The record label and clubnight Communion is hosting a series of exciting (and free) gigs at the Kentish Town venue the Flowerpot this week. And as well as the evenings’ entertainments, the upstairs venue has become a temporary studio for…
Category: Reviews
EP: Junip – Rope and Summit
After the release of EP Black Refuge in 2005 Junip took a five year hiatus, but now they’re back and promising both an EP and an album launch by the end of the year. Fronting the band is the familiar…
Album: Bombay Bicycle Club – Flaws
It is a brave or stupid musician that names their album Flaws. There is an unwritten rule in the art world that when naming your piece – whether it be an album, film, collection of squiggly lines on canvas, new book or whatever – you do not give it a title that in any way could be quoted by a critic against you.
Singles round-up: Melodica Melody & Me, The Pipettes, Pagan Wanderer Lu
Melodica, Melody & Me – ‘Piece Me Back Together‘ Melodica, Melody & Me are a 6-piece folk band hailing from South London. Their debut single, ‘Piece Me Back Together’ is exactly what bands hope their debut to be: full of…
Album: The Acorn – No Ghost
Bella Union, who release the band’s newest album, No Ghost, tell us that free from ‘the emotional weightiness’ of their last record, The Acorn are able to show off the real them, a lighter, more versatile sound than we might previously have known. There is certainly some truth in this – the album demonstrates a great deal more variety than previous records have, and is certainly less dark, thematically, than their last.
Album: Teenage Fanclub – Shadows
In some ways reviewing this album feels a bit superfluous; fraudulent, even. If the point of a review is to convey what an album sounds like, I can sum it up in a five-word sentence: it sounds like Teenage Fanclub.…
Live: Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit: Manchester Academy 3, 29th June
I first saw Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit in Liverpool on their club tour just before ‘Been Listening’ was released. They played a tiny club, Zanzibar, I was stool on a chair about 15 feet from the band. I’d…
Album: James Apollo – Hide Your Heart in a Hive
James Apollo’s third album Hide Your Heart in a Hive is one that will define his career as a musician. Apollo drifted across America like a young Bad Blake. He slept in his car and played a new town every…
Live: Divine Comedy / Alela Diane Duo: Salle Pleyel Webcast, Paris
I don’t know if this really counts as a live review, even though I watched it live. I suppose that is the only dilemma with the webcast, as everything else about it seems to be brilliant. They’ve become something of…
Singles round-up: the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the National, First Aid Kit, Crocodiles
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Say No To Love The Pains of Being Pure at Heart may be telling us to ‘Say No To Love’ in their latest single, but it will be hard to keep away…