grunge
Guy Oddy
Mudhoney’s new album Morning in America is a strange beast. Made up of outtakes from last year’s Digital Garbage, a cover version and rerecorded versions of limited edition 7” singles, one look at the track listing suggests a second CD that might eventually accompany a reissue somewhere down the line. It also implies a release forced by contractual obligations or a cash-flow problem at their label, Sub Pop. Such an assumption would totally disregard the music, however, which is nothing less than magnificent throughout. For while Digital Garbage took a shot at the corrosive influence of Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
South-coast four piece Grenades’ debut album is that most unlikely of musical outings, an ecological grunge-punk concept album. This is no wafty, feel-good affair, though, its environmental concern is akin to the eco-parable shock tactics of rough’n’ready Eighties exploitation flicks such as Cannibal Holocaust and Green Inferno. Whether the listener goes on the darkly bizarre lyrical journey or not, Primates is crammed with shout-along songs built into hefty guitar attack.Musically, Grenades carve their own path. They emanate the down-tuned bite of Soundgarden but at a much greater velocity. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As this month’s edition of theartsdesk on Vinyl appears the sun is blazing outside, a heatwave hits, and our record collections must hide in the shadows or warp. Yet still we want more to join them in their sheltered rows and where better to seek the greatest new releases than the longest, most complete monthly round-up of new vinyl releases. As ever, we run the gamut. This time there’s everything from grunge to soul to trap to Qawwali and a whole lot more most of us never imagined could exist. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHQasim Naqvi Teenages (Erased Tapes)Teenages, latest album from New York Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Due to exciting matters beyond theartsdesk on Vinyl’s control there’s been a slight delay to this month’s edition but, never fear, to ensure we cover all that’s juicy, we’re doing a special two-volume version, with Part 2 coming next week. Watch this space. As ever, all life on plastic is here, from new to re-issued, from pop to techno to Northern soul and far, far beyond. Dive in.VINYL OF THE MONTHBlack Flower Future Flora (SDBAN/N.E.W.S.)Here at theartsdesk on Vinyl we’re fans of knitwear-loving Belgian five-piece Black Flower. Why wouldn’t you be? Their output so far, three albums and a Read more ...
joe.muggs
“I don't peak early / I don't peak at all,” goes the wryly self-aware line in the opening song here, “Take me to the Movies”. Thirty-five years since he started releasing records, Mascis isn't interested in peaking, progress or much else beyond delivering the same he always has.Weary, anhedonic introversion delivered in a cracked Neil Young moan, and primal blues rock guitar soloing, are packed into perfect pop structures with pithy or heartstring-tugging couplets that twinkle like a razor sharp intelligence shining out from behind heavy lidded eyes. The differences between Dinosaur albums Read more ...
theartsdesk
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why. Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small but perfectly sleazy work of sweary, cynical brillianceBob Dylan - More Blood, More Tracks ★★★★★ The fourteenth volume in the Bootleg Series is a keeperBrad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution! ★★★★★ Prolific improvising pianist creates the apotheosis of the piano trioThe Breeders - All Nerve ★★★★★ Kim and Kelly Deal - plus Read more ...
Ralph Moore
A three-hour show? There’s no doubt that The Smashing Pumpkins give good bang for the buck but it’s rare to see a band of this size and stature play for more than two hours in London. So it’s a testament to their back catalogue that at the SSE Wembley Arena those three hours fly by faster than the college years soundtracked by the Pumpkins at their absolute peak in the mid-Nineties. And while frontman Billy Corgan’s toured the band with a younger bunch of musicians, this is the first time that guitarist James Iha has rejoined the fold in almost two decades.This means songs like “Blew Away” Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Mudhoney are a constant in a changing world. When they first burst into our consciousness 30 years ago, few would have put their mortgage on the band’s longevity. They were an urgent burst of punk-fuelled grunge: sprawling, exciting and comfortably dumb.They were the grunge blueprint and, in part, the reason for their staying power may well be the fact that they’ve never stayed too far from it. Digital Garbage is no exception, showing Mudhoney to be a band as comfortable in their sound as they are uncomfortable in the world around them. This discomfort is highlighted throughout and Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s four albums all centre around off-kilter pop and flirtations with distortion; their latest LP, Sex & Food, carries this tradition forwards in a more laid-back manner. Their current European tour in support of the album seems to have lined up nicely with the schedules of American acts Deerhunter, Black Lips and Sam Evian (as well as much-hyped British act Boy Azooga), with all five artists descending on the Albert Hall in Manchester for the six-hour Strange Waves III.Between the criminally early start time of 5pm and Transport for Manchester’s bus timetabling Read more ...
joe.muggs
For some a lack of development is failure; not for Kim Deal. Her songwriting and voice have influenced hordes of indie bands from the Eighties until now – indeed the “angular” clang and arch drawl of bands indebted to Pixies, and The Breeders, her band with sister Kelly, is as great a cliché as blues licks were in the Sixties and Seventies. Yet still, on this reunion album for The Breeders' 1993 lineup, the voice, sound and structures remain utterly distinctive and gloriously alien, a world away from the imitators, just as they shone out as different from all around them during The Breeders' Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As well as creating a true American musical phenomenon, led by from the front by Nirvana, the early-to-mid-Nineties grunge explosion opened a window of opportunity for multitudes of bands on its furthest fringes. South Carolina punk-metallers Corrosion of Conformity hit a career peak at the time, mingling an old-school hard rock sound with something bluesier and spacier, the whole thing marinated in the guitar and vocals of Pepper Keenan. He left to concentrate on his role in metal supergroup Down, featuring members of Pantera and others, but now returns for his first album since 2005 with Read more ...
theartsdesk
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.SIMPLY THE BEST: THEARTSDESK'S FIVE-STAR REVIEWS OF 2017Alan Broadbent: Developing Story ★★★★★ The pianist's orchestral magnum opus is packed with extraordinary thingsArcade Fire: Everything Now ★★★★★ A joyous pop album that depicts a world in tragic freefallAutarkic: I Love You, Go Away ★★★★★ Tel Aviv producer Nadav Spiegel's latest collection is a triumph of head and heartBrian Eno: Reflection ★★★★★ Slow-motion cascades Read more ...