• Mura Masa – Mura Masa

    On his self-titled debut Alex Crossan aka Mura Masa makes intelligent, sophisticated pop writing seem utterly effortless. He does this by seemingly always making the correct creative decisions whether that’s the choice of collaborator, the length of a song or the minutiae of layering across a bar, a chorus or an entire single. This talent or knack or aptitude or god given gift is present right from opener ‘Messy Love’ into the late stages of the album but is transcendent in conjunction with the immense talent of the contributors. Despite being her second best appearance on the album, ‘Nuggets’ featuring…

  • Sun Collective – Sun Collective

    Over the course of its musical history, Ireland has had a symbiotic relationship with the art of folk music from stalwarts like Luke Kelly, The Clancy Brothers and Planxty to recent greats like Declan O’Rourke, Villagers, The Gloaming and Lisa Hannigan. As culture moves however, the prevalent ties to tradition that once permeated the country’s musical culture have been seen to fray ever-so-slightly. Mass-produced pop-rock dominates Irish ticket sales, festival main stages and radio airplay, shoving aside a genre so formative to parts of the Irish identity. In the midst of this it becomes crucial to find new ways of recontextualising…

  • This Is The Kit – Moonshine Freeze

    With a back catalogue spanning close to a decade, alternative folk rock project This is The Kit have indelibly made their unhurried mark in the niche of alternative folk rock and beyond, getting nods across the board from the likes of Guy Garvey as part his Music Box series, an episode of which he dedicated to the band.  Headed by Kate Stables, the project is a collaborative one through and through with there being contributions from various artists throughout the years including Rozi Plain and Jesse D Vernon. This collaborative vein continues in new album Moonshine Freeze with contributions again from…

  • The Jimmy Cake – Tough Love

    Ireland has had no shortage of post-rock bands, but The Jimmy Cake feel a bit like the elder statesmen. On early releases they set themselves apart from their contemporaries with a 10 piece lineup that mixed folk and orchestral instruments like banjo, accordion, brass and woodwind alongside the guitars, a sound they had perfected by the time they put out the lush Spectre & Crown. But on their return from a subsequent seven year gap with 2015’s Master they’d undergone a reinvention, those extraneous instruments all but replaced with stratospheric synths, tracks that could now last half an hour, and…

  • Art Feynman – Blast Off Through The Wicker

    Carved into the very top of the Reviewer’s Doctrine sits a Maxim: thou shalt never admit thou are not an expert. It’s something we cite at our regular cult meetings which bring together critics of music, exhibitions and sandwiches alike. We like to think it’s our only connection to internet trolls, although some critics will gladly try to prove otherwise. Consider yourself lucky then, that in this introduction not only will I be breaking our highest Maxim, but our second one too, and use the first person. For I. Was. Wrong. Hard to type, but for the most joyous of…

  • Toro Y Moi – Boo Boo

    Toro Y Moi’s Chaz “Bear” Bundick, having first come to prominence in association with “chillwave” in 2009, doesn’t appear to have taken a rest since. While Boo Boo counts as his fifth album proper under the Toro Y Moi banner, he also also found time for a live album, a mix tape, and several other compilations, side projects and collaborations.The musical polymath’s work to date has also drawn from an array of genres, from R&B to psychedelia through hip-hop and indie pop, seeming equally comfortable creating music using a traditional band setup or sitting in the production chair. Across Boo…

  • Lucy Rose – Something’s Changing

    Last year, British singer-songwriter Lucy Rose embarked on the trip of a lifetime. In the space of two months she played 33 gigs in eight countries. The challenge set in this case was that the dates were in Latin America, a place where you would be hard pressed to find her music in shops and where her promoters did not believe she could fill a venue. In a move that was deemed crazy by both her label and loved ones, Rose promised her Latin American fans she would bring her music to them if they could book her venues and…

  • Haim – Something To Tell You

    It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the Haim sisters – Este, Danielle and Alana – and they’ve marked their return with an album that takes the listener on that typical pop journey of love, loss and all the in betweens. Haim rode the waves of hype from their 2012 Forever EP, and 2013’s Days Are Gone for nearly four years by finding their niche in the pop leaning indie rock scene where female harmonies and Fleetwood Mac leaning instrumentals were in demand. With the release of follow-up LP  Something To Tell You, there’s a question mark over whether this formula…

  • Broken Social Scene –  Hug of Thunder

    From the ambient beginnings of Feel Good Lost to the communal song-craft of You Forgot In People, through the kitchen-sink sheen of the self-titled Broken Social Scene to the stripped-down (by their standards) Forgiveness Rock Record – the Canadian collective have always appeared entirely comfortable in their own skin. Confident enough to pursue other musical projects but still check-in with each other for a new record and tour at regular enough intervals, Hug of Thunder arrives seven years after Forgiveness Rock Record – the band’s longest hiatus to date. It has no right to be this good. The listener is…

  • Nickelback – Feed The Machine

    This review is the most recent entry in Will Murphy’s 12000 word thesis on Nickelback. He speaks from a place of knowledge, understanding and a begrudged appreciation due to stockholm syndrome. Feed The Machine is Nickelback’s ninth album. Let that sink in. Nine albums. This band has released a full-length LP as many times as 50 Cent has been shot. Given the notoriety surrounding them, it’s hard to fathom how they’ve kept on trucking all these years. The group has become more meme than band at this point. Every joke has been mined and we are all comfortable with the…