Category: Reviews

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…

Live Review | Latitude Festival 2016

Ah, Latitude. Don’t ever go changing. Returning to the Suffolk grounds of Henham Park for the 5th consecutive year, all things needed to make a festival ‘special’ seemed to be in place. A strong line up, beautiful weather, and reasonably…

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…

Live | Wooden Arms @ St. Pancras Old Church, London

Nestled in an oft-forgotten corner of Kings Cross, St Pancras Old Church houses some of the more intimate and spellbinding concerts of London’s independent acoustic scene, and tonight’s show was no exception. The evening, marking the launch of ‘Burial’, the…

Album | Rosin Murphy – Take Her Up To Monto

Roisin Murphy is the kind artist record companies hate. She doesn’t follow traditional paths, instead working at her own speed and following her own agenda. The seven year gap between her second and third CDs is proof of that. Stemming…

Live | Lucinda Williams @ Apostel Paulus Kirche, Berlin,

Hot on the heels of Lucinda’s early 2016 tour for recent double album (yes, another) The Ghosts of Highway 20 comes this pared-down version of the songs, performed at the Apostel Paulus Kirche in Berlin with half the band missing,…

Live | Hurray For The Riff Raff @ The Globe, Cardiff

Much is made of Hurray For The Riff Raff frontwoman Alyssa Lee Segarra’s unusual coming of age story. Leaving her Bronx home at 17, she freight-hopped her way to California and travelled around the USA playing music for several years…