rescuing musical virtue in distress.
As Lights of the City sets off, those not paying close attention might have Distant Voices marked down as just another gap-year troubadour, a guy with a guitar and a hat worn at a rakish angle, regaling us with his worldly wisdom regarding love, loss, longing and how he plans to make the world a... Continue Reading →
Bristol indie music legend Davey Woodward and The Winter Orphans presents bad Day', the latest single from their 'Love and Optimism' LP. Best known for his bands The Brilliant Corners, The Experimental Pop Band and Karen, they recorded this album 'live' in the studio. A very personal collection, this is Woodward's most emotional performance, putting Davey solidly amongst the best songwriters of... Continue Reading →
Liverpool's rejuvenated songsmiths Candy Opera present their new single 'Tell Me When The Lights Turn Green'. A carefully crafted, country-esque ballad that perfectly expresses Candy Opera’s new sound for 2021, reflecting on all our yearnings with openness and candour, this song has all the sensibilities of a classic ballad. This is the second single from their new album 'The Patron... Continue Reading →
I always find it odd that most punk music I hear just seems to be a harkening back to the music of a previous generation whereas the post-punk sound somehow seems to have moved with the times and surfed over the fad and fashion and still sounds relevant today. Maybe it is the genre's traditions... Continue Reading →
It’s the same old story. You form a band, play some gigs, rub shoulder with the likes of Tom Robinson and The Monochrome Set, have tea and cakes with Slade and party with Paula Yates at the 1987 Brits. You split up, move on with your lives. And then 30 years on a record label... Continue Reading →
Whilst many artists seem to be too focused on creating the next sound and being first to surf the incoming zeitgeist, and others happier to just repackage the sounds of the past, the really smart artists understand that the place to be is somewhere between the two approaches. Artists such as John Lathrop who makes... Continue Reading →
It’s great when a song's musical make-up reflects the message being pushed in its lyrics. So, as James O'Connor reinforces the edge of madness vibe by repeated use of the title as a recurring lyrical motif, he does so over a brooding bassline and simple, relentless beat to drive the idea home. And by the... Continue Reading →
There is something wonderfully early 90’s and alternative about What’s Going On, a certain fragility and a sort of outsider vibe, one which seems plant a flag for creativity over commerciality, but remains a commercially viable option nonetheless. And it is that preference for substance over style, whilst remaining as stylish as hell, which is... Continue Reading →
There is something wonderfully tribal about the back-beat and rumbling bass line of this latest release from Charlie Nieland, the title track of his forthcoming album. The constant hypnotic punctuation, a primeval call to arms, the pulsing of a global sonic heart, both a simple rhythm and a universal dance. And on top of this... Continue Reading →
My first thought when hearing opening salvo These Days Are Ours is that this band had possibly broken into my house, looked through the stack of vinyl leaning against the stereo and made an album which perfectly blended everything which I adore musically. Then I read up a bit on the band's back story, that... Continue Reading →
I love the way that Madeline Rosene can deftly walks both side of the tracks simultaneously. Numb saw her wandering between the heady highs of stardom and the hidden lows of the isolation that it brings, here she does a similarly sure-footed dance between sanity and the breaking point just beyond. Again it is all... Continue Reading →
Anything that comes at you with a jaunty bounce and outsider-indie vibe reminiscent of the mighty Wonder Stuff is more than alright in my book and there is the same sense of fun found driving opening salvo Show Me Everything That You Are. When the band last passed under the pen, with Deep Inside Your... Continue Reading →
When most creative people were bemoaning their lack of freedom, lack of access to their art-spaces and stages, creating a wave of, often, let’s face it uninspired, live-stream shows from their downstairs toilet due to pandemic imposed strictures, at least two people were swimming against the tide of lockdown's lack-lustre reactions. After all if an... Continue Reading →
Up until now, most journalistic pens put to paper regarding Paul Lappin have dwelt on the back-story, the chance meetings, the lucky alignment of factors, the path from rural France to a Swindon recording studio. But the release of this first full length album means that all of that can now take a back seat,... Continue Reading →
Although very much sitting in the pop world, Afterlife, the debut single from Edenhill, is a much smarter musical cookie than such a generic label might at first suggest. It is undeniably infectious, which is the bare minimum requirement for such a record anyway, but it is shot through with musical smarts that lift it... Continue Reading →
If you have ever wondered where power-pop ends and indie rock begins, I reckon it is somewhere between the urgent, staccato verses and the contagious choruses of Lost Cause, not that you can see the join…nor would anyone with any sense care to search for it. Why look a sonic gift-horse in the mouth, especially... Continue Reading →
It’s safe to say that Stay Lunar have found their groove, and it is a good groove. Make that a great groove. Whilst so many of their peers are looking back to that much maligned decade…the 80’s…and finding inspiration in the twee-indie and synth-driven landfill pop which seems only to define it in hindsight or... Continue Reading →
The first spin of a new black watch album always feels like coming home. Those first few guitar strums of Saint Fair Isle Sweater are the crunch of your feet on that familiar drive way and then the door opens and you are warmly greeted by shimmering guitars, the lushness of which beckons you inside and... Continue Reading →
Davey Woodward has done it all, musically speaking. From the brilliant Brilliant Corners' diverse palette of indie, pop, country, rock ’n' roll, post-punk and trade-mark humour through the equally delicious Experimental Pop Band, solo albums and as part of alt-guitar band Karen, there are few genres which he hasn’t wandered through, always putting his own... Continue Reading →
Being that I am sat here scribbling away whilst looking out at the midday traffic flowing along one of the main routes through downtown Swindon, the mystery and logistical majesty of the infamous Magic Roundabout just out of view but not earshot, it is easy to see why my ears prick up when I hear... Continue Reading →
Echoglass has always been a band able to offer up a shifting array of styles and genres finding their consistency more in the less musical elements, the lyrical depth, the lingering melancholy which seems to haunt their music, their often quintessential Englishness…actually, make that quintessential northernness, the intimacy of their deliveries and any number of... Continue Reading →
Songs are covered for any number of reasons. Sometimes it is a genuine love of the song in question, other times a more calculated move to ride the coat tails of a past classic. Beth Snapp has a very different, more interesting, more meta take on things releasing her own take on the Kygo remix of the Whitney Houston cover of Steve... Continue Reading →
I've said it before and I’ll say it again, The Last Charge of The Light Horse is one of the best names for a band I have come across in a long while. Add to that the album title sounds like a character in a Jeff VanderMeer novel and its cover is a lovely and... Continue Reading →
Bang! Straight in. That’s how you make an impression. But then with the overall song weighing at just over two minutes there isn’t any time to mess around with enticing intros and tantalising sonics teasers. The Persian Leaps get straight to work, you have to admire that. Depending on which era you were born into you’d... Continue Reading →
Anyone with a long memory will find some lovely 80’s pop touches going on in this latest single from Canadian artist Zachary Toigo, particularly if you were a fan of the more alternative end of the scene and maybe had a few albums by The Smiths in your collection.But as is always the way there... Continue Reading →
Trey Connor makes music which sits in a sweet spot. It isn’t big enough to be rock but it channels some of its energy whilst neatly swerving the cliched baggage that the genre carries about with it. It isn’t really pop, not in the current sense of the word anyway, but its easy attractions and... Continue Reading →
If you heard someone throwing around the term pop-rock you could be forgiven initially imagining some sort of middle of the road, fashion-driven dross that neither delivers the immediacy of the former nor the integrity of the later. But what if there was a way of taking the instant hook, the cool catch and inherent... Continue Reading →
It probably says more about me, my age and the fact that I might need some new, more up-to-date reference points, but the fact that Memories I Don’t Want reminds me, in part, of Dream Academy’s masterful Life in A Northern Town, fair warms my nostalgic heart. There is a similar intimate quality to the... Continue Reading →
Some videos are just pretty looking vehicles for selling a record, both metaphorically and all too often, literally. Other times the video is a piece of art in its own right, or at least an interpretation and insight into the track, one that develops the idea and deepens the meaning. And best of all, poses... Continue Reading →
If, like me, you first encountered Cori Elliott playing weaponised bass and kicking ass as the focal point of The Vim Dicta, then Too Far Gone might come as a bit of a surprise. Then again, perhaps not. They were always a band who knew how to work with drama and dynamics, build atmosphere and... Continue Reading →