New releases on CD & DVD
CD: Royal Trux - White Stuff
Saturday, 23 February 2019
It's 18 years since the last Royal Trux album, but it might just as well be 18 months, so easily have they slipped back into their sound. OK, Neil Hegarty and Jennifer Herera have been gigging together again on and off since 2015, but even so it's quite astonishing how natural this record sounds. But then again, the Royal Trux sound was always something that sounded more like a channelling of something elemental than anything composed or contrived.
DVD: The Guilty
Friday, 22 February 2019
It’s another night in an emergency services dispatch room in Copenhagen. Policeman Asger Holm has been taken off active patrol pending a conduct investigation and is stuck on the phones. Drunks, druggies, posh blokes complaining of being mugged in the red light district, he’s pretty brutal with these time-wasters.
DVD/Blu-ray: Dawson City - Frozen Time
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time is an intoxicating cinematic collage-compilation that embraces social history – in microcosm, via its story...
CD: John Mayall - Nobody Told Me
Wednesday, 20 February 2019
John Mayall is not just the dean of British blues fans, but he has done as much for the genre as anyone else around, from his early promotion of...
CD: Susanna & The Brotherhood of Our Lady -...
Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Lyrics such as “are we hunting for life among misery, Satan have pity on my long distress” and “we’re on a ship of fools, sails laughing and singing...
CD: Du Blonde - Lung Bread for Daddy
Beth Jeans Houghton gets some rotten relationships out of her system |
CD: Avril Lavigne - Head Above Water
One strong song, but elsewhere the sound doesn't seem to have evolved |
DVD: Tides
This beautifully shot boating-trip film needs bailing out with a bit of drama |
CD: Chaka Khan - Hello Happiness
The Queen of Funk gets down with her latest comeback |
CD: Ladytron - Ladytron
Sterling and noisy comeback from Brit electro-pop dons |
DVD/Blu-ray: Human Desire
Fritz Lang catches the noir train, a little late behind Zola and Renoir |
CD: Ariana Grande - thank u, next
Princess of pop bares her soul on hastily-dropped breakup album |
CD: LCD Soundsystem – Electric Lady Sessions
James Murphy's post-punk disco outfit breathe new life into old favourites |
CD: Kel Assouf - Black Tenere
Saharan fire burns but a little too relentlessly |
CD: Leyla McCalla - The Capitalist Blues
A fully engaging third album that could have been too diverse for its own good |
CD: Mercury Rev - Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited
Tribute to a Sixties masterpiece evokes the band's own classic album ‘Deserter's Songs’ |
Blu-ray: Diamonds of the Night
Jan Němec’s existential Czech New Wave thriller is visceral viewing |
CD: Cass McCombs - Tip of the Sphere
The cranky Californian is back with his best album yet |
CD: Ian Brown - Ripples
King Monkey makes a fine return to the fray |
CD: The Specials - Encore
Neither awful, nor amazing, the ska icons' long-awaited comeback has its moments |
DVD/Blu-ray: Rosa Luxemburg
Personal and political worlds fuse in Margarethe von Trotta's heady revolutionary biopic |
CD: MONO - Nowhere Now Here
Post-rock veterans ring the changes on their 10th album - but only marginal ones |
Blu-ray: De Niro & De Palma - The Early Films
Sometimes intriguing pre-fame 1960s work of two Hollywood giants |
CD: Girlpool - What Chaos Is Imaginary
LA duo's musical world expands still further |
CD: Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow
Returning album blossoms with high emotion and hypnotic glimmer |
CD: James Blake - Assume Form
Figurehead of blubstep grows up |
CD: Que Vola - Que Vola
French-Cuban Afro-jazz mission that exudes originality and energy |
CD: Trevor Horn – Trevor Horn Reimagines the Eighties (feat. The Sarm Orchestra)
The producer covers hits with strings and gets in a terrible mess |
CD: Backstreet Boys - DNA
The gazillion-selling pop survivors are, you've guessed it, back again |
latest in today
CD: Royal Trux - White Stuff
It's 18 years since the last Royal Trux album, but it might just as well be 18 months, so easily have they slipped back into their sound. OK, Neil...
The Monstrous Child, Royal Opera, Linbury Theatre review - f...
Hel, heroine of Gavin Higgins and Francesca Simon’s new opera, is the illegitimate daughter of the Norse god Loki. In many ways The Monstrous...
Equus, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - thrilling physi...
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Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, Young Vic review - sha...
An entirely electric leading performance from the fast-rising Ukweli Roach is the reason for being for revisiting Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train...
Tartuffe, National Theatre review - morality-heavy version o...
Here's a recipe for a successful National Theatre...
Capernaum review - sorrow, pity and shame in the Beirut slum...
An angry little boy, in jail after stabbing someone, stands in a Beirut courtroom and tells the judge that he wants to sue his...
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Ádám Fischer, Barbican review...
Give me some air! Stop screaming at me! Those are not exclamations I'd have anticipated from the prospect of a...