rock
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 ...
Ellie Porter
Tom Morello is an angry man – and he has a lot to be angry about in these "interesting times". From the righteous rap, metal and rock of Rage Against the Machine and supergroup Audioslave to folk protest songs in the guise of The Nightwatchman (and more of the same, with Bruce Springsteen) and more supergroup action with Prophets of Rage, Morello has barely paused for breath as he commits his fury to record. The Atlas Underground is Morello's first official solo project, which sees him collaborate with rappers, DJs, guitarists, and singers including K.Flay, Rise Against’s Tim Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"It's the same old story, told over and over forever": So remarks the redoubtable Sam Elliott late in the most recent reboot of A Star is Born, which itself manages to take an oft-told story and reinvent it very much afresh. As the grizzled sage who happens to be the older brother to the self-sabotaging rocker played for keeps by the film's director Bradley Cooper, Elliott in a sentence gives voice to the eternal appeal of this intersecting narrative, about one artist (Lady Gaga's waitress-turned-vocal wonderwoman, in this instance) who is catapulted to film even as the other flames out in a Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
The songs of They Might Be Giants have an irresistible way of combining the playful, the childlike and the absurd. The band’s major label debut album, Flood from 1990, which was most people’s entry point into their music, is full of quick-witted humour. Songs from it such as “Birdhouse in Your Soul” and “Istanbul Not Constantinople” (a cover of the 1953 song from The Four Lads, and clearly in a lineage from “Puttin’ on the Ritz”) brought happy cheers of recognition from a willing audience in a packed Barbican last night.The most madcap sequence of last night’s show consisted of the macabre Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
I come to this band from the perspective of one who’s only seen the words "YOU ME AT SIX" on endless T-shirts passing in the street. I’m no connoisseur, then. From the cultural detritus that’s wended my way during their 10-year career, they just seemed a band who had no “thing”, no breakout song, no look, no cultural space or loudly impressed belief. Just five normal-looking guys who tour a lot, hard-working meat’n’potatoes rockers (who’d bridle at that cliché). As their sixth album hits my ears, though, I can see why those T-shirts sell.My ignorance is relatively inexcusable, given that You Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Releasing albums of re-recordings of an artist’s work is not a new concept, and it’s one that has been done to great effect in the past. Live albums, remix albums, new versions of poorly recorded songs and even stylistic re-imaginings have all been done very well. From the Only Ones’ BBC recordings, Darkness and Light to Massive Attack v Mad Professor’s No Protection and Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Live at the Lyceum, there have been plenty of successful artistic retreads. Echo and the Bunnymen’s The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon, however, is a completely different kettle of fish.Taking Read more ...
Joe Muggs
It's a little hard to compliment KT Tunstall without seeming a little snitty. Her music is familiar, it's grown-up, it's Radio 2, it's full of lashings of Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, The Pretenders, Springsteen, Nashville, Laurel Canyon. The closest this album really comes to modernity of sound is a little dose of Goldfrapp's glam-pop-synth-rock in the odd track like “Human Being”, and even that of course is heavily indebted to the 1980s and a very classicist songwriting style. Her voice sounds older than her years, husky and lived-in, and always has done; lyrically she can touch on bitterness Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Chas Hodges has died at the age of 74, bringing to an end a career that reaches back to the very beginnings of British pop music. He was best known as one half of Chas and Dave. The duo he formed with Dave Peacock were the poster boys of rockney, a chirpy fusion of three-chord rock'n'roll and rollicking Cockney wit.They weren’t quite bona fide Cockneys: Chas hails from Edmonton and Dave from Ponders End. But they were genuine rock'n'rollers who served a long apprenticeship in the Sixties. Hodges in particular was a session guitarist for the pioneering producer Joe Meek, and crops up as a 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 ...
Kieron Tyler
Although he’s regularly performed it live, hearing the studio version of Glen Matlock’s take on Scott Walker’s “Montague Terrace (in Blue)” is a jolt. Back in September 1967, when Matlock was 11 years old, the song was first heard on Walker’s debut solo album. Now, this elegy to a pair of cocooned lovers appears on Matlock’s solo album Good To Go as a straight yet rock-infused reconfiguration. It’s impossible not to wonder whether Matlock had Richard Hawley in mind when he set out to capture his own interpretation on tape.Glen Matlock will always be defined by his less-than two-year tenure in Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Implausible times call for implausible music, and it doesn't come much more unlikely than this. Hawkwind, the die-hard troupers of gnarly cosmic squatter drug-rock, have re-recorded highlights from their catalogue, arranged and produced by Mike Batt. Yes, Mike “Wombles” Batt. Mike “Elkie Brooks” Batt. Mike “Katie Melua” Batt. Mike “Bright Eyes” Batt. And yes, he's removed all of the dirt, grease, diesel fumes, sticky bong residue and guitar distortion from the band's sound – this is a full-on showbiz spectacular, ballroom dance rhythms, big band brass, orchestral swoops and all. And yet Read more ...
Barney Harsent
2017 was a year in which Paul Weller reminded us all why he’s a force to be reckoned with. An impressive foray into the world of soundtracks (the score to Johnny Harris’s Jawbone) was followed by A Kind Revolution, which was, for the most part, a very impressive collection. This year sees yet another album from an artist who is clearly mining a rich seam of form. True Meanings is a surprising album. Let’s get one thing out of the way at the start: it’s very, very good – that’s not the surprise. Given his recent run, you’d expect this to be the case. No, the surprise is in the timbre Read more ...