rescuing musical virtue in distress.
Is a song ever truly finished? Can there ever be a definitive form, one that can’t be improved on? Isn’t there something to be gained from revisiting, reimagining, reclothing music which is already close to your heart? These are all the sorts of questions which must concern Michael Ciravolo and in trying to answer them... Continue Reading →
What better way to announce a forthcoming full-length album than with a cracking new single, especially if you can also call in your long-term musical buddies to help with the workload. To this end, Fred Abong has unleashed not one but two videos, one lyricocentric, the other a more visually narrative based affair, filmed by... Continue Reading →
Forgive me for repeating something which tends to raise its head whenever I put pen to paper on behalf of a new Tombstones In Their Eyes record, but it does really get to the heart of what makes them stand out from the rest of the post-punk pack. As the imaginary needle drops on the... Continue Reading →
Silverback Colony, (great name by the way) has been a revolving door for the great and the good of the musical world since its inception nearly a decade ago, with one permanent member in the form of the beard-stroking Gabriel Douglas at the helm of the musical ship. Here, aided and abetted by multi-instrumentalist Kai... Continue Reading →
It is thanks to bands such as Circu5 that the term prog has shaken off some of its old image and is becoming cool again. Following in the footsteps of bands such as Porcupine Tree, Dream Theatre and Muse, it through blending the tight and to-the-point aggressiveness of alt-rock with the more thoughtful and a... Continue Reading →
Good things come to those who wait. That is what the old adage says and it is certainly true of the latest release from Home Is West if the buzz on the streets is to be believed. Set for release earlier in the year, like many things, the pandemic put paid to their initial plans... Continue Reading →
Love songs are, all too often, known for being sweet, schmaltzy and slightly saccharine affairs, high on romance and sentiment, low on intimacy and honesty. In short they are, generally speaking, dishonest. When I Fell In Love With You is the antidote to all of that. It has a loose and ragged quality, again a... Continue Reading →
There is always the thrill of the unexpected felt when diving into a new song from Beauty in Chaos. Not because you go in wondering if they are going to knock it out of the sonic park… that is pretty much a given…the excitement comes from seeing who BIC main man Michael Ciravolo has got... Continue Reading →
And the winner of the best song title of 2020 goes to Swiss goth ’n’ rollers Hell Boulevard, namely, You Had Me At Fuck Off, a phrase which seems to both sum up their belligerence and anti-establishment stance as well as the underlying attitudes currently bubbling up in society given the tiring tirade of global... Continue Reading →
You have to love a bit of sonic tease. Okay, the first track drifts by innocently enough but soon you realise that you nearly a minute in to the second track and little apart from the building of hazy sonics has happened and you begin to wonder what this is all about. Then Follow Me... Continue Reading →
Some bands sound as if they are inspired by 90’s alt-rock. Velodrone sound as if they ARE 90’s alt-rock. And I mean that in the most flattering of ways. It is easy to listen to past bands and simply copy their sonic moves, but Velodrone is a band that captures so much more; the world-weary... Continue Reading →
You know that you are doing something right when you have everyone from Sepultura’s Iggor Cavalera and Jamacian dub icon Scientist lining up to remix your songs. And that is the position that eclectic Chilean outfit Como Asesinar A Felipes…CAF for short…find themselves in. Known for blending all manner of genres from hip-hop to rock... Continue Reading →
It is safe to say that Gabrielle’s Fire is a confusing prospect when you first stumble into its sonic clutches. But that’s a good thing, right? Confusing implies that it is not predictable or that it conforms to expectations. That it doesn’t merely follow fad or fashion, that it twists and turns, challenges and confounds.... Continue Reading →
The Haunt is nothing less than the sound of rock and roll traditions and pop predictability being dragged kicking and screaming in to bright new futures. That is a clever trick to be able to pull off and “Constant” is a great example of it in action. There are plenty of...Read the full review at The... Continue Reading →
There is nothing like kicking off an album with some beguiling and engaging sounds, the sort of musical exoticism which grabs the listener right from the first languorous and luxurious vocal, the first skittering and skewed beat. That’s how you get peoples attention and Bakhchalarda does just that and does it perfectly. A blend of... Continue Reading →
It’s great to hear the various singles and one-off songs as they issue from a band but I’m old school and still view these as just tasters and teasers for the bigger release. A full album gives you a wonderful insight into a band, it acts as a sonic character study, it takes you on... Continue Reading →
If you were going to place Black Note Graffiti on a musical timeline of rock’s ebbs and flows, you would place them very much in the here and now. But not because they are just part of the modern pack particularly, more because they are forging a sound which is part past musical glories and... Continue Reading →
Heartfelt promises, a personal challenge and unlikely inspirations are what drives, multi-instrumentalist and obvious fan of Spoonerisms, Tash Hagz’s first single release. Having made a vow to his father that he would write, record and release a song that was totally of his own creation before he turned 50, it was to the story of... Continue Reading →
Remixes of songs can fulfil a number of roles in music. To some artists they are just a way of getting more milage out of the current single, a collectible cop-out at best adding little to the musical landscape. To others they are means by which to explore the hidden depths of a song, to... Continue Reading →
Rock music, perhaps more than any other genre, has kept the idea of labels, demarkations and sub-genres alive even as the rest of the musical world has embraced a more post-genre attitude towards such things. But, as always, where you chose to place any band on the musical map really depends on your own individual... Continue Reading →
Although you wouldn’t really call King and Queen pop-punk, sonically it ticks a lot of the same boxes, which gets my vote because it means that you get the same pop punch, rock grunt and cool punksome swagger without having to put up with all those big shorts, smug demeanours and toilet humour references. Everyone's... Continue Reading →
Channelling swathes of 90’s alt-rock and even the hints of the previous decades post-punk reinventions, Coldswell take a melodic rock sound and proceed to knock off any remaining smooth edges, add angular and often abrasive riffs, staccato deliveries and anthemic yet brooding vocal punches. That’s a lot to fit into one song but then Dark... Continue Reading →
As the opening salvo of Yesterdays, the song which first turned me on to the delights of this band, rolls confidently out of my speakers, oddly enough the first thing I think about is how small the world is, how cyclical music can be and how great ideas are not governed by time and place.... Continue Reading →
There has always been a sweet spot to be found between rock weight, indie cool and pop infectiousness, and the search for it has become a legendary quest for a sort of sonic Holy Grail. It is only in such sacred places that the effect of these three influences mixes with perfection, a heady blend... Continue Reading →
A new album from Beauty in Chaos is always something which generates a lot of excitement. There are not many bands who manage to marry alt-rock swagger, post-punk inventiveness, brooding, gothic overtones and old school rock and roll so effortlessly, certainly none which do so without falling for the usual cliches. And if Michael Ciravolo... Continue Reading →
A song isn’t just about musical structures and lyrical ideas. Those are important of course but a song is much more than that. It is about vibe and feeling, emotion and delivery, authenticity and believability. If you don’t have those things you basically just have a car without an engine. It appears to have all... Continue Reading →
As always, A Shoreline Dream seem to pose more questions than they present answers for with their latest release. Then again, if your music isn’t working that hard then perhaps it is just taking up too much space anyway. Seek To Hide is certainly a cluster of contradictions, one that will ponder notions such as... Continue Reading →
I’m sure that you get asked this a lot but what is it like being siblings in a band? What are the plus points and what problems, if any, does such a relationship come with? The Haunt: It’s definitely a lot less complicated than people think. The biggest plus of being siblings in a band... Continue Reading →
Okay, I'm late to the party as ever. But if GagReflex can take 3 years to follow up A Mouthful of Marbles, then I think that I can be three weeks late in getting around to a review. But I’m here now…so what’s going on? Well, it’s safe to say that a lot has changed... Continue Reading →
With its almost ballad-like point of sonic embarkation, it is easy to think that you may have somehow cued up the wrong song…or what ever the digital equivalent might be. Experience has taught us that Heavy AmericA are masters of low-slung, howling, growling, riffed up and rocked out music, so where is the grunt, the... Continue Reading →