NEW MUSIC: No Age – Send Me
No Age made a splash early on with their two-piece garagey post-punk in the early 2000s. For my mind they went off the boil with their last few releases but now they’re back with a new LP called Snares Like a Haircut, due out on January 26, 2018 via Drag City. Here’s the first single ‘Send Me’. Continue reading NEW MUSIC: No Age – Send Me
INTERVIEW: The Black Seeds
It has been five years since The Black Seeds released their last album, but after internal changes and abandoned recordings the Wellington reggae/soul outfit are back and firing on all cylinders with their new album Fabric. Back in 2014 The Black Seeds were immersed in the recording of a new album, one that head Seed Barnaby Weir was touting as ‘a Black Seeds fully original … Continue reading INTERVIEW: The Black Seeds
ALBUM REVIEW: Pissed Jeans – Why Love Now
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
40 FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF 2017
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
ALBUM REVIEW: Beaches – Second Of Spring
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
ALBUM REVIEW: Machine Translations – Oh
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
ALBUM REVIEW: Karl Blau – Out Her Space
Karl Blau experienced a taste of wider critical acclaim on the back of his last album Introducing Karl Blau. The title and the fact that it was a collection of country covers was somewhat misleading, given that he’s has already released something more than 20 albums. With Out Her Space, Blau has shape-shifted into the world of avant rock, funk and soul, eschewing his lo-fi … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Karl Blau – Out Her Space
INTERVIEW: Ben Salter
If there’s one thing that Ben Salter (The Gin Club, The Wilson Pickers) always appears to do, it’s to back himself. This time he’s even gone so far as to name his new solo album Back Yourself, and in the spirit of impromptu creativity and capturing songs on the fly he took a new and challenging approach to the writing and recording of the album. … Continue reading INTERVIEW: Ben Salter
ALBUM REVIEW: U2 – Songs Of Experience
U2 are a band that have always traded in grand gestures, yet at their finest and self-defining moments they’ve always tempered the pretension with mystery, mood or atmosphere. The spacious textures of the Daniel Lanois-indebted The Joshua Tree, the emotive post-punk chime and sparkle of those early singles and the dark grooves of Achtung Baby all showed a creative and experimental group who, on Songs … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: U2 – Songs Of Experience
ALBUM REVIEW: The Weather Station – The Weather Station
Music that is precise and austere is often tagged as being overly clinical and lacking soul – and by association, substance. It can be a fine line to tread and The Weather Station perform a balancing act on their fourth album. The self-titled affair takes a dash of Joni Mitchell, adds a splash of Beth Orton and paints it in the kind of melancholic indie with … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: The Weather Station – The Weather Station
ALBUM REVIEW: Nic Cester – Sugar Rush
Eight years since the release of the last Jet album Shaka Rock, frontman Nic Cester has finally stepped out under his own name with his debut solo album. Sugar Rush isn’t a great stylistic departure from the band’s last record, but it does dial back the rock elements, instead taking a trip into a tantalising stew of soulful psych-pop and Black Keys-flavoured boogie rock grooves. … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Nic Cester – Sugar Rush
ALBUM REVIEW: Destroyer – ken
Now up to album number twelve as Destroyer, Dan Bejar, one-time member of The New Pornographers, has fully embraced the world of lush and literate sophisticated synth pop. Think New Order’s primitive machine sound, the avant, collage-like work of The The and Morrissey’s lyrical twists and turns of phrase and you’re in the right region. Musically there are plenty of glorious post-punk melancholic moments with … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Destroyer – ken
Doubtful Sounds 