Greg Dulli and band return with their second album since reconvening in 2012. That first resurrection was very good but it still felt like they were feeling their way back. This time they’ve found a stronger creative line into the dark heart and soul of what made their music so compelling the first time around. In Spades is a heady concoction that takes repeat listens … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: The Afghan Whigs – In Spades
The Sonic Youth guitar slinger and solo artist returns with a new album, his second with his current group which includes My Bloody Valentine’s Debbie Googe, Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and guitarist James Sedwards. Familiarity with those players on-stage and in-studio pays off in spades with this confident, relaxed and expansive new record. Moore has always vacillated between skewed punk/art-pop and experimental soundscapes and … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Thurston Moore – Rock N Roll Consciousness
Mercurial art-pop and post-punk auteurs British Sea Power return after a four year break (excluding soundtrack work) and they sound wholly refreshed and focused on their sixth album. There’s a cohesive sound to the rousing guitars and propulsive drumming as they take stock of the world around them and the role of the individual in it all. It’s steeped in their trademark melancholy, yet framed … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: British Sea Power – Let The Dancers Inherit The Party
There’s an inauspicious start with the BD-by numbers Johnny Irony but any doubts of a sophomore slump are quickly quashed by first single Mob Rule which utilises gang chants and pub rock bar chords to rail against the narrow-minded, pack mentality sub-cultures in Australian society. That sentiment permeates much of the album, blatantly and subtly. It’s their statement of sorts and it comes at a timely … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Bad//Dreems – Gutful
It’s been two decades since their last album but time and musical trends seems inconsequential to Feedtime as they return to grind out another slab of primitive and unrelenting rock. They’ve still got that leaden lurch and queasy slide guitar that shifts and shudders like a displaced iceberg in a drunken sea. Perennial underdogs, they proved immensely influential on a raft of bands, from Jesus … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Feedtime – Gas
The masters of minimal post-punk and street poetry return with their first album for Rough Trade, In the last four years the duo have gone from something of a curiosity to an established act with a cutting line in socio-political commentary and stark, primitive music. English Tapas continues the sound and content of its predecessors. On Divide & Exit (2014), Andrew Fearn concocted a sound … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Sleaford Mods – English Tapas
Moon Duo return with the first of two albums they plan to release in 2017, with both volumes rooted in balanced and oppositional ideas and textures. The conceptual approach of the double album is, in their words “an intricately woven hymn to the invisible structures found in the cycle of seasons and the journey of day into night, dark into light.” That Yin Yang format … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Moon Duo – Occult Architecture Vol. 1
Hot on the heels of her collaborative album with Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam, Jesca Hoop backs it up with a new solo album that dives deeper into her experimental songwriting, drawing on folk, indie and art pop. The songs here are minimal, skeletal even. Simple percussive elements, at one point just the keys of a typewriter, form the basis for hypnotic melodies and lyrical … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Jesca Hoop – Memories Are Now
This is Bic Runga’s fifth album in two decades and comes as she is inducted into the NZ Music Hall of Fame. A collection of covers and two originals, it finds her tipping her hat to some of her influences, from the obvious to the obscure. Both originals (the title track and Dream A Dream) are lush rhythmic pop songs with tropical noir textures while … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Bic Runga – Close Your Eyes
When people drop the needle on the record, insert the CD or click play on their phone and hear the distinctive roar of dense and distorted guitar on the new Dinosaur Jr album a great number of them will think “this sounds like just another Dinosaur Jr album”. That was my gut reaction on first listen. All the components are there. The symbiotic fusion of … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Dinosaur Jr – Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not
Three years on from their debut Ages, Ghost Wave sound a wholly more authentic and lived-in proposition. Ages sounded like the sum of its influences (UK indie, Krautrock, NZ 80s alt-guitar pop) and they mastered them exceedingly well, but Radio Norfolk takes those sounds further and deeper, co-mingling and cross-pollinating with more sonic grit and subtlety. Psychedelia has permeated music strongly in recent years, much … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Ghost Wave – Radio Norfolk
Many may have expected the collaboration between Jim White (Dirty Three) and Cretan lute player George Xylouris to be a one-off collaboration but now they’re onto album number two which features Xylouris singing on more tracks and the pair digging deeper into their primitive jazz and post-rock sense of musical adventure. The mood of the album varies from languid to visceral. ’Forging’ is a galloping … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Xylouris White – Black Peak
Doubtful Sounds 