rock
Thomas H. Green
Gary Numan famously has a devoted fanbase. For this album he had a live video feed that allowed them, for a small fee, to watch him in the studio, working on it from conception to completion. Unlike any of his peers from the post-punk years, he draws new young fans to his contemporary releases. His 21st century career has seen him growing more and more gothic, heading far into industrial-electronic Nine Inch Nails territory, albeit with his own twist. He is many leagues away from the pristine synth-pop that made his name circa 1979-81.Numan’s last few albums have grown progressively more and Read more ...
Barney Harsent
It’s telling that, on their 2014 debut LP, Ballad of the Ice, Dori Sadovnik and Niv Arzi covered Bauhaus’ epic proto-gothic ode “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. The 1979 single, with its incessant shuffle, dubbed-out tape delay and post-punk guitars, straddled the worlds of rock and dance with perfect balance and fine judgment. It has, quite clearly, been an influence on Tel Aviv’s Red Axes, who, with their second full-length offering, The Beach Goths, have delivered a collection that shares a similar sense of poise and purpose. After a slew of single releases on labels including their own Garzen Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Dylan aficionados will get the cover art reference immediately: one of Elliott Landy’s celebrated Woodstock photos, taken in 1968. Joan Osborne, Grammy nominated “no-nonsense Dylan” (New York Times) interpreter, is wearing neither hat nor guitar on the sleeve of her latest album but the allusion is clear and two of the songs on what she hopes will develop into a “songbook series” (in the manner of Ella Fitzgerald’s homage to the great American songwriters) are from The Basement Tapes.On this her ninth studio album, the Kentucky-born singer-songwriter who’s called New York City home for some Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Mogwai’s ability to create both frighteningly intense and gorgeously understated compositions has led to them being one of post-rock’s most celebrated and accessible bands. In recent years, they’ve increasingly become known for their unnerving and ingenious soundtracks (most recently Atomic, which underscored Mark Cousins' documentary Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise). Every Country’s Sun continues in this vein, largely leaving behind the heavy shoegaze textures Mogwai were once known for in favour of undulating sounds and subtle synth trickery. Picking up where Atomic left off, album Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
The Duke Spirit’s newest album, Sky Is Mine, comes quickly on the heels of 2016’s well-received Kin LP and Serenade EP. Produced by the band themselves, and featuring vocal contributions from the likes of Josh T. Pearson and Duke Garwood, it shows a softer and more contemplative side of The Duke Spirit. Frontwoman Liela Moss goes so far as to claim that “sonically, Sky is Mine is the most tender record [The Duke Spirit] have made”, and she’s not wrong.Ironically then, the first thing that hits you about album opener “Magenta” is the dirty and propulsive bass of Toby Butler, yet this sets the Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Representing the best of the current psych revival’s many faces, the scuzziness of The Moonlandingz and overwhelming groove of Goat all seem initially out of place amongst the mock-Greek décor of the O2 Academy Brixton. With an audience that doesn’t stop bopping through both the bands and stellar DJ sets in between, however, the night feels far more transcendental than awkward.There is a third act on the bill that also deserves mention. The futuristic pop of British alt-folk perennial Jane Weaver is nothing short of immense. The unearthly soundscapes of her most recent album, Modern Kosmology Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In media coverage of Woodstock, Santana always seems to be overshadowed by the oft-mentioned cultural significance of Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner”. However, go check their performances, side by side, for pure visceral thrills, and it’s Santana’s amped Latin explosion that comes up trumps. If he hadn’t spent the better part of the Seventies and Eighties turning out tedious jazz-fusion (as Hendrix might well have done, had he lived), Santana would be on many more 21st century posters and T-shirts.1999’s collaborative Supernatural album famously rehabilitated him as a commercial entity and Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Duff McKagan is a survivor. He’s a bass player too, from the fledgling Seattle punk/proto-grunge outfit 10 Minute Warning to the stadium-filling behemoth of Guns N’ Roses, but if you were judging by the narrative weight of this 2015 documentary, you’d have to conclude that he’s mostly survivor. Now, it’s true that drugs and booze burst his rock’n’roll bubble – and very nearly his pancreas – but it seemed odd that the film concentrated so heavily on the effect rather than the cause.Part book reading, part documentary, part animation, It’s So Easy… never succeeded in being any one thing well Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The cover of Alice Cooper’s first album in six years shows the erstwhile Vincent Furnier with two heads. This, one assumes, is supposed to provide a neat little illustration of Paranormal’s musical content which is spread over two discs. On the first disc, Alice lays out his theatrical vision over largely alt-rock stylings, while on the second disc he knocks out a couple of tunes with the iconic Alice Cooper Band before treating the listener to half a dozen of his old classics culled from a recent gig in Columbus with his present band.It’s all good fun and there are even a few decent tunes Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Boris are a trio of Japanese noise rockers who are masters of all things heavy, and Dear, a double album of superior quality, marks the band’s 25th anniversary as a going concern. Covering a range of bases from doomy slabs of heavy noise to riff-tastic stoner rock, distortion-soaked dream pop and beyond, there is nothing jaded about Dear, and nor is there anything clunky about the band’s subtle genre-skipping. In fact, this album exudes a vitality that many bands which have been around for half as long as this mighty leviathan frequently have difficulty mustering.“DOWN - Domination of Waiting Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Tough security checks mean I make it to British Summer Time’s main stage just moments before the opening chords of the early evening set from The Lumineers.The Denver-based band’s rousing folk rock beats burn beneath blue skies; a kick drum and chilled Americana vibes warming up the crowds for the forthcoming acts – Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The crowd cranks up a gear as the band kicks off with the famous "Ho Hey", but frontman Wesley Schultz halts proceedings as there’s not enough audience participation. He does realise that this is the British Summertime Read more ...
Joe Muggs
For over 30 years, Melvins have been flagbearers for a kind of foundational American underground rock. Monstrously psychedelic, heavy as lead, mischievous and angry, they are part of a lineage that connects to squarepeg counterculture forefathers like Beefheart and The Fugs, share swathes of DNA with heavy metal and particularly Black Sabbath, and are particularly impervious to outside cultural shifts. Though they were fleetingly affiliated by the media with grunge, thanks to founder Buzz Osborne's musical and personal relationship to Kurt Cobain, they were something else. And along with Read more ...