• Top Ten Alternative Summer Songs

    July 11, 2013 - By 

    The world is melting! The seas will boil, and the sky will become as one great fireball! We’re doomed! Well, that’s what they tell us anyway, but we know better. So allow us to take you by the hand, offer you a delicious ice cold lolly, and give you ten incredible summer songs that are never, ever going to trouble the likes of NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL SUMMER, VOL 2,856. And are all the better for it. 10. The Cure – ‘If Only Tonight We Could Sleep’   Hazy, sweaty, uncomfortable … but enough about Robert Smith’s underpants, this…

  • Inbound: Bellos

    July 11, 2013 - By 

    In the third installment of the Inbound, we chat to Luke Bowen, frontman with Belfast-based alternative three-piece Bellos to discuss the band’s early beginnings, influences and the band’s plans for the next few months. ___ You formed last year. How did the band come about? Where you all friends beforehand and what motivated you to get the band together? “Aidan and I had just moved into our first house together. There was a deal in the off license for a bottle of Buckfast and six cans of beer for a tenner, so we obliged, got messed up and started listening to…

  • Peace, Superfood – Limelight 2, Belfast

    July 11, 2013 - By 

    With the era of Pagers and Kenan & Kel back in fashion of late, tonight is a night that plays host to two tight bands with their fingers very much in the 90s pie. Up first is Birmingham quartet Superfood (below), whose brand of alternative rock is filled with catchy and rigid melodies, combined with lovely sharp percussion, strongly reminiscent of Cake (these food references aren’t intentional). Sporadic, unconventional harmonies are provided seemingly on a whim by the guitarist which are slightly unusual but spice things up nonetheless. Superfood round off their intriguing warm up set with a self titled…

  • The Record #002: Bouts

    July 10, 2013 - By 

    Dublin pop-grunge noiseniks (sorry) Bouts are currently recording and putting the finishing touches to their highly anticipated debut album.We for one cannot wait to hear it. In the second installment of The Record, Aideen McFadden captures the band in their element.

  • A Fight You Can’t Win – A Fight You Can’t Win EP

    July 10, 2013 - By 

    Having been earning their stripes on the Edinburgh live circuit over the last few years, alt-rock quartet A Fight You Can’t Win have been threatening to unleash their barraging, uniquely wrathful craft for some time now. Off the back of last year’s altogether promising Every Last Breath EP – itself worth a cursory listen, at the very least – the foursome have returned with a brief but vehement self-titled effort that could well see break new ground beyond the would-be confines of their whereabouts and serve as inspired springboard of sorts for a potential full-length release. Fronted by Ballycastle native Matthew…

  • Watch: A Northern Light – Kill It

    July 10, 2013 - By 

    Belfast-based alt-rock three-piece A Northern Light have unveiled the video to their new single, ‘Kill It’. Directed by Sean Duncan of Red Cap Productions, the video was edited by the band’s bassist Colm Laverty. The single will be officially released on August 5. Watch the video below.

  • Guided By Voices – English Little League

    July 9, 2013 - By 

    At this stage, fourth album in, may we at least pretend that we all know Guided By Voices are back? Is it ok for The Thin Air to skip the history lesson and pass over the obligatory “Robert Pollard is prolific” spiel? OK, good! We will try not to look back. And so onwards to the future and for now the present and another GBV album. English Little League reveals that the reformed “classic line-up” may not have quite hit the ground running with 2012’s three albums, but instead it seems they were paying their dues all over again. These…

  • Maya Jane Coles – Comfort

    July 9, 2013 - By 

    Maya Jane Coles has steered a steady and prolific career as a DJ and remixer since teaching herself the rudiments of her trade at the age of fifteen through the wonders of computer based DJ packages.  Having filed Essential Selection mixes for Radio 1 and remixed for top dogs such as Gorillaz and Massive Attack, Maya Jane was named fourteenth most influential DJ in the world by Rolling Stone, a prestigious feather in anyone’s musical cap and headphones.  The perpetual challenge for a DJ when creating an album is the choice of vocalist for the tracks; it can either lift…

  • Classic Album: The Band – Music From Big Pink

    July 9, 2013 - By 

    You go outside. The sun is warm on your face, and you smile at the sounds of nature that surround you – the singing of the birds, the wind through the trees, the rushing of the river. You sit down upon the warm grass, and you consider that God is good. You chop some firewood. You do some whittling. Then you go and plug in your electric guitar, turn to Bob Dylan and say, “Let’s cut it.” Without a doubt, there was something very strange going on in the rustic backwater of Woodstock in upstate New York. To this day,…