indecipherable blasts of extremity. There is more to The Secret than that, however. The brevity exercised by much of this record does not make it less effective, or less brutal. In fact, the sheer velocity of the anger pouring from The Secret makes it apparent that there is more to their carnal ferocity than just a desire to provoke a sea of headbanging disciples.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Friday, 02 November 2012

Pop Goes Punk Vol 5 - Compilation (Album Review)

Pop Goes Punk 5 is the fifth compilation (usually one is released every year) of fairly recent pop songs covered by bands with a usually less generic or mainstream approach to music, however the way they have performed these songs brings a much more approachable insight into the bands in general - in other words, those who may have given bands such as Memphis May Fire a miss for whatever reason may find themselves becoming fans.

Written by: Marcus Colley | Date: Thursday, 01 November 2012

Dragged Into Sunlight - Widowmaker (Album Review)

It’s a good time for nihilistic heaviness at the moment. The new Neurosis record has just dropped (review here) and, following in its wake, the world is plunged into ever more disturbingly powerful territory with the release of 'Widowmaker'. Dragged into Sunlight’s debut record was deranged enough to drive an alligator to a lunatic asylum, but 'Widowmaker' really takes the biscuit. Comprised of one forty minute track, this is about as close to easy listening as George Osborne is to being named ‘Britain’s Favourite Politician’.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Neurosis - Honor Found In Decay (Album Review)

“I walk into the water, to wash the blood from my feet”

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Monday, 29 October 2012