• Efrim Menuck – Pissing Stars

    Montreal’s Efrim Menuck casts a long, deep shadow over contemporary experimental rock music. If you need a demonstration of that fact, listen to the first three Godspeed You! Black Emperor albums and get good and lost in them for a while. Separate to this, his work with Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra is a notable cut above many of his peers. Every album he’s touched is coated in his fingerprints. It’s surprising then, given his longevity and influence, that he has only two solo efforts. The second of which he has just released after a seven-year gap. Pissing Stars…

  • Hookworms – Microshift

    Earlier in the decade, it felt like Hookworms were among the leading lights of the modern psych scene, but the gap since the one-two-punch of their first two LPs Pearl Mystic and The Hum in 2013 and 2014 respectively has been uncharacteristic. Having remained on the live circuit – including a storming pair of Irish gigs in 2016 – their studio output has been held up by both the flooding of frontman MJ’s studio in late 2015 and a more general desire to slow down and take their sound somewhere new, rather than continue repeating the formulas of their earlier…

  • Justin Timberlake – Man of the Woods

      There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get in touch with your roots. There comes a point in everyone’s life when they feel the need to look back; to examine the past in order to know how to deal with the future. Justin Timberlake is in such a mood. And, unfortunately for us, he’s not afraid to shout about it. It’s not surprising that, after recently becoming a father, JT would be feeling rather “homely”. In the teaser trailer for Man of the Woods, Timberlake states “This album is really inspired by my son, my wife, my family, but more…

  • Various Artists – Quare Groove Vol. 1

    In the late 70s and early 80s the Irish charts were rife with blokes brandishing electric guitars, the likes of Queen, Dire Straits and The Police all consistently taking the top spot in singles charts. It was clear that rock music ruled the roost. Meanwhile over in the states, Americans were by and large still enjoying funk and R&B laced pop from the likes of The Bee Gees and Stevie Wonder.  Although this groove based music didn’t make half as much of a dent in the Irish charts, a new collection of underground Irish groove tracks from the Dublin based record label All City shows that Irish music in the late 70s and early 80s…

  • Django Django – Marble Skies

    Anyone who has ever been in a band knows the importance that power dynamics play. The internal struggle is one fought by most members and often glamorised by talking heads in music documentaries. Were they the ‘quiet one’ or the ‘egotist’? The “fight-starter” or “facilitator”? Such stereotypes don’t seem to apply to Django Django. The four-piece formed at the Edinburgh College of Arts feel closer to the proper meaning of a “band” – they feel like a collective. Vincent Jeff provides those quintessential reverb-soaked vocals; Jimmy Dixon the harmonies that give the band “their” sound; Tommy Grave the synths that offer…

  • Belle & Sebastian – How to Solve Our Human Problems Pt. 2

    In 1996, Belle & Sebastian recorded, mixed and released two albums; Tigermilk in June and If You’re Feeling Sinister in November. Both highly acclaimed releases from the band which remain as firm favourites amongst their fans, they were both made within the confines of a week long period. On each occasion, Stuart Murdoch came to the studio with a notebook full of lyrics inspired by the lives of ordinary people and introduced us to an array of characters in different scenarios. Along the way, we acquire intimate details about their circumstances, reflecting the dreary backdrop of the time and town…

  • Shopping – The Official Body

    Rachel Agg must be one of the UK’s busiest musicians today. Not content with fronting Trash Kit and last year’s Scottish Album of the Year winners Sacred Paws, she also heads up London trio Shopping, who have somehow managed to find the time to record a third album in amidst it all. While those first two bands possess similar melodic indie-pop leanings, Shopping are leaner, tauter and more heavily indebted to their post-punk forebears. Their first two albums, 2013’s Consumer Complaints and 2015’s Why Choose, sound so much like products of the late 70s/early 80s that it would be tempting…

  • Fall Out Boy – Mania

    Let’s just cut to the chase. It’s been at least five years since Fall Out Boy released a record worth its salt, and coming up to a decade since they were a truly meaningful part of cultural conversation. Having reformed back in 2012, the four-piece have moved ever further from their Get Up Kids-inspired emo roots in favour of becoming a pop band with some metalheads in it. The group, who formerly could weave hip-hop and R&B influences into misunderstood, antagonistic anthems, have abandoned this careful recipe in exchange for the lowest common denominator dirge the contemporary charts have to offer. Mania,…

  • First Aid Kit – Ruins

    Written predominantly in the wake of a break-up, the aptly named fourth album from Swedish folk-duo First Aid Kit wades through the aftermath of heartbreak, self-doubt and loneliness, in the search to find something among the ruins. Lead vocalist and guitarist Klara Söderberg had just broken up with her fiancé when she reunited with elder sister Johanna in Los Angeles to write their fourth record. She described the record to HMV as being about the ruins of a relationship, “How sad it is, but also how beautiful it was. That’s all you have left at the end.” It’s a perfect…

  • Porches – The House

    There are few conflicts greater than those fought at home. These contests are never about the things themselves but more about the idea of what home should be. Should it be a place to relax or a place to play; a place to laugh or a place to learn. Aaron Maine addresses these inner/outer conflicts with his latest album The House. It’s an incredibly honest piece from the New Yorker and the logical next step from 2016’s Pool. Lyrically speaking, Maine has left the pool in name only. Everywhere you go there are references to water on this record. The…