The trio, renowned for their epic psych rock and metal instrumentals that can reach the 20 minute mark, are back with a new album that turns that reputation on its head by way of shorter songs and most noticeably, the addition of vocals. Guitarist Isaiah Mitchell steps up the mic on Black Heaven and it’s a move that shifts the dynamic of the band. His … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Earthless – Black Heaven
Eleanor Friedberger was the voice of the quirky and inventive Fiery Furnaces before going it alone. Now onto her fourth solo album, she’s more than established herself as a fine songwriter and clearly decided to stretch out into some new sonic territory on the more electronically textured Rebound. Eschewing the knotty indie guitar sound, she’s delved into a more synthetic world of drum machines, keyboards … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Eleanor Friedberger – Rebound
The sense of Jack Ladder’s career to date is that he’s constantly been searching for his lost soul sound. The early bluesy rock n roll to the introspective troubadour, the gothic synth sounds of Hurtsville to the brighter colours of Playmates. Blue Poles is named after the Jackson Pollock painting and yes it does draw on all manner of styles but this time around he … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders – Blue Poles
It’s been seven years since the last solo album from Jamie Hutchings. In the interim he’s busied himself with 2 noisy rock records with Infinity Broke and the wonderful Down The Unmarked Road, the result of his collaboration with Peter Fenton of Crow. Now he returns to the solitude of the self with the intimate, graceful and poetic Bedsit. This is a sparser and more … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Jamie Hutchings – Bedsit
Some bands hit the pop culture sweet spot just at the right time, igniting and reflecting the spirit of a generation before burning out and fading away. Others hang around, soldiering on with diminishing returns, a loyal fanbase in tow, cushioning their middle-aged bank accounts. There are also those acts who have that moment in the spotlight, vacate the pedestal but then re-emerge years down … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: The Breeders – All Nerve
Joan Wasser is now six albums deep into her solo career and she continues to refine and explore her polymorphous sound that takes in soul, jazz and pop music. If her last album, The Classic, felt like a slight misstep, Damned Devotion is a return to what Wasser does best – blending mood and atmosphere with classic soul, contemporary R&B and modern technology. There’s an exhilarating … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Joan As Police Woman – Damned Devotion
In the past Django Django have managed to wrangle the seemingly disparate styles of electronic pop and rockabilly rhythms into songs that roll and pulse, both on the dance floor and as highly attractive synth pop. They continue that template here but it all sounds more refined and cohesive. Their trademark vocal delivery and the way the melodies and harmonies are layered and blended is … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Django Django – Marble Skies
This is Kyle Craft’s second album; his first set a high bar with its songs of underground heroes and misfits and now he’s taken that momentum and set one dizzying and rambunctious musical snowball in motion. Craft is still mining the same stories he relishes and excels at, singing of junkies and angels, late night bars, existential crises and the overwhelming worlds of love and … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Kyle Craft – Full Circle Nightmare
Humour in heavy rock music requires just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek irreverence to avoid it tipping over into slapstick and immaturity. Bands such as Revolting Cocks, TAD and Killdozer all found that balance between savage guitars, a pummelling rhythm section and cutting, sarcastic lyrics, and in these modern times the masters of wit and riffs are Pissed Jeans. Why Love Now finds them further … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Pissed Jeans – Why Love Now
If anything, their music inhabits even darker territory, the songs collapsing in on themselves as they chug and career along – The Terminals, Antiseptic In this day and age of accessibility and cultural saturation, it can be hard to unearth music you like, and at the same time discover new music outside the mainstream or the most prominent online access points. Digging through the detritus … Continue reading 40 FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF 2017
Beaches go into overdrive on their new seventeen track album. It’s their magnum opus of sorts, taking everything they’ve explored on the first two albums and synthesising it into one kaleidoscopic take on all things psychedelic. The album opens with two relentlessly churning tracks that set the stage for what is to follow. It signals their intent to push further out into the sonic aether, … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Beaches – Second Of Spring
J Walker returns with his first album in four years and it finds him in an eclectic yet economical mood. The Bright Door (2007) possessed polish and an ornate sheen while Oh replaces that with rougher edges and a subtle shift toward a lower-fi aesthetic. The opening track Made A Friend sounds like Beck in his melancholic balladeer mode before the first single Parliament Of … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Machine Translations – Oh
Doubtful Sounds 