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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Adam Granduciel has called this album A Deeper Understanding but it could’ve quite easily been called A Clearer Understanding given the clarity he’s applied to his songs this time around. He approaches them with direct and confessional lyrics that sound unquestionably autobiographical but he’s also pared back some of the hazy, gauze-like qualities of the dreamy approach he’s taken to the music in the … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: The War On Drugs – A Deeper Understanding
This is album number two for Darren Cross (Gerling) and Jessica Cassar and it finds them expanding their monochromatic and ethereal world into darker corners where mystery slowly reveals itself and both hope and despair are around every slow bend. Their debut was clearly a interpretation of folk music but here they use even more swooning strings, piano and billowing reverb to add a ghostly … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Jep And Dep – They’veBeenCalled
Beck’s much anticipated 13th album follows the lush and melancholic Morning Phase and though Colors is equally lush, it’s an album built on widescreen technicolor, bold sonic brushstrokes and a saturated pop aesthetic. On first listen it feels like the quirks and eccentricities that made Beck so iconic are absent on this album but dig below the pop-laminated surface and you’ll find an equally audacious … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Beck – Colors
Doubtful Sounds 