rock
Kimon Daltas
Bon Iver’s eponymous second album is nearly a year-and-a-half old now, so its bigger, richer sound – compared to the homemade sparseness of the debut – is well established. Nevertheless, it was hard not to wonder how any band assembled by Justin Vernon would function in the hangar-like Wembley Arena. Would success claim another victim?Vernon’s approach is courage in numbers, and those initial qualms fall away when he leads eight musicians on stage and launches into "Perth", the opening track of Bon Iver. The sound builds to fill the space, the plaintive howl of Vernon’s falsetto soars above, Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Aerosmith’s reign as kings of the power ballad seems to be over. Their latest single is such syrupy tosh you can hardly believe it's them. But it is just a single, right. What of the rest? Songwriting collaborator Marti Frederiksen says the album's also full of "rockers". He was part responsible for the rather nice “Jaded” a few jears back, and has also written with Def Leppard and Motley Crue. So surely there's plenty of the melodic pop-rock they do so well?Unfortunately not. It gets off to a bad start with a silly voiceover that tells you to surrender your emotion. But if only the album had Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Muse are not cool. For a minute on leaving the tube station I did think they'd broadened their appeal quite dramatically before realising that a fair section of the people around me were heading to Giants of Lovers Rock show also at the O2 complex last night. But no, their audience, judging by those heading for the main arena, are a fairly even split between hyper-mainstream V Festival demographic and slightly misshapen indie/goth kids, not really much more rock'n'roll in demeanour than, say, a Coldplay crowd, but very dedicated.This isn't meant pejoratively, not at all. It's just that Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
We last heard from Young and Crazy Horse as recently as June, when they released the bizarre covers album, Americana. By contrast, Psychedelic Pill is a gargantuan helping of new material - the first released by Young with the band since 2003's Greendale - which sprawls across two CDs and manages to revisit virtually every familiar landmark of their collective history.And despite the manic waves of creative energy surging from these grooves, "history " is the operative word. Having recently issued an autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, Young is evidently in stock-taking mode, as we Read more ...
bruce.dessau
We currently seem to be awash with rockumentaries. The Rolling Stones have yet another retrospective out, while Friday night on BBC Four would not be complete without dusting off the back catalogue of some mid-table band once adored by some nice middle-aged folk unable to find a babysitter. Status Quo fare better than a BBC Four slot, if less well than Jagger & co's la-di-da London Film Festival airing, with their very own doc, Hello Quo, enjoying a brief cinema release before coming out on DVD.While Quo might not have the cachet of the Stones, they do have a definite niche. Welcome to Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The concept album can be a tricky beast; Titus Andronicus’s 2010 epic The Monitor more so than most. How to follow up an album that loosely ties your frontman’s break-up to the American Civil War, complete with spoken-word interludes voiced by contemporary punk artists playing historical figures, in which rousing choruses bounce surprisingly out of 14-minute rock operas? The answer, as provided by Local Business, is that you don’t.Titus’s third full-length is instead probably as close to a straight-up rock record as they have in them, bearing in mind that we are talking about a band from Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Can a septuagenarian wear skinny trousers? It is not a question that I ask myself very often, but it was my first thought on seeing the frighteningly fit 73-year-old Ian Hunter stroll onstage at the Shepherds Bush Empire last night. Life in America clearly suits the Shropshire-born former frontman of Mott the Hoople, as he led a band young enough to be his children through a storming, age-defying 110-minute set.Ian Hunter has been around long enough to know what the fans want and he was happy to give them plenty of it, with a show that mixed tracks from his latest album, When I'm President, Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The Gaslight Anthem’s star has been in the ascendant for some time now - arguably since the release of their 2008 breakthrough record, The ’59 Sound. But nowhere has that change been more dramatic than in the evolution of their live shows. The Gaslight Anthem that commanded the stage in Glasgow last night was an altogether more confident, self-assured beast than the band that played the same venue in the summer of 2010.There’s a certain weariness that sits on Brian Fallon as a songwriter nowOne thing that hadn’t changed since then, however, was the somewhat eclectic choice of support band. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Royal Albert Hall is pretty big. It's a prestige venue, but everything is relative. For the overwhelmingly French audience, the first British headlining show by Johnny Hallyday was the equivalent of seeing Paul McCartney, Tom Jones and Cliff Richard sharing a bill at the back room of the Dog & Duck.Hallyday is a stadium-packer in France and the French-registered cars and coaches parked around Kensington Gore testified that this was an international draw. He sang mostly in French, spoke in French and was, well, French, even though his music is very firmly a blues, soul and rock'n’roll Read more ...
garth.cartwright
Garland Jeffreys, a 68-year old singer and songwriter, is not simply New York City’s best-kept secret but American’s music’s most consistently underrated and overlooked talent. Garland is a remarkable talent and his latest album, The King of In Between, is musical dynamite. Oddly, he has remained largely invisible in Britain for the past 40-plus years.I first heard Jeffreys on Kiwi radio in 1977 when he had a minor, reggae hit called “Cool Down Boy”. The video showed a light-skinned black man who possessed a fine voice and a sensibility more New York than Kingston. Around the same time I read Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Muse have spent their careers becoming Muse. With each album they have consolidated their most obvious influences – Radiohead, Queen, U2, various prog and metal, widescreen science fiction visions and paranoia on a global scale – more and more, until by the time of 2009's self-produced Resistance and its attendant sold-out stadium shows they stood completely alone as the world's most brilliantly preposterous band.But where to go from that culmination of all they'd worked towards? There was only one answer, and thankfully it's the one they've chosen: become MORE MUSE. If you're the Read more ...
theartsdesk
R.E.M.: Document 25th Anniversary EditionKieron TylerAlthough the band themselves have not lasted out the 25 years since the release of their fifth album Document, R.E.M. haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. The memory will live, fed by reissues. Document built on the more straightforward approach of its predecessor, Lifes Rich Pageant, and was issued in the wake of their breakthrough hit “The One I Love”. A re-promoted “It’s the End of the World as we Know it (and I Feel Fine)” gave them another hit in early 1988. Both singles were included on the album. At this point R.E.M. were Read more ...