Premiers
Video Premiere: Sweeter Than Before – Scott Allen & The List...
As I probably said when reviewing their splendid album, June, Scott Allen & The List has a timeless, almost genreless sound, or at least...
Rock/Punk/Metal
Heavy Is The Crown – Blacklist Union (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
As a music scribbler, I spend my day trying to make whatever record passes under the pen sound exciting, marketable, and necessary, even when...
Post Punk/Goth
Haunt You – French Inhaler (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Grassroots music scenes: those small yet vital cultural oases in a sea of conformity, comfort zoning, and passionless mediocrity are always more than the...
Shoegaze/Dreampop
Stars – Waves Crashing (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
As they gear up for their first UK tour in November, Waves Crashing have dropped a cool new single to get you in the...
Indie
FAMILY – The Race (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
We might start out thinking rock and roll is all about rebellion and changing the world, that we should wield our guitars like gunslingers...
Pop/Power Pop
Old New Feelings – Felix Rockey (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Rock and soul and heartache and memory all mix and merge in this new one from Felix Rockey; opposites attract, and emotions that should...
Folk/Country
Cocoon – Steve Stinson (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Any music that carries meaning will always reflect something about the person making it. Those who make music just for the sake of it,...
Singer-Songwriter/Acoustica
Fix This Mess – Rebecca Aadland (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
‘Fix This Mess’ isn’t a political song, but it gets to the heart of how we begin the healing process in this increasingly divided...
R&B/Soul
Modern World – Molly Gone Mad (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
I have, to my shame, only heard one song by Molly Gone Mad before this album landed in the review pile, and it is...
Reggae/Ska/Dub
A Fistful of Covers – The Hempolics (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
A band releasing an EP of recordings covering their favorite songs is nothing new. A band doing that while also offering a dub reworking...
Dance/EDM
Walk On The Fire – Mr B (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
It's always refreshing to see artists making music that fits very much into the modern dance-popscape, making songs with instantly apparent commercial appeal and...
Hip-hop/Rap
Snap, Crackle & Bop – Us3 (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Hip-hop and the myriad styles and sounds that it spawned have moved a long way from the soul and funk and jazz and pop...
Jazz/Blues
Ghosts – Mark Newman (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Blues spans a broad spectrum, from the spacious roots sound of a simple, battered acoustic to the full-on electric band sounds made by superstars...
Classical/Instrumental
A Day of Unrest – Eleven 76 (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
In a world where gatekeepers of taste and style seem hell-bent on shoehorning music into this fad or that fashion, labelling it a certain...
Avant Garde
Phantoms of Nagasaki – Vantablack (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Nick Hudson has been responsible for some of the most moving, eclectic, devastatingly beautiful, beguiling, exciting and adventurous music of recent times, probably because...
Interviews
The Highs and The Low: a conversation with Sean Kiely about...
With his latest album Long Live the Low now out, a tour lined up, and memories of sharing stages with some iconic names still...
Live
Deadlight Dance/Flowers of Sacrifice @ The Tuppenny, Swindon 17th Sep ’26
Ahh, those were the days, my formative years spent in basement rock clubs drenched in dry ice, the smell of patchouli, the floor sticky...
Swindon
My River – M3G (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Trying to stand out in a world of guitar-slinging folk-popsters and would-be hipster troubadours when you make music with just voice and guitar is...
News
Latest single ‘So Keen’ from Indie punk band Poets Corner is...
Following a great bunch of reviews & a host of radio plays for previous single She’s Got You Now, Hull’s authentic indie outfit Poets Corner are back with...
Playlist
That Was The Music Week That Was – 080825
Another busy week at Dancing Towers, plenty of cool grassroots artists put under the pen, lots of great music mused over, and lots of...
Books
How Not To Write About Music – III: Starting the Week...
One of the joys of writing about new music is that it stops you from getting trapped in the past. Of course, bands like...
6 of the best
It’s The Sky – Diver Through (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Something slightly ragged and wonderfully real about ‘It’s The Sky,’ the opening track of Diver Through’s latest EP, I Want to be Disrupted. And...
Ozark Moon – Jonivan Jones (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
There is something old, honest and authentic about the music found on these two tracks that make up Jonivan Jones new offering, something at...
Heavy Is The Crown – Blacklist Union (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
As a music scribbler, I spend my day trying to make whatever record passes under the pen sound exciting, marketable, and necessary, even when...
Gloom – Cabbage Patch Kill Dolls (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
There is something about the repetitiveness of the lyrics and the restlessness of the music that sets up an inherent tension at the heart...
Video Premiere: Not Punk – LiVES (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
‘Not Punk’ is, ironically, very punk. However, you might find it hard to find two people who agree on what punk actually is. But...
Rose Marie – August Benjamin (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
At a time when anything that even remotely whiffs of a rootsy sound is suddenly branded Americana by gatekeeping tastemakers and pointless pigeonholers, this...
