“I know what I was angry about when I wrote this,” Nanci Griffith told the crowd as she introduced “Hell No (I’m Not Alright)”, “but you can get your anger out about whatever you want.”It seemed a little odd that Griffith left the big hook (if the bold, sloganned t-shirts of the crowd are anything to be believed) from new album Intersection until after the house lights came back up for the first time, but back in her native America the song can lead to pandemonium. Delivered with gusto, complete with synchronised clapping from two burly roadies in matching sunglasses, its lyrics are not Read more ...

I must confess I wasn’t particularly looking forward to last night’s concert from the great elder statesman of South African music. This was largely because his most recent album Jabulani – recorded as a tribute to all the township weddings he went to as a child and youth – was marred by sentimentality and a lacklustre production. But then again one obviously shouldn’t be expecting the music of a 73-year-old to still be as fired-up as the work he produced in his prime.However, it quickly became apparent that Masekela wasn’t simply here to flog the new album. This is a musician who clearly Read more ...

This particular King Charles should watch out. Although he’s assumed the trappings of a Georgian fop, he’d be well minded to pay heed to his predecessors King Charles I - beheaded in 1649 - and King Charles II – dogged by plague and the Great Fire of London. On the evidence of the thin gruel that is LoveBlood, his debut album, our latter-day King Charles’s place in history is far from assured.LoveBlood slots neatly into the gaps between Noah and the Whale, Mumford & Sons, Jamie T, Lily Allen and Jack Peñate, via a layby stop-off with Mika and Olly Murs. The only thing separating the man Read more ...

I figured there were two solid reasons to attend last night’s Florence + the Machine gig in North London. The first was that I’d given Ceremonials a fair few listens, and was beginning to conclude that the chaps at Island Records had identified what they thought constituted, hitherto, the "Florence sound", and then simply produced an entire album of it. I found the result somewhat less invigorating, less wild and haphazard than Lungs, F+tM’s debut, and wanted to know if it would be better on stage. The second was that, between her rather, um, “portable” lyrics and her high-impact manner Read more ...

Well, better late than never. I wanted to see The Stranglers at The Roundhouse in April 1977, but a combination of homework, strict parents and being way too young meant that I had to make do with playing their debut album Rattus Norvegicus IV to death in my bedroom. Neatly 35 years later I finally made it and the band did their bit by performing more tracks from their early years than they did from their very well-received latest album, Giants.The quartet was in remarkably fine fettle. The part of Hugh Cornwell, who left in 1990, is currently played by genial Sunderland musician Baz Read more ...

All Of Me is an album of cast shadows rather than substance, which is a little baffling given that it’s taken four years to materialise. Recent single “Thank You” has echoes of fellow Brit Sade in her sultry Eighties prime. “Back to Love” aims for the thumping disco euphoria of “When Love Takes Over” by Kelly Rowland & David Guetta but falls somewhat short, and “Speak Your Mind” tries to channel Lauryn Hill while also throwing in the melody of Adina Howard’s “Freak Like Me” for good measure.And please, spare us the vocal interludes between tracks – this isn’t 1990. They are intensely Read more ...

With the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Nostradamus-predicted apocalypse both imminent (possibly), now is clearly an auspicious time for a doomsaying veteran punk combo such as Killing Joke to return to our midst. Unlike most of their late-Seventies peers, Jaz Coleman’s crew have always been around in some shape or form, hitting the pop charts in the mid–Eighties, and subsequently striking on numerous phases of cred, circa thrash metal, grunge, even trance (with the Pandemonium album in 1994, largely thanks to bassist Youth’s sideline as a house-y producer).In the early Noughties Dave Grohl Read more ...

You could say the Duke Spirit have come a long way since I saw them support The Rapture (the who, now?) at the Oxford Zodiac, in 2004 – where, for my five quid, they accidentally sold me their band-wagon copy of Roy Orbison’s Big Hits from the Big ‘O’. Since then, they’ve released three studio albums, been lauded by the likes of NME, travelled well in the States, had their tracks remixed by such eminences noirs as Gary Numan, bolted their horse to the door of the Universal stable, got a song on Guitar Hero V and put their frontwoman’s face on a T-shirt by Alexander McQueen. Now The Duke Read more ...

Do you remember a couple of summers ago, when it seemed like you couldn’t turn on the radio without catching a clip of yet another quirky young female songwriter with a clever hook and a regional accent? The artwork to Wallis Bird’s new album reminded me of one of those singers, from the messy pigtails and dreamy expression to the labret piercing. So far, so pigeonholed... until I pressed play and discovered an artist who could be anything but. It’s not uncommon to see the eponymous release early in an artist’s career, the self-title a bold manifesto; but that the Irish singer has chosen Read more ...

When an artist releases an album of new readings of old material, there’s usually cause for concern. But not with Lionel Richie’s new release, a foray into light country. In fact, given Richie’s recent efforts to stay down with the kids, maybe he should have tapped his archive before. Here he’s teamed up with (mainly) young country stars to rework his greatest hits with an Alabama radio pulse. The arrangements may sound crisp and contemporary, but the real fun comes from wallowing in the past and remembering Lionel’s evergreen Eighties.There are a couple of hiccups. But just that. One of Read more ...

Electropop royalty does not get more illustrious than this. VCMG stands for Vince Clarke (&) Martin Gore, who started out together in Depeche Mode, only for main songwriter Clarke to depart in 1981. Gore stayed in the band and took kinky leather into the pages of Smash Hits, while Clarke became a veritable Tintin-haired hit factory, discovering Alison Moyet, recontextualising Feargal Sharkey and eventually forming an enduring partnership with Andy Bell in Erasure. The latter duo released a new album last year which promised much but ploughed the same old high-energy furrow. Ssss, by Read more ...

John Charles Gunn’s Orkney: The Magnetic North was published in 1932 as a guide to the islands and their history. Now, along with a dream, it’s inspired The Magnetic North’s album Orkney: Symphony Of The Magnetic North. With former Verve member Simon Tong, his collaborator in Erland & the Carnival, and solo artist and orchestrator Hannah Peel, the Orcadian singer-songwriter Erland Cooper has created a tribute to his roots.Cooper says he was visited in a dream by Orcadian Betty Corrigal, who hanged herself in the 1770s after discovering she was pregnant by a visiting sailor. Cast out, she Read more ...