• Lorde – Melodrama

    June 27, 2017 - By 

    Success came to Lorde after her debut album Pure Heroine injected what every youthful spirit needed: A glorious, romanticised, cathartic portrayal of the mundane life that most face at a certain time in their life. At the age of 16 she sang about the superb bland details of life such as taking buses with “the knees pulled in” and “dreams of clean teeth” underneath a blanket of tender beats and adolescence; and from that moment the world was hooked. Lorde makes her sophomore return with Melodrama, literally. The album comes as a thematically packed release, dealing with the ever-expanding house…

  • King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Murder of the Universe

    June 23, 2017 - By 

    To describe King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard as prolific would be an understatement. They’re the sort of band who write, record and release 6 EPs, 2 double LPs and 36 singles in the time it takes you to read this sentence. Having already released one full-length in February of this year, they’re evidently proponents of a more is more philosophy. That belief permeates to every part of the outfit. From their roster of members to the songs themselves which oscillate between folk, free form jazz, psychedelia and good old fashioned 1970s prog rock epics. So how does their second…

  • Night Drive – Night Drive

    June 22, 2017 - By 

    There’s nothing quite like an album that manages to fuse the past with the present, and even the future for that matter. Rodney Connell and Brandon Duhon, the Texas-based, future-wave duo better known as Night Drive do just that with their new self-titled, debut album. The pair first met when when the woman they were both dating died in a car crash. Neither knew the other before the accident, but from this inauspicious encounter stemmed something very powerful indeed. Their sound, a time machine of sorts, combines elements of 80s synth-pop with futuristically dynamic instrumentation, while brilliantly remaining both sleek and…

  • Kevin Morby – City Music

    June 20, 2017 - By 

    If one thing about Kevin Morby’s latest LP, City Music, immediately leaps out, it’s the sense of playfulness. The album is not light and fluffy by any means, but there is this unflappable feeling of spontaneity and glee that instantly grabs your attention. This is the fourth solo outing from The Babies’ frontman. Like his 2016 effort, Singing Saw, the album is a mixture of folk quiet intensity and some rollicking good rock music. While it never becomes a great collection, it is one of the more thoroughly and consistently pleasant and enjoyable releases of the year. As mentioned before,…

  • Elaine Mai – The Colour Of The Night

    June 19, 2017 - By 

    The Colour of the Night is the latest extended-play from Mayo native, Dublin based electronic mastermind, Elaine Mai. It’s snappy, intoxicating and beautifully unique. Most of all, it demonstrates Elaine’s confidence and progression as a solo artist. It’s been three years since the release of her last EP Known/Unknown. And her growth since then has been phenomenal. The Colour of the Night sees Mai cleverly weave authentic human emotions with electronic and mechanical soundscapes to craft beautiful tracks that uncover touching stories. She transcends boundaries with layers and textures that form a sound that’s honest and thought-provoking. ‘Enniscrone’ serves as…

  • Palehound – A Place I’ll Always Go

    June 19, 2017 - By 

    Difficult experiences can be a source of great inspiration and a catalyst behind profound art. Palehound’s sophomore release, A Place I’ll Always Go is testament to just that as vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Ellen Kempner adds to the band’s repertoire with a host of touching songs informed by her experience dealing with the unexpected loss of a close friend. The resulting songwriting is deeply honest and personal; trading the guitar hooks of 2015’s Dry Food for more meaningful lyrical content. Although still drawing on the stylings of bands like Pavement and Modest Mouse, Palehound’s sound developes on this album into…

  • Fleet Foxes – Crack Up

    June 16, 2017 - By 

    A six-year break is a fairly large gulf for album releases. Fleet Foxes released their last LP, Helplessness Blues, on May 3rd, 2011. At that point in time, Spotify had barely eked its way into the American market, Mitt Romney was a viable presidential opponent and Osama Bin Laden was dead for less than 24 hours. To say certain seismic shifts have occurred since the group’s previous outing is an understatement. The world in which Helplessness Blues and the self-titled record is long gone, so how does their latest, Crack-Up, fare in this new musical landscape? Not well. This a…

  • Loah – This Heart

    June 15, 2017 - By 

    Sallay Matu Garnett AKA Loah‘s debut EP This Heart is, at it’s core, a magical fusion of folk, soul and R’n’B. An effortless blend that draws on elements of eminent female artists such as Grace Jones and Fiona Apple as well as her own own classical music training. What she dubs ‘ArtSoul’ – soul music, which incorporates the scope of all the musical art that Loah loves, including classical, folk, blues – is a carefully curated mix of different sounds and different cultures. Not only that, This Heart  is a proud artistic celebration of Ireland’s multiculturalism, and an opportunity for Garnett to…

  • Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – On The Echoing Green

    June 14, 2017 - By 

    Chaos is everywhere. Politically, ecologically or economically speaking, you can’t look far without longing for a friend humanity has never been too well acquainted with: Order. Timely, then, is the return of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, widely regarded as the apotheosis of ambient drone rock. So frequent are his trademark chaotic turns into rhythmless noise-scapes that comparatively 2017’s Fyre Festival looks like an extremely well organised event. On The Echoing Green, however, promises more overt pop elements at the fore, experimenting in clarity and collaboration and in doing so showcasing a whole new side to Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. Prior to going solo in…

  • Rise Against – Wolves

    June 12, 2017 - By 

    To Rise Against’s credit, they’ve at least maintained some degree of credibility in the face of success. The Chicago four-piece has spent the last decade rather comfortably at the top of the Billboard charts. They’ve long since bypassed the underground and are pretty firmly well established in the mainstream. Yet, unlike countless others in a similar position, they’ve retained their fundamental beliefs. They’re vegan, straight edgers with strong political ideologies and are unafraid to fly their flags high. This is the kind of band who include a recommended reading and viewing lists in their liner notes. These lists have included Naomi…