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Latest Album Reviews
Lightspeed Champion - Falling Off The Lavender Bridge
"not every band that NME champions has to be shite" (More)
Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster...
"It can’t be denied that Hold On Now, Youngster is fun" (More)
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
"Not all British bands with guitars sound the same" (More)
The Aliens - Astronomy For Dogs
"Instead of listing all the influences just go to wikipedia and search for popular musical styles" (More)
Idlewild - Make Another World
"A band at the crossroads" (More)
Latest Gig Reviews
Radiohead, Bat For Lashes, MGMT
"29th June 2008 - LCCC, Manchester" (More)
Half Man Half Biscuit
"17th April 2008 - Coronation Hall, Ulverston, Cumbria" (More)
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
"13th May 2007 - Olympia Theater, Dublin" (More)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
"17th April 2007 - Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall" (More)
Paul Weller, The Charlatans, Ian Brown, Echo and the Bunnyman, Noel Gallagher
"30th March 2007 - MEN Arena Manchester" (More)
 
 
- Recommended
 
February sees 2 giants of the mainstream british indie go head to head as Bloc Party & Kaiser Chiefs release that difficult second album. A more eclectic mix of styles than January covering most musical tastes ranging from ambient electronica through to screamo. There is also a mix of new and established artists in the mix too and part of the old Madchester crowd Inspiral Carpets release a download only B-sides compilation, nicely timed to coincide with their reformation...
 
Air - Pocket Symphony
French duo release their 5th studio album. I’m not really a fan of ambient so obviously this isn’t one of my favourites. It’s nice enough though, with pleasant laid-back tunes and the added bonus of having honorary Frenchman Jarvis Cocker on a couple of tracks. At a whopping 56 minutes, it starts to get a bit dull and uninspiring. Ideal as background (ambient???) music though.
Try Before You Buy: The Duelist
 
 
The Ataris - Welcome The Night
More shite sk8r punk from the shite sk8r punk band. Now with a newly inspired “new” sound that sounds remarkably like My Chemical Romance. They havn’t released anything for a few years now as the singer/songwriter became disillusioned with their musical style. Why or why did you come back? Why?
Try Before You Buy: Getting Something Else
 
 
Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
Depending on who you talk to, this is either a bit rubbish or quite good. Personally I find it better than the debut Silent Alarm. It’s more thoughtful and the music just seems to have more depth to it. In Andy’s review on Indietron, he made the point that it seems as if the songs have been created with the remix album in mind. I do kind of agree with that in that there are obvious songs which will remix quite nicely. I also think that the songs are produced to be played in packed arenas. It won’t even be close to being the best album of the year, but all-in-all not a bad listen.
Try Before You Buy: Hunting For Witches, The Prayer
 
 
Dive Dive - The Revenge Of The Mechanical Dog
More sk8r madness, this time in the vein of Linkin Park / Blink 182. They’ve also tried to infuse some At The Drive-In into it aswell. Without success.
Try Before You Buy: None
 
 
Drone - Head-On Collision
ONE FOR FUCKIN’ SCREAMO FANS!!!
WHICH IS’NT FUCKIN MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKIN MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!
AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!
Try Before You Buy: Shit All
 
 
Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High
Emo by numbers giants return after a summer of persecution. We obviously didn’t persecute them enough. Now, just like Bush snr, we are going to have to rely on our children to finish the job years down the line.
Try Before You Buy: Nowt
 
 
The Fall - Reformation Post TLC
The 26th Studio album from one of Britain’s most talented, if not the most twattish, musicians. Last album “Fall Heads Roll” was one of the more accessible Fall albums. This is a bit of a mixed bag really. Some stuff for the hardcore fans and some for the casual fan. It has its moments though and as always is an interesting listen even at its most difficult places. As John Peel once said of The Fall “Always different, always the same”. The musical world would be a much duller place without them.
Try Before You Buy: The Joy Division sound-alike – “Fall Sound”
 
 
The Hours - Narcissus Road
After spending years producing & playing alongside the likes of Elastica, Black Grape, UNKLE, Joe Strummer (The Mescaleros) & Pulp (another Jarvis link), Anthony Genn & Martin Slattery finally get together to form their own band and surprise even themselves. It’s a slightly strange one this. I’m hard-pushed to stick them in any category (other than the obvious umbrella catch-all of indie). There’s a lot of piano going down, but Coldplay they are not with meaningful, intelligent, insightful lyrics that Chris Martin could only dream of (minus the swearing of course). Maybe I should simply let Jarvis Cocker have the last word: “They understand what music is for. Let them into your life - you won't regret it."
Try Before You Buy: Ali In The Jungle, I Need To Know
 
 
Inspiral carpets - Keep The Circle
Only available from iTunes or Napster. Instead of the CD booklet, you get a 55 minute interview track in which the band take us through each of the tracks on the album. There’s an interesting bit around the 18 minute mark where they talk about the second album and state that they deliberately wanted to rebel against the first album, but unfortunately they took it too far and ended up “locking themselves up their own arses” and produced a shit album. After that they were always on the backfoot. And that’s the thing about the Carpets isn’t it? One great album, followed by lots of mediocrity with the odd shining star. Which is why it’s such a surprise that this is actually a decent album. It’s got plenty of old favourites such as Commercial Reign, Directing Traffic, Out of Time, plus slightly different versions of others, including some chaotic vocals from Mark E Smith on Saturn 5. But even the “true” B-sides are actually really rather good. It’s a reminder to us older music fans as to what a great band they were when at their best. Probably not as good as a proper “Best Of” album, but worth getting for all those completists.
Try Before You Buy: Directing Traffic, Out of Time, Going Down
 
 
Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly, Angry Mob
Similarly to Bloc Party, I thought Kaisers debut “Employment” was highly overrated, with the exception of “I Predict a Riot” & “Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah” which were great tracks. This release is shaping up to be very similar. I have to say I do quite like the single “Ruby” (the one where they sound more like Franz Ferdinand than Franz Ferdinand do) plus a couple of other tracks, but in general, pretty mediocre really. Again, these boys have gone for a subtly different sound (they sound similar to Franz actually) than their previous effort. They’ve been described as the modern Blur. Sorry, but in my opinion they’re not fit to polish Damon Albarns turds. When at their most “Kaiserish”, they trawl out stupid lyrics and comic book tunes as if they were rolling off a factory production line: well made, nicely put together, but they are all exactly the same. One of the tracks is called “Everything Is Average Nowadays”. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Try Before You Buy: Ruby
 
 
Mika - Life In Cartoon Motion
Camp throw-away pop rubbish. Includes the very irritating single “Grace Kelly”. Awful stuff. Truly, truly awful. I think he’s trying to be a cross between George Michael & Freddy Mercury. I like Freddy. He really knew how to do “camp”. Georgie boy of course spent most of his career denying his sexual orientation and dining out on his popularity with the fairer sex – a complete sham. Just like describing this shite as music – complete sham.
Try Before You Buy: Zippo
 
 
Mr.Hudson & The Library - A Tale Of Two Cities
Laid back lounge music featuring a band of intelligent musicians including a classically trained pianist. Coming soon to a coffee shop near you. It’s not exactly Sade, but it’s in that sort of area. Really not my sort of thing. I find it all a bit dull. It’s the sort of music I would expect Rough Trade to rave about. And to be fair, it’s not unpleasant, and there are some interesting tracks on here about subjects not normally associated with this style of music. It’s been a while since I heard any Sade, but I’m pretty sure she never sung about taking lines of coke. The problem is though it’s all done in that lounge music format which just bores the pants off me.
Try Before You Buy: Too Late Too Late, Everything Happens To Me
 
 
Noisettes - What's The Time Mr. Wolf?
Sounds a bit like Regina ”tee-hee” Spektor (or maybe that girl from “The Gossip”) fronting The Who, with a wee bit of Jazz thrown in. The results are really quite interesting. Don’t be scared off by the Jazz reference though, The main style is definitely rock. Formed in 2004, they have since supported the likes of Babyshambles, Bloc Party, The Mystery Jets & Muse. After a couple of EP’s & a few singles (including I WE which was played at the March Indietron Night), this is their debut album release. I’ve really taken to these guys and this combination of strong vocalist, intelligent lyrics and rocky sound is right up my street.
Try Before You Buy: I WE, Scratch Your Name, Sister Rosetta (Capture The Spirit).
 
 
Norah Jones - Not Too Late
Pleasantish but dull folk/country/blues inspired madness. You know what you’re getting with Geethali Norah Jones Shankar (daughter of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar), and she provides more of the same here. Admittedly she has a wonderful voice and uses the piano really well to compliment her songs, but I just find it incredibly dull.
Try Before You Buy: Why is it "mad" Mr. Rich?
 
 
Pop Levi – The Return To Form Black Magick Party
His history includes forming Liverpool krautrock, “Can” influenced band Super Numeri, and playing bass with Ladytron. His solo work is heavily 60’s psychedelica influenced, but with some obvious folk influences such as Devandra Banhart and some electronica too. Sometimes twee, sometimes poptastically uplifting, at other times soulfully mellow, it’s a very eclectic mix of songs, though you may find a couple you don’t like. An excellent collection of tunes from an extremely talented musician
Try Before You Buy: Pick Me Up (Uppercut), Hades’ Lady
 
Singles & Stuff :
The Black Keys release 3 track single “Youre The One” which sounds like the Modest Mouse guy singing with The White Stripes. Charlotte Hatherley also makes a welcome return with single “I Want You To Know”, a lovely 60’s inspired pop number. The album is due out in March. The Knife release single “Marble House” which has an almost Japanese feel to it. I’m not a great fan of this track. But I am a huge fan of LCD Soundsytems new single “North American Scum”. NME darlings Mumm-ra have released 3 track single “What Would Steve Do?”. I quite like them and they definitely have more about them than the likes of The Ko*ks. Finally, electronica crew Union of Knives return with new single “Evil Has Never”, sounding like We Are Scientists.