I’m not sure I believe Ed Harcourt when he says he’s a ‘beast of a man’, as he claims on ‘Loup Garou’, the third track of his new album, Furnaces. In my admittedly limited experience of man-beasts, they don’t go…
Album | Ed Harcourt – Furnaces
Category: Records
Singles Round-up | Haley Bonar, Agnes Obel, Wilco, The Veils, Angel Olsen
Haley Bonar – Stupid Face Bonar gets better with each album, stronger, more confident, more competent as a songwriter. ‘Stupid Face’ is further proof of this along with a handful of brilliant songs that have preceded upcoming long player Impossible…
Album | Blossoms – Blossoms
Blossoms have no small dreams. They want success on the grand scale of like Oasis, the Beatles, and (dare I say it) Abba. On their first disc, they have the kind of radio friendly sound that’s mature beyond their years.…
Album | Wild Beasts – Boy King
Wild Beasts are back in the groove, more so than ever before. After a short hiatus between 2011’s Smother and 2014’s Present Tense, the band now looks as relevant and pumped up as ever. There’s a significant change in sound,…
Album | Lou Rhodes – theyesandeye
For Lou Rhodes the distance between trip-hop and folk music is shorter than you think. As one half of Lamb she’s recorded six trip-hop albums, yet it’s not hard to see how with different instrumentation those songs would still work…
Album | Look Park – Look Park
Fountains of Wayne were never held in the same regard as other power pop players like Teenage Fanclub or Weezer. Maybe it’s because their biggest moment, ‘Stacy’s Mom’, was a bubblegum MTV hit about a schoolboy crush which McFly would’ve…
Album | Bess Atwell – Hold Your Mind
Bess Atwell is just 21, yet her first album, Hold Your Mind, is the work of a mature artist. Written over the space of three years, these songs, these arrangements stay with you long after the disc has ended. Initially…
Album | Michael Kiwanuka – Love and Hate
Singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka, whose 2012 debut Home Again drew comparisons to the greats of soul music, has joined forces with producer Danger Mouse for his second album, Love and Hate: a wonderfully intriguing pair of unique, talented artists whose music…
Album | Woodkid and Nils Frahm – Ellis
This release couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. With anti-immigration and scapegoat antics ruling Western politics, French folk favorite Woodkid (aka Yoann Lemoine) and ambient pianist Nils Frahm have teamed up to create an emotional and haunting soundtrack…
Album | Michael Dause – The Sound of Self-Destruction
Since his self-titled first full-length release in 2012, Novi’s Michael Dause has exemplified himself as a tour-de-force, capable of completely self-producing a competent release from top-to-bottom. From a contemplative, versatile lyric and vocal delivery paired with complex multi-instrumental backing courtesy…