• Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex

    June 12, 2017 - By 

    Cigarettes After Sex’ self titled debut comes nine years after the band’s first incarnation in El Paso, Texas. Now based in Brooklyn and signed to indie label Partisan Records (John Grant, Sylvan Esso), the band play their opening gambit with frontman Greg Gonzalez at the helm. On first approaching the band it’s easy to be nonplussed by their notably cringeworthy name but upon listening it becomes evident that the name is indeed a very fitting one. Cigarettes After Sex write romantic yet melancholic love songs and the feeling one gets when listening to them is one of warmth and wonderment.…

  • Ulrika Spacek – Modern English Decoration

    June 8, 2017 - By 

    It’s scarcely more than a year since Ulrika Spacek appeared as if from nowhere with their critically lauded debut, The Album Paranoia, on the ever reliable Tough Love Records. So it’s surprising, by today’s standards at least, that they’re already back with a follow up, Modern English Decoration. Recording and mixing the whole record entirely in their own shared East London house that serves as their creative hub probably helped speed things along, mind. Although the band had already expanded from the core duo of Rhys Edwards and Rhys Williams to a full five piece by the time of The Album Paranoia’s recording…

  • Dan Auerbach – Waiting On A Song

    June 8, 2017 - By 

    Poor Dan Auerbach. Since the first Black Keys album arrived fifteen years ago, he’s been consistently portrayed as an ersatz Jack White. It was pretty inevitable, of course, as both singer-guitarist in a two-piece garage band and vinyl-loving champion of all things retro-rock, with Auerbach painted as the workmanlike copyist of White, the true artist. And while it’s true that none of Auerbach’s work has approached the heights of Elephant or White Blood Cells, he doesn’t have dodgy Bond themes or baffling collaborations with the Insane Clown Posse to explain away either. And, to be fair, he has produced a few…

  • Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly & James McAlister – Planetarium

    June 7, 2017 - By 

    “I am the god of war. I reside in every creature. Dispose of the future or put away your sword.” Michigan’s musical polymath Sufjan Stevens takes aim at the stars to reflect on the best and worst of our human nature on this collaborative record with Bryce Dessner of The National, composer Nico Muhly, and drummer James McAlister. The arrangements may be stellar, but earth is never too far away. “Love me completely in song” opines Stevens on ‘Venus’, with its references to Methodist summer camp and formative sexual experience. Each of the planets is a canvas for Stevens to ruminate on…

  • Beach Fossils – Somersault

    June 6, 2017 - By 

    It’s fairly easy to write off a group like Beach Fossils upon the first impression. While we can’t judge books by their cover, those sleeves are designed to give you the most concise definition of its contents, so there must be some merit. A cursory glance at the group reveals exactly what you need to know about them. These are four dudes from Brooklyn dressed in thrift shop finest and baseball caps. They produce lo-fi, Yo La Tengo inflected indie rock-and-droll with whispery vocals and enough irony to make Malkmus look sincere. They’re another group of stoned hipsters talking about…

  • alt-J – Relaxer

    June 5, 2017 - By 

      Relaxer, alt-j’s third album, opens with the track ‘3WW’. It begins more than reminiscent of Massive Attacks’ ‘Teardrop’, digresses into a passage of medieval-pastoral before flowing into a Kate Bush crescendo à la ‘Don’t Give Up’ courtesy of Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell’s vocal contributions. It’s a good choice of introduction to the album which, over the course of eight tracks, is chameleon in nature, varied in scope and only really held on its axis by the distinct idiosyncrasies of the band. In many ways Relaxer is a raging success as Alt-j take creative risks and come out largely unscathed…

  • James Vincent McMorrow – True Care

    June 5, 2017 - By 

    Just nine months ago James Vincent McMorrow released his third studio album, We Move to widespread acclaim. Still revelling in the success of the record and with a slew of live dates keeping him busy for the foreseeable future, McMorrow has dropped his latest offering much to the surprise of everyone bar himself. True Care is an album created in just five months which has been released in a suitably hasty manner with JVM citing a discomfort with the typically grandiose release cycles in modern music as his motive to do so. With this in mind, there seems to be…

  • Maria Kelly – The Things I Should

    May 31, 2017 - By 

    Dublin-based indie-folk artist Maria Kelly has been writing music since she was 10 years old. The Things I Should, Kelly’s debut EP, is inspired by the artist’s difficulties with self-expression, and focuses on a series of personal experiences in which a lack of honesty only caused her further difficulty. The concept is highly relatable, and is executed skilfully; the tone of the tracks reflects this sense of sombre nostalgia and regret that permeates the EP, as it moves from what seems to be a reserved sense of longing in the opening tracks to frustration and determination in the latter half.…

  • (Sandy) Alex G – Rocket

    May 25, 2017 - By 

    When Philadelphia based multi-instrumentalist Alex Giannascoli was eight years old his older brother, also a musician, enlisted the youngster to play drums in his band. This early exposure to performing persisted into adolescence and Alex would eventually turn his hand to writing and composing his own songs. Giannascoli revealed in a recent interview that he found it extremely difficult to be himself around his peers, growing up. He concluded that the only time he felt truly comfortable in his skin was when he was making music. In 2010, Giannascoli transformed into Alex G and he released his debut album Race…

  • Rejjie Snow – The Moon & You

    May 24, 2017 - By 

    “Free mixtape this month. Just for the fans. Everybody else can suck my d**k.” In spite of his tweets, there’s no way Rejjie Snow’s The Moon & You is going to avoid attention from critics. Since his early YouTube videos blew up as a teenager, the Drumcondra rapper has become  something of a critical darling: his off-kilter style found frequent comparisons to Earl Sweatshirt, and his debut EP Rejovich topped the iTunes chart ahead of Kanye West and J Cole upon its 2013 release. It might seem strange that a Dublin rapper would hold such high international regard, but Snow is truly…