When I first heard The Lake Poets, otherwise known as the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Martin Longstaff, he was playing his guitar onstage at one of Newcastle’s best venues (in my humble opinion), the Cluny. The demo of ‘Windowsill’, which…
Having toured for much of the summer in support of their album Bonxie, released in April, Stornoway provide a matching bookend to close their travelling schedule by releasing a six-track acoustic companion piece shorn of the denser instrumentation and frequent…
Dear readers, We Come Alive has been on sabbatical this summer since our last cracking show in June. We have been on tour in Italy, at four music festivals, and a snuck in a holiday too. Now we are ready…
Hitting middle age was always going to be a test for The Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn. Some 11 years after the barroom rock version of the E Street Band emerged from the wreckage of Lifter Puller, the now 44-year-old’s…
New York City based outfit Tall Firs took 16 years to get to its first album, after forming in 1990. Thankfully subsequent releases haven’t taken such a long time, and we now find ourselves addressing the matter of the act’s…
As scuzzed-up electronic drums heartbeat their way through the opening bars of Low’s 11th album there’s a thrilling realisation that this is not more of the same from the Minnesota minimalists. Replacing the floor-rug warmth of 2013’s The Invisible Way,…