Conny Ochs - Black Happy (Album Review)

For all the earnestness and pretension often inherent within the genre, singer-songwriter based folk holds a timeless role in popular music. Personal tales of life, love and loss are never going to go out of fashion and one man who clearly knows that is Conny Ochs. His collaboration with Saint Vitus frontman Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich put the German’s name firmly on the map and, as such, 'Black Happy' is certain to receive a good deal more cursory listens from doom fanatics than one would expect from listening to it.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Monday, 11 March 2013

Hadouken! - Every Weekend (Album Review)

Grindie, grimecore, dance-punk and indietronica. Those are just some of the various (and somewhat ridiculous) genres that Hadouken! have been pigeon-holed into. While these give you a vague idea of what you’re about to listen to, the London five-piece are primarily a dance act but they often flirt with ideas in the vein of drum n’ bass and dubstep. From their wacky in-your-face debut release 'Music For An Accelerated Culture', Hadouken! experimented more on the electro side with 2010’s 'For The Masses' but 'Every Weekend' has to be their most secure record yet.

Written by: Katie Vowles | Date: Monday, 11 March 2013

Dan Bettridge - Hunter's Heart (EP Review)

Acoustic singer songwriter types are pretty much a dime a dozen these days, some sticking around and earning popular acclaim (see Ben Howard's recent surge to mainstream popularity) while most disappear back to obscurity before anyone's even noticed they've arrived.

Written by: David Ball | Date: Friday, 08 March 2013

Amplifier - Echo Street (Album Review)

The challenge for Amplifier, having wowed almost everyone who was ever likely to care with their mammoth 2011 opus ‘The Octopus’, when crafting the follow-up was very much one of managing expectations. A band that has just delivered a substantial (in every sense of the word) double album cannot be expected to just repeat the formula. Add in the departure of bassist Neil Mahony and the options available to the band appear to have been growing ever narrower. Thus the band has taken a very different path on this release. It was written and recorded in just sixty days, whereas ‘The Octopus’ took four years to put together. It should come as no surprise then that ‘Echo Street’ is a very different record.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Friday, 08 March 2013

Misfits - Dead Alive! (Album Review)

There are two kinds of people inhabiting this scummy little planet. There are those who are aware of the Misfits’ untouchable legacy. There are also the types of people who believe the Misfits to be a clothing brand, or a TV show about a group of libidinous youth offenders. If you fall into the former category, then feel free to read this review; hell, put the kettle on, you could even grab a cheeky biscuit or two while you’re at it. However, if you’re one of those poor, unfortunate souls who fall into the latter category, then you have to stop reading this review. Go listen to the ‘Walk Among Us’ and ‘Earth A.D/Wolfs Blood’ albums. Then come back and keep reading.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Wednesday, 06 March 2013

Born Blonde - What The Desert Taught You (Album Review)

First tipped for stardom by the NME in 2011, London-based quintet Born Blonde finally released their debut album in November 2012 following a lengthy fine-tuning process which saw them spend the best part of a year inside the studio.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Tuesday, 05 March 2013

Friendly Fires - Late Night Tales (Compilation Album Review)

Anyone who has begun their collection of 'Late Night Tales' compilations (and it will turn in to a collection when you start listening to them) will know that they’re a brilliant way to discover music you’d be hard-pressed to stumble across.

Written by: Emma-Louise Newlyn | Date: Monday, 04 March 2013

Lordi - To Beast Or Not To Beast (Album Review)

Lordi and I have something of a special relationship; it’s a relationship that I feel should be highlighted before delving into a full-blown review. The first time I was exposed to their monstrous hard rock was at the same time most other people were. The Eurovision Song Contest 2006. I was eleven years old at the time. My young, impressionable mind was pulverised into tiny little pieces as I watched the Finnish monster-rockers decimate the (usually rather dull) political pissing-contest. It was bizarre. It was shocking. It was completely new to me. That was the moment in which I realised I liked rock music. Well, rock music, pyrotechnics, and latex monster masks.

Written by: Alec Chillingworth | Date: Monday, 04 March 2013

Tom McRae - From The Lowlands (Album Review)

It’s now 13 years since Tom McRae released his self-titled debut album to rave reviews from critics, earning nominations for a Mercury Prize and BRIT along the way. For no clear to understand reason, his 4 albums since then have failed to capture the imagination of the media while lesser talented "singer-songwriters" have gone on to win numerous accolades.

Written by: David Ball | Date: Friday, 01 March 2013

Gary Clark Jr - Blak And Blu (Album Review)

Let's get one thing clear; Gary Clark Jr is not the saviour of the blues. That ridiculous label was strapped to his back following a blistering breakout performance at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2010, even though it ignores some rather important details. Firstly, as a genre Blues is currently in better shape than at any time since the 1960's, with old masters like Robert Cray, Walter Trout and Slowhand releasing cracking albums that more than match the output of talented upstarts like Joe Bonamassa, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Derek Trucks. More importantly, pigeon-holing Clark Jr as blues does the young Texan's stunningly versatile talents a major disservice. For on 'Blak and Blu' – his major label debut album – the hotly tipped cool cat displays a jack of all trades, master of every one eclecticism as he skilfully glides through soulful R&B, stomping Motown, riffed up rock, slick hip hop and sparse delta blues to produce a true artistic statement brimming with wilful individuality and bold intent. With that established, the question isn't how good Gary Clark Jr is (Answer: he's bloody marvellous), but how such markedly contrasting styles fit together without descending into a haphazard mess.

Written by: Simon Ramsay | Date: Friday, 01 March 2013

And So I Watch You From Afar - All Hail Bright Futures (Album Review)

Ahead of recording this album, the members of And So I Watch You From Afar were faced with an interesting dilemma as to how to progress as a band. Their self-titled debut record and its follow-up, 'Lifeproof', were not desperately original in terms of the musical landscape they travailed, but the way the Northern Irish quartet executed their ideas in such a vigorous fashion that they automatically stood out from other instrumental rock bands. Yet making passionately exciting music can only get you so far. The band’s third album needed to be something a little different, something to mix up the formula just a bit.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Friday, 01 March 2013

Long Distance Calling - The Flood Inside (Album Review)

Long Distance Calling have always stood out somewhat from their contemporaries in the world of instrumental hard rock. The terminology used there perhaps illustrates why, but if you haven’t heard the band before and are expecting your standard atmosphere heavy post-rock out of the group then maybe it is time to think again.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Peace - In Love (Album Review)

Birmingham has taken a real bashing recently, with various news outlets saying that it’s not a great place, not the prettiest city, even bringing Jane Austen into it by using a quote she wrote in her book, “Emma”: “They came from Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr Weston. One has no great hopes of Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound." This quote has been used against the city since 1816 when then book was published.

Written by: Emma Dodds | Date: Monday, 25 February 2013

Altaar - Altaar (Album Review)

We’re all about easy listening here at Stereoboard and so we are proud to recommend to you the self-titled debut album by Altaar. A work of not insignificant quality, and also quantity. Although there are just two songs you will be hard pressed to find something quite so deep in all of 2013. Seriously, this is weighty stuff. You’ll be crying your eyes out more than that time James Blunt’s 'You’re Beautiful' stole your heart with its sincere bed-wetter refrains.

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Monday, 25 February 2013

Vreid - Welcome Farewell (Album Review)

Vreid are one of those metal bands it’s hard to get excited about. Ostensibly a black metal act, in actual fact they are more latter day Darkthrone than a cursory glance at their Wikipedia page might admit. There is little ferocity in their work, and they aren’t kvlt because they don’t wear corpse paint in every photograph of them ever taken. Amateurs eh?

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Monday, 25 February 2013

Robbie Williams - Be A Boy (Single Review)

I was there, aged 16, in 1990 when everyone was swooning-to-death over Take That. Not as delirious as the rest, but I was a fan. Now, here we are 23 years later, the glitter from the boy's second record-breaking reunion is settling, and the band's original breakaway artist Robbie Williams is set to launch 'Be a Boy', the third single from his ninth solo album, 'Take The Crown', scheduled for release March 11th.

Written by: Helen Marie Grant | Date: Monday, 25 February 2013

Sound City Players - Sound City: Real To Reel (Album Review)

Unless you’ve been living on the moon recently, you will know that legendary LA studio Sound City is the subject of a must-see documentary devised and directed by Dave Grohl, which was subsequently released on the 1st February.

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Monday, 25 February 2013

Darkthrone - The Underground Resistance (Album Review)

Some people will never get over the fact that Darkthrone are no longer the ultra-kvlt and true Norwegian black metallers they once were. For these people the fact that Fenriz and Nocturno Culto are now openly plundering the annals of heavy metal history for inspiration apparently equates to some kind of insult. If Darkthrone aren’t going to bother producing black metal at its frostiest then who else is?

Written by: Ben Bland | Date: Friday, 22 February 2013

Man Without Machines - The Kreuzberg Press (Album Review)

Dundee based Adam Lockhart is the sole creative force behind Man Without Machines, whose debut album 'The Kreuzberg Press' is released on Monday 4th March. Lockhart is joined in live performances by Val Campbell (synth), Andrew Mitchell (bass and synth), Michael Benbow (drums), and Stephen McCullough (synth and guitar).

Written by: Graeme Marsh | Date: Friday, 22 February 2013

The Plea - The Dreamers Stadium (Album Review)

I won’t lie. Upon hearing the very beginning of the very first track, 'Staggers Anthem', I heard the obscene amount of influence from U2 and Snow Patrol combined in equal measure and I thought I knew immediately the exact direction that this record was going to go in. To be honest, the clues were already in the album title: Stadium. 'Staggers Anthem' is the idea festival closer. Energetic and melancholic in equal measure with a real emotion and atmosphere behind it that brings the bleary-eyed memories of warm summer sunsets surrounded by 100,000 other revellers. 'The Odyssey' doesn’t do much to dispel that original feeling either, despite taking a slightly slower, more choral singalong chorus-style approach to proceedings. It’s a very pretty way of spending around four minutes of your life.

Written by: James Ball | Date: Tuesday, 19 February 2013