• Danny Brown – Atrocity Exhibition

    October 5, 2016 - By 

    Danny Brown’s flair for off kilter delivery and taste for unusual production has garnered a cult following since the Detroit rapper’s earliest mixtapes. Subsequently, studio albums like XX and Old found a much wider audience for his tales of drink and drug fuelled escapades, placing Brown as the oddball at the very edge of the rap mainstream. Brown’s brutally honest confessions made him a fascinating figure: avoiding the hip-hop clichés of purely revelling in debauchery, Brown seemed genuinely compelled towards such levels of self-abuse. A series of concerning tweets from 2014, in which the rapper took aim at a lack of support in the rap industry…

  • Conor Oberst – Ruminations

    October 4, 2016 - By 

    The album as a concept can fall into one of two categories. The first, a heavily sculpted creation that presents the artist in their best possible light. An artistic declaration in which every sonic device is controlled and used to build a cohesive voice. The alternative, a candid snapshot where feeling and honesty of content and performance are prioritised over perfection and sheen. Though both are valid and worthy, Ruminations by Conor Oberst sits achingly in the latter camp. While an album will ultimately stand on the merit of its songwriting and music, this is an album that grows and unfolds with the benefit…

  • Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam – I Had a Dream That You Were Mine

    October 3, 2016 - By 

    The Walkmen formed in 2000 following the disintegration of two Washington bands, The Recoys and Jonathan Fire*Eater. They relocated to New York City and actively moved away from the indie garage of their contemporaries led by The Strokes. The Walkmen’s music was, instead, guided by a collective love for lo-fi production and the sound of vintage instruments which made some of the most interesting modern music to behold throughout the six studio albums they recorded over their fifteen year tenure. When the band dispersed, frontman Hamilton Leithauser released a debut album entitled Black Hours, in 2014. It was a mixture of sombre reflection and jovial melodies…

  • Jenny Hval – Blood Bitch

    October 3, 2016 - By 

    Concept albums are tricky. Honing in on a singular narrative or theme throughout a 40 minute collection of music requires precision and tact from an artist, an ability to carry an idea throughout without allowing it to devour every other facet of the record. Norwegian experimental-artist Jenny Hval has, over the course of about a decade, built a collection of albums under varying monickers with roots stretching into concepts of sexuality, the human body, sociology, gender and mortality all the while allowing her music to be captivatingly nuanced and enticing; she knows how to make a concept album. Her last…

  • windings – Be Honest and Fear Not

    September 30, 2016 - By 

    There could be no more apt a title for the fourth full length LP from one of Ireland’s oft unsung but widely respected acts, Windings. Be Honest and Fear Not arrives after a four year spell of silence from the Limerick outfit and shows us a band, fronted by former Giveamanakick vocalist and guitarist Steve Ryan, who have absolutely nothing to camouflage and no affectation to assume. While this record might not match its 2012 predecessor I Am Not the Crow in terms of ambition or cohesion, it makes up for that in unabashed heart and candid songwriting. Lyrically, Ryan has discussed how the album plays…

  • Warpaint – Heads Up

    September 26, 2016 - By 

    Warpaint are a band that divide opinion. In 2010, they became an almost instant underground success with ‘Undertow’, the lead single from their abstractly alternative album, The Fool. The album stood out in the year when Beach House released Teen Dream, Vampire Weekend’s Contra and Broken Social Scene’s Forgiveness Rock Record dominated radio airtime. Warpaint sought to be different with a sombre and grittier edge in the midst of bands shedding lightness and exuberance lyrically and musically. Unfortunately, they lost momentum with their subsequent self-titled album from 2013, which was met with mixed reviews, upon which the Californian quartet went on a…

  • Hannah Peel – Awake But Always Dreaming

    September 23, 2016 - By 

    Every second we’re alive we move closer to our conclusion. We hope for ourselves there will be some dignity and grace in our final moments and that we might finish the whole existence thing with our minds intact, painlessly drifting into the great unknown. Sadly, though, that probably won’t be the case. Estimates from Genio state that by 2046, 150000 people in Ireland will suffer from dementia with two-thirds of those being women. Neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia, are becoming the shadow which defines the latter section of so many lives. Yet in spite of the looming nature of this…

  • WIFE – Standard Nature

    September 21, 2016 - By 

    Combing ferocity with beauty is something that has always played a central role in the music of James Kelly. In his other musical life the Cork artist makes up part of currently-in-limbo Atmospheric Black Metal outfit, Altar of Plagues, a group whose knack for vicious energy is made all the more gripping by the constant undercurrent of anguished melody, in particular on their 2013 album Teethed Glory and Injury.  Under his electronic solo moniker, WIFE, Kelly has, over the course of two previous releases, always tended to err more on the atmospheric end of that spectrum. His last LP, 2014’s…

  • Devendra Banhart – Ape In Pink Marble

    September 22, 2016 - By 

    Once you become aware of Venezuelan-American songwriter Devendra Banhart‘s other life as a visual artist it becomes difficult to distance it from his musical output. Despite rarely linking his music and visual art, aside from painting his own album artwork (including the grammy nominated beauty of 2009’s What We Will Be), one always feels the intended aesthetic and colour that permeates his music. In 2013 Banhart released his Nonesuch Records debut, Mala, a record of playful, winsome cuts that toyed with love’s awkwardness and silliness with equal parts melancholy and wit. Throughout the album, the grainy pink colouring that defined its cover perched on the listener’s…

  • Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree

    September 16, 2016 - By 

    Skeleton Tree isn’t the first Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds album born out of personal turmoil. The melancholy of albums like Your Funeral, My Trial in the 80s was inspired by Cave’s worsening heroin addiction, while 1997’s The Boatman’s Call was one of those classic breakup albums, famously considered – until now, that is – to be Cave’s most emotionally affecting work. But that must pale into insignificance for Cave now, ever since his 15 year old son Arthur last year fell to his death from a cliff near their home in Brighton, an event he describes in the album’s accompanying film One More Time With Feeling…