Category: Reviews

EP | Tiny Ruins – Haunts

For many, Some Were Meant For Sea, the 2011 debut album by Tiny Ruins, arrived as a complete and perfect thing out of nowhere. Now, rather than ploughing on forwards, New Zealander Hollie Fullbrook is filling in the back story…

EP | Nathan Ball – In Your Mind

With only one EP titled In Your Mind, he is yet to be signed – the third track from this debut effort however, will make you wonder why. In This Town floats through the salty soundwaves with a smooth harmony.

Album | Alessi’s Ark – The Still Life

It would be over the top to suggest that, at the age of 22, it was make-or-break time for Alessi Laurent-Marke. But there is no denying that Alessi’s Ark needed a third album of substance, something to erase words like…

Album | Haiku Salut – Tricolore

According to Haiku Salut themselves, the sound they make is “Baroque-Pop-Folktornic-Neo-Classical-Something-Or-Other”. Whatever that is, they can safely claim to be Derbyshire’s premier exponents of it – a fact demonstrated on Tricolore, which helpfully comes with a series of wonderful drawings…

Album | Hiss Golden Messenger – Haw

Trying to get a handle on Hiss Golden Messenger’s fourth album isn’t easy. Named for a river – which gave its name to a now lost Indian tribe – in North Carolina, Haw meanders through an array of different styles.…

Album | Laish – Obituaries

Obituaries are quite clearly the best part of the newspaper. Why? Because you get a short and easily digestible bit of history, written by a person with actual knowledge of the topic, and you always learn something new. It’s perhaps…

EP | Annie Dressner – East Twenties

Annie Dressner sings deftly-told stories with a comforting love of the everyday. East Twenties opens with ‘Heartbreaker’, settling old scores with nostalgia and forgiveness: “But I won’t be back again, no I won’t be back again”. ‘I Can’t Forget’ deals…

Album | The Milk Carton Kids – The Ash & Clay

The Milk Carton Kids are Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale from suburban Los Angeles. They sing pretty and gentle close harmonies woven around their two vintage acoustic guitars with no further accompaniment, and they are very good at it. Pattengale…