New music
Jonathan Geddes
No matter how much the Jonas Brothers try, they can’t totally escape the mouse. Commercials for new Disney TV shows flashed up onscreen not long before the siblings took to the stage, and although the trio’s days of appearing in such fare are long gone, it offered a brief reminder of where they began. Ironically though, this was a forward thinking pop show that worked best when focused on the future, rather than indulging in nostalgia.It was also a performance that spared no expense. If the trappings were familiar, from the group appearing on a platform being lowered from the ceiling before Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Without wanting to get into what constitutes punk, we can, at least, agree that brevity is to be lauded? Right? Good, because at 26 minutes, Green Day’s 13th studio album, Father of All Motherfuckers, is a volley delivered at velocity. That’s not to say that all 10 tracks speed along at the same Ramones-esque breakneck pace however. There’s room for changes in speed and style as the pop-punk’n’roll band deliver an album high on energy and low on political outrage. Despite no shortage of source material, any fans hoping for American Idiot #2 will find something very different in store. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
10 years ago, a wave of exciting femme-pop was cresting, women taking the reins with singular visions; the results were shiny, personally honest, inventive and ebullient, from Gaga to Adele and beyond. A leading light was La Roux, a duo fronted by the androgynous Elly Jackson. She looked different, a bit Bowie, and the music was a fantastically catchy reimagining of Eighties synth-pop. They had monster hits with “In for the Kill’ and “Bulletproof” but Jackson’s career since has swerved about somewhat. Her return is much-anticipated. Unfortunately her third album, while bubbling with bounce, Read more ...
Asya Draganova
After 35 years on the global scene, Sepultura are entering the Twenties with the force of great quality metal music. Quadra is unlikely to bring new hits that resemble Sepultura’s classic “Roots Bloody Roots”, 1996, or “Refuse/Resist”, 1993; however, it suggests that Brazil’s metal giants are approaching new intellectual heights in their music and career. Quadra demonstrates impressive joined-up thinking around universal themes from the realms of philosophy, history, and mythology.The new album lets pretty much every fan find what they are looking for. If you are after powerful thrash metal Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
U-Bahn’s second-ever live show outside their home country Australia took place in Aalborg, in Jutland, in the north of Denmark. They were in this congenial, routinely rain-sodden city last weekend for Northern Winter Beat, the annual festival of established, offbeat and up-and-coming musical adventurers.The Melbourne oddballs’ (pictured above) debut album attracted attention for its seeming determination to borrow much of the early Devo’s shtick. Live, however, they are something else. The herk-jerk, tick-tock patterns are present and correct but what’s apparent a minute into “Beta Boyz”, Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
While there’s usually something for everybody on the Celtic Connections festival programme, where Glasgow’s midwinter festival tends to shine is in its collaborations and special events. Over the past 18 days the city has hosted folk icon Peggy Seeger on a cross-generational bill with her songs Calum and Neill MacColll; Glasgow singer-songwriter Beerjacket performing with the Cairn String Quartet; a new orchestral symphony inspired by the Declaration of Arbroath in its 700th anniversary year; and the annual Transatlantic Sessions shows, featuring lovingly curated lineups of musicians from Read more ...
mark.kidel
Anaïs Mitchell should be a star: she sings like a dream, oozes presence and charisma, and writes songs of classic simplicity, poetry and depth. Her other outstanding quality is a natural modesty and a delight in just being herself on stage, and sharing the joys of music-making with her fellow-musicians and the audience.Throughout the scintillating evening of her Roundhouse show, she never posed, sought attention or relied on well-rehearsed patter. She acted as if she were in her own front-room: relaxed, at times endearingly hesitant, and at others fiercely engaged with the emotions of her Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The Dartmoor folk star’s latest album launches into a dramatic retelling of the voyage of the Mayflower, from its departure from the iconic Mayflower Steps in Plymouth (actually, the real steps are down to the women’s loo at the Admiral MacBride pub) to their landing on what the locals on the other side of the ocean called Patuxet. On the way, they set in to motion the founding of the United States and the decimation of the American Indian tribal nations.The local Wampanoag tribespeople and the newly arrived Puritan refugees – all 106 of them, including 31 children – would in time forge a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
When it was issued in May 1968, “Fading Yellow” attracted no attention. It couldn’t have as it was the B-side of “Mr. Poem”, Mike Batt’s poor-selling debut single. The top side was good, very 1968 and along the lines of whimsical 45s like Donovan’s “Jenifer Juniper” or Marty Wilde’s “Abergavenny” but wasn’t a hit. Relegated to the flip, “Fading Yellow” was obviously considered the least commercial of the two songs.However – as deep-digging collectors later discovered – “Fading Yellow” was the true treasure. Over three minutes 40 seconds Batt, who then worked as an A&R man at his label Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
There Is No Other’s third track “Vultures” is about Isobel Campbell’s adopted city Los Angeles and the music business. Instead of assuming a hard-edged tone the song is crystalline, reflecting on “vultures, circling round… tall trees reaching so high, guarded question… tall trees don’t fade away with your ego… everybody got opinions.” Ironically, “Vultures” was recorded without knowing what was coming next.The first solo album in 14 years from the former Belle & Sebastian mainstay and Mark Lanegan collaborator was completed after signing with a new label in 2014: an imprint which Read more ...
Katie Colombus
The first time I heard Madonna, I was 8 years old at a school disco. Horrified parents, who came to pick us up as we jumped up and down yelling along to “Like A Virgin” in a fluorescent flurry of topknots, puffer skirts and lace gloves, subsequently lodged a formal complaint (it was a Catholic junior school) and thus, the spirit of Madonna, was borne into my story. Since those days of stonewash and crimping only one thing has remained consistent in my life – Madge’s persistent ability to re-invent herself. Now, 30 years later, I am bearing witness to a conglomeration of her identities, Read more ...
mark.kidel
Fatoumata Diawara knows how to please: with a winning and innocent smile, she wins the audience over in a matter of seconds. She has a vocal style all of her own: in her first song, “Don Do”, a quiet and meditative prelude to the boisterous show that follows, she seduces with sensual textures and a slight rasp unique among West African women singers, and which owes as much to jazz and gospel as to the traditions of her musically-rich country.After the first of a number of slightly predictable but heartfelt intros, in which she promises to give us an Africa beyond the clichés of poverty and Read more ...