We have a very special double AAA (Access All Areas) featuring two of the biggest acts in the country at the moment, The Riptide Movement and The Hot Sprockets. Our photographer Shaun Neary travelled up to Belfast and spent the entire evening with both bands as they prepared for their gig in the Empire Music Hall. Check out the comprehensive gallery below for how it all works out! View the entire gallery here:
Without any hint of exaggeration, we love, honour and observe Hallowe’en more than pretty much anything else here at The Thin Air? Easter? Pah! Christmas? Pffft! We laugh in the face your cheap crackers, familial small talk and ceaseless indigestion. Yes, for us, Samhain eve is where it is well and truly at. And to commemorate that fact, our Autumnally-inclined editorial team have very happily selected three of their favourite Hallowe’en songs each. Read, listen and go forth into the night. Brian Coney – Editor Graham Coxon – Bonfires Conjuring some truly wonderful images of late-on-Halloween-night solitude, ‘Bonfires’ by Graham…
In no uncertain terms, Prince is one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. Between 1980 and 1988 he released a series of albums that are still startling in their invention, originality, and scope. As a pop star, he remains an enigma, and as a performer he is arguably unrivalled. However, the last twenty years have not been kind to him, and as he stages another attempt at grabbing the public’s interest with the simultaneous release of Plectrumelectrum and Art Official Age, we look back at his 1986 classic Parade, and wonder, where did it all go wrong?In many respects, Parade shouldn’t work. It’s the…
Metalcore giants Asking Alexandria played the Ulster Hall in Belfast on Tuesday night with support from The Ghost Inside, Crown The Empire & Secrets. Photos by Liam Kielt.
Rips is as explanatory as album titles come. Ex Hex hail from Washington D.C., a long-time hardcore stronghold; not that the scene’s legacy is the one that leaves its mark on the power trio of Mary Timony, Betty White, and Laura Harris. Timony, last seen singing and slinging in Wild Flag, a band made up of ex-members of Sleater-Kinney and The Minders, has said that she and her current cohorts “all wanted to write songs that could be on the radio in the early ‘80s.” Rips does just what it says: twelve slices of instant garage sweeping by with the…
Jazz guitarist Lulo Reinhardt brought his Latin Swing Project to Whelan’s in Dublin last night. Photos by Cashel O’Toole.
Perhaps more than even Christmas and Halloween, the Mexican Dia de los Muertos (‘Day of the Dead’) is a holiday ripe for cinematic exploitation: it is, after all, a festival of colourful and gothic storytelling. Jorge Gutierrez, who has previously channeled his love for Mexican folklore into the award-winning El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera for Nickelodeon, pairs up with screenwriter Doug Langdale and uses the day as a backdrop for The Book of Life‘s imaginative story of childhood rivalry and feuding gods. It’s a moderately ambitious but highly charming fantasy-animation with a fun multi-level narrative. We open on…
Having played our recent Output showcase at Belfast’s Black Box, Derry noise-pop trio Autumns have released a new live EP, Live At Sandino’s Back Bar. Recorded – wait for it – live at Sandino’s Bar, Derry, the six-track release was released via Cassette Tape Label, Number4Door, in twenty-five plum purple cassettes, which were hand dubbed with Dolby Noise-Reduction B in Glasgow earlier this month. You can purchase a cassette here and stream/download a digital copy of the release below. Autumns – fronted by Christian Donaghey, also of Gross Net – support Cork psych-rock alchemists The Altered Hours at Whelan’s, Dublin, on November 14. Go…
Over twenty years on from forming Ash, Tim Wheeler has unveiled the video for his debut single, ‘Vigil’. Taken from his forthcoming debut album, Lost Domain, the track deals with Wheeler coming to terms with the loss of his late father, George, to dementia. “It was a really hard time, it was a beautiful time as well, with the closeness of the family,” said Wheeler. We were glad that we all got to be there and share that time together.” Lost Domain is released on November 10. Wheeler will play the following dates over the next fortnight: November 4: London, Bush Hall November…
Who said Ireland wouldn’t welcome the sound of American southern rock this side of the seas? Hosting a roaring avalanche of sound from the Kentucky boys of Black Stone Cherry, Dublin’s Academy exploded with an onslaught of American heavy metal Thursday evening, continuing record-label Roadrunner’s long tradition of importing this genre of American rock into European audiences. Fresh off a tour warming up for Lynard Skynard, Black Stone Cherry’s electrifying performance proved yet again that they too are a headlining bastion of hard rock. Roused by a titillating set from Canadian rock group Theory of a Dead Man, the sold-out…