• Getting Re-acquainted: The Cult – Electric

    August 13, 2013 - By 

    With the release of Electric Peace, we take a look at one of British rock’s true underdogs – The Cult. Unfairly maligned in the 21st century, but still possessing a devoted hardcore following, they blazed a trail through the 80s, winning back the soul of rock from the ashes of punk. With the re-release of Electric, the group’s 1987 masterpiece, now is the perfect time to look at the making of this incredible album, and the long lost unreleased album that should have preceded it, Peace. 1985 had been a very good year for The Cult. Having originally evolved out of the London based ‘positive punk’ band, Southern Death Cult, they then became Death Cult, before dropping the ‘Death’, and adopting the definitive article. 1984’s Dreamtime had been a promising debut, a…

  • Getting Re-Acquainted: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead – Mistakes and Regrets

    August 8, 2013 - By 

    By the end of the 90s, it had all gotten very…safe. Things had settled down after a rollercoaster ride lasting ten years, a journey that had taken in baggy, grunge, shoegaze, Britpop, trip-hop, and a host of other stuff (grebo, anyone?). But in the dying embers of the second millennium, popular music had sunk into a quagmire of worthiness, a sludgy mess of genre hopping experimentalism without form, and of box ticking, perhaps best exemplified by Blur’s bloated misstep, 13. It was all very worthy, it was all perfectly well executed, and it was all very dull. And to top…

  • Getting Re-acquainted: Dinosaur Jr – Freak Scene (1988)

    July 23, 2013 - By 

    Until this point, noise-mongers Dinosaur Jr had never sounded so upbeat. Indeed, this seemed to be the moment that the entire American indie underground came out of its shell and decided to have some fun. But little did anyone know, this upbeat ode to joy was soon to become a fond farewell to the idealism and camaraderie of a scene that had fundamentally altered the lives of many. Goodbye indie charm, hello corporate clout. By 1988, Dinosaur Jr had silenced most of the doubters. The somnambulistic three piece had originally been the butt of many a joke, with their sloppy,…

  • Getting Re-acquainted: Randy Newman – Rednecks

    July 16, 2013 - By 

    For a large number of people, Randy Newman is safe. His distinctive drawl has featured on some of the biggest grossing movies of all time, from Toy Story to Monsters Inc, telling family friendly songs of friendship and warmth. He’s a nice guy, and the kids love him. But this ignores the fact that Randy Newman has been – and always will be – a musical maverick. Right from his earliest days as one of a burgeoning scene of Los Angeles weirdo songwriters who weren’t afraid to follow their own muse, Newman has displayed a singular fearlessness at tackling subjects that few would dare to, in a style…

  • Classic album: Can – Future Days

    July 15, 2013 - By 

    Think of a colour. Think of another colour. Think of things that are the first colour, and imagine them in the second colour. Then think of them in a different shape. This – confusing as it might be – goes some way to explaining the creative processes behind a record like Future Days, a record that simply couldn’t sit back and accept things the way they are. And, in a testament to its success, people are still thinking about things in a different way to this very day. Can aren’t an easy band to get into. But then again, if something…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • Classic Album: Metallica – Kill ‘Em All

    June 28, 2013 - By 

    You feel it building in your muscles, a tension crying for release.  Your fists clench, and your feet move. The strain spreads into your back, snaking up your spine. Before you know it, you’re thrusting your head forwards, pulling sharply back, your hair flailing. “BANG YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE STAGE, LIKE YOU NEVER DID BEFORE, MAKE IT RING, MAKE IT BLEED, MAKE IT REALLY SORE!” And you’re gone, lost in wild abandon, part of something primal and bigger than yourself. This is 1983, and you are a fan of the greatest thrash metal band the world has ever seen: Metallica. From…

  • Empire of the Sun – Ice on the Dune

    June 26, 2013 - By 

    If one disregards melody, songcraft, and a general air of recycled psychedelia, the thing that best categorises Luke Steele’s career to date is inactivity. In a perfect world, Empire of the Sun would have capitalised on the success of their debut album and their incendiary live shows in 2009, ushering in another album to let us soak in their esoteric and exciting world. Instead, they disappeared for four years, before returning with an album that is almost identical to the previous one. And where Walking on a Dream shimmered, Ice on the Dune thumps and hisses. The debut, whilst not…

  • Getting Re-acquainted: Kitchens of Distinction

    June 14, 2013 - By 

    In the last few years, shoegazing (or ‘dream pop’, as our American cousins call it) has made a real comeback, a whole new generation of inarticulate youths picking up guitars and delay pedals , ready to kneel at the altar of My Bloody Valentine. But whilst MBV, Slowdive, and Ride have re-entered the musical vocabulary of the current swathe of indie rockers with floppy fringes, Tooting’s Kitchens of Distinction have remained mysteriously … mysterious. Coming together after meeting at a party in 1985, Patrick Fitzgerald, Julian Swales, and Dan Goodwin comprised one of those bands that could only have existed…