Category: Reviews

Album | Duke Garwood – Heavy Love

Duke Garwood’s Heavy Love opens with the dark, creepy electric blues of ‘Sometimes’. It’s muddy, sexy…and that’s before Garwood’s deep vocals kick in to create a dark fantasy. His bleak storytelling is captivating, with his music setting the scene and…

EP | Emmy The Great – S

The magic of Emmy The Great’s latest EP is undoubtedly contained within ‘Swimming Pool.’ Make no mistake, the track should be and probably will be heard widely over the course of 2015. It’s a fine slice of modern synthesised pop.…

Album | Punch Brothers – The Phosphorescent Blues

Was anyone aware that prog-bluegrass-folk existed? And that it could be pulled off not just competently, but thrillingly? Neither was I until I gave The Phosphorescent Blues, Punch Brothers’ fourth album, a spin. A 10-minute opener may not be what…

Live | First Aid Kit @ Hammersmith Apollo

Having performed at Hammersmith Apollo nearly three years earlier whilst supporting Jack White, the Söderberg sisters are back in this prestigious West London venue; this time the five thousand strong crowd are all there for them… Arriving on stage to…

EP | Vincent Colbert – Stranger In My House

Vincent Colbert’s debut release is a scorched beauty, a lovely mixture of melody, a fragile yet authoritative voice and astute summing up of the uncertainties of life. The Ann-Arbor based singer-songwriter worked on these five tracks while adjusting to life…

Album | Jib Kidder – Teaspoon to the Ocean

Jib Kidder is the pseudonym of Sean Schuster-Craig, a ‘pop collagist’ signed to Domino’s ‘Weird World’ label. A visual and video artist who describes his music as another form of collage, his playful, psychedelic sound lies somewhere between Dirty Projectors and The Flaming…

Album | Jessica Pratt – On Your Own Love Again

Jessica Pratt has created her own strange folk wonderland on her second record. With shades of Nick Drake, and gloomy beguiling spells, there is a sound and songs here to cement the creator’s reputation as a dark folk goddess. It’s…

Album | Björk – Vulnicura

The deep scar down the centre of Björk’s chest on the cover says plenty about the highly personal, painful content of Vulnicura. It is the hole through which her heart was torn out, through which all the pain and anguish…

Album | Justin Townes Earle – Absent Fathers

Coming only a few months later, Absent Fathers is the flip side to Earle’s last record Single Mothers. Consider it a double album released in two parts. It’s a cracker as well, running in at just over half an hour.…