It’s hard to believe that Anja Plaschg, aka Soap&Skin, is only 21. With second full-length album, Narrow, the Viennese Plaschg tackles such weighty issues as loss and grief in a classical-goth style that takes a certain level of courageousness. Nor…
Category: Reviews
Album | Gretchen Peters – Hello Cruel World
This is Gretchen Peters’ first appearance on FFS, and she’s most decidedly at the country end of our folk spectrum (if you remember Faith Hill, she wrote a song for her in the 90s). She’s lived in Nashville since the…
Album: We Are Augustines – Rise Ye Sunken Ships
All the brawn of We Are Augustines’ instrumentation could easily mask the emotional clout that Rise Ye Sunken Ships contains. The opening gambit of a four-to-the-floor drum beat and the ensuing anthemic guitar chord progression in ‘Chapel Song’ immediately defines…
Album | Bowerbirds – The Clearing
On their charming new album The Clearing, the Bowerbirds stick to the formula that gained them acclaim on their previous records, Upper Air and Hymns for a Dark Horse. On first listen it appears to be a tribute to their…
Album | Andrew Bird – Break It Yourself
Andrew Bird has always flirted with the idea of making pop music. His often sprawling, always impressively constructed compositions have toyed with the boundaries between experimentation and melodic straightforwardness for years now, but his strength has always lain in being…
Singles Round-up | Kyla La Grange, Wild Nothing, Dog Is Dead, Simone Felice, Athena
When Kyla La Grange last appeared in a singles round-up, she was compared – positively, it should be noted – with the likes of Bon Jovi of Bryan Adams for the grandstanding sound of ‘Heavy Stone’. Now she returns with…
Live | King Creosote & Jon Hopkins @ Shepherds Bush Empire
There are a lot of different reasons for going to see some lovely music. You might want to see a band live because they’re perky enough that you can sing along without being ashamed. You might go in the hope…
Live | Michael Kiwanuka @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
There is a very real sense of expectation as queues snake away from the front of the Brudenell Social Club. Expectation not only that inside will be considerably warmer than the freezing winter temperatures of the car park, but that…
Album | Mary Lorson & The Soubrettes – BurnBabyBurn
Mary Lorson and the Soubrettes’ BurnBabyBurn constitutes a balancing act between its gentle, spacious, and warm sounds and its stark, honest lyrics. This balance is even obliquely referenced in the lyrics of ‘Only One Number Two’. “You walk the roof…
Album | The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know
There has never been a worse time for an ‘80s synth-pop album to come out than now. Even the ‘80s. As Simon Reynolds’ derisive term (and book) “Retromania” gets bandied about more and more, so too does the popularity of…