• Mitski – Be The Cowboy

    August 17, 2018 - By 

    Given the critical success of 2016’s Puberty 2, touring with Lorde and Run the Jewels, and facing into an almost fully sold out tour across the US and Europe, it’s fair to say Mitski’s upward trajectory in the past few years has been stratospheric. Be The Cowboy, her highly anticipated fifth album marks a more mature direction in the New York artist’s – full name Mitski Miyawaki – sound, both musically and lyrically. Mitski seems to have taken a step away from the guitar and pop-punk sound her name is has become synonymous with. Patrick Hyland (who also worked as a producer…

  • Ross From Friends – Family Portrait

    July 29, 2018 - By 

    What is it about the past that fascinates us? What is it that allows us to romanticise and dream of places that we can’t ever return to? Is it because they are out of our reach that so too is the disappointment that often arises from getting what we desire? Nostalgia is a fickle thing, and in its use we often become completely submerged in our own warped perception of the past, ignorant to all but the glamorous detail. When we incorporate this almost artificial warmth into the lucid and veritable memories of our families, the intoxication becomes all the…

  • The Ophelias – Almost

    July 29, 2018 - By 

    Very occasionally you hear an album that neatly demonstrates its full mission statement within seconds of starting. The opening number is normally a musician’s calling card, but generally this takes a few minutes to let the audience in on what’s being attempted. There’s a real delight in encountering music that is so self-assured and confident that it’s willing to show all of its cards as soon as the chips are drawn. To The Ophelias credit, they give you a nice ten-second window in which to decide if this is going to be for you. If you think that a high…

  • Years & Years – Palo Santo

    July 26, 2018 - By 

    In 1987, the Pet Shop Boys released ‘It’s A Sin’, detailing Neil Tennant’s relationship with his own sexuality and the sense of shame that came with it. It was years after the singer publicly came out. Thankfully, these days, singing about sex and love outside of heterosexual constraints isn’t a rarity. So many songs in the pop zeitgeist have gone beyond heteronormative boundaries, but still, it is often treated as something forbidden, experimental, taboo and something explicitly, solely sexual. Think Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’ or Demi Lovato’s ‘Cool for the Summer.’ Years & Years’ Olly Alexander joyfully takes…

  • Body/Head – The Switch

    July 24, 2018 - By 

    “Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting” – Brian Eno, Music For Airports linear notes If you’re a fan of mid 1990s, alternative rock bass players named Kim, then this year has been a real treat. Kim Deal released the wonderful All Nerve with The Breeders and now Kim Gordon, formerly of the parish Sonic Youth, has gifted us her latest broadcast: Body/Head’s The Switch. The group, completed by Bill Nace, are an experimental noise duo whose work is focused on…

  • Panic! At The Disco – Pray For the Wicked

    July 23, 2018 - By 

    Remember that ‘I Like Me’ song from the Simpsons episode with Hank Scorpio? Imagine if Frank Sinatra collaborated with the Chainsmokers to make a Broadway version of that song. Once you imagine that, you’ll have a bit of an idea as to the level of absurdity we’re dealing with here. Pray for the Wicked is the sixth studio album from Panic! At the Disco. Riddled with pop culture references and sabotaged by extraneous high notes, this effort – which comes 13 years after Bradon Urie and co’s breakthrough A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out –  is basically everything we’ve come…

  • Various Artists – A Litany of Failures Vol. II

    July 17, 2018 - By 

    To be a contemporary “independent” band in Ireland isn’t merely a genre categorisation, but a complex creative actuality. There’s often a socio-economic subtext to the term, as happens when a multitude of younger or less experienced creatives don’t have the resources to view music as a full-time pursuit just yet. They must therefore look elsewhere to meet the frequently unforeseen costs that stack up when making music – gear upkeep, travel, recording/rehearsal space fees, etc. This can lead to an absence of parity at the level of industry power relations. Simply look at the cultural-economic logic followed by certain festivals…

  • Let’s Eat Grandma – I’m All Ears

    July 5, 2018 - By 

    Those who find themselves in their orbit have been quick to describe Let’s Eat Grandma’s rawness and genre-agnosticism as otherworldly. This is probably a fair assessment: Their experiments are, on the surface, unrelentingly other, as much as they are worldly. Up until now though, this is a space that these childhood friends have constructed and conjured for themselves. The beatific mini-universe that first emerged on their 2016 debut, I, Gemini, flooded with vibrancy, uninhibited imaginations and shared experiences — It was the kind of world energised by sugar-rushes and spurred on by way of red-eyes glued to early-morning cartoons. A…

  • Snail Mail – Lush

    July 4, 2018 - By 

    Snail Mail’s Lyndsey Jordan has spoken about her frustration at the media’s lingering focus on her age and it’s easy to understand her consternation. Barely 19, the poison chalice of being a young female musician irritatingly ensures that her music is often viewed through a very particular lens and often described in qualified terms: “Full of potential rather than fully realised”, “Precocious rather than simply gifted” etc.  Bearing this in mind it’s important to break that pattern and clearly state plainly that Snail Mail has made one of the brightest, most insightful and coolly understated albums of the year – No ifs,…

  • Florence and The Machine – High as Hope

    July 2, 2018 - By 

    Life is often polarised; Elation, devastation, swirling endlessly around us like the walls of a great hurricane. When we find ourselves in the eye of the storm serenity takes a hold, but with lengthened stays it can become stale, and we may once again crave to feel the chaotic winds around us. High as Hope, the fourth release from Florence and The Machine, is an intimate exploration of Welch’s most haphazard and vulnerable years, synchronised with homespun instrumentals and soaring vocals to magnificent effect. To reflect is to see, and in seeing we are immediately and irreversibly bestowed with responsibility.…