• Julien Baker – Sprained Ankle

    March 17, 2017 - By 

    Julien Baker’s debut album Sprained Ankle lures us in with a curiously intimate complexion; it almost feels too intimate to be listened to casually, as if we’re flicking through the most private parts of Baker’s life, gazing in empathetic awe without even introducing ourselves. It’s a one way conversation with stark, personal subject matters such as relationship anxiety, depression, religion and death, and all we can do is listen. Sprained Ankle was originally released in 2015, but is now being reissued on Matador. It’s hard to comprehend that the album is a year and a half old given that nothing…

  • Laura Marling – Semper Femina

    March 15, 2017 - By 

    There’s a criticism that’s hard to make of Semper Femina; despite tracks that are ostensibly about the breadth of human emotion, chronicling love lost, found and thrown away across platonic and romantic partners there’s a flatness of feeling that permeates the majority of its forty-two minute running time. That may be surprising for any fan of Laura Marling, known especially for her sensitive heart and sage like maturity and wisdom, but here on her sixth album it seems she’s almost sleepwalking through a terrain she’s carefully cultivated over the last decade. Let’s be clear, the record doesn’t come across as…

  • Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Navigator

    March 14, 2017 - By 

    On paper, what about a blues folk concept album dealing with a young Puerto Rican’s perspective of her city and homogenisation of her culture should work? On genre level, it’s far too grand an idea. This almost operatic scope isn’t suited to the gritty sensibilities of folk or blues music. Their key hitters are typically the minor, metaphorical pieces which possess a great deal of power and heft, but which diluted at scale. Even on the thematic level, it shouldn’t work. The loss of and longing for some kind “home” is well-trodden ground, but the metropolitan Hispanic immigrant version doesn’t…

  • Field Trip – Evening’s Over EP

    March 10, 2017 - By 

    There’s something so interminably pleasant about Evening’s Over, the latest EP from pop rockers Field Trip. An undeniable ennui and melancholy run throughout. Yet they’re wrapped up in an infectious brand of pop goodness that’s hard not to get lost in. Yet these aren’t throwaway nuggets. The band understands how to introduce scope and scale into what could otherwise be inconsequential mush.   Take the opener ‘Wait’, for example. It starts off as a twitchy, yet straightforward indie pop track with a great big meaty fuzzed out chorus. But by the midpoint of the song, we transitioned to shredding solos…

  • Grandaddy – Last Place

    March 9, 2017 - By 

    There are very few bands that can take a song and transform its tapestry multiple times within a four minute period. There are even fewer bands that execute this boldness in experimentation successfully. This impulsion to deviate from compositional convention is oft cited as self-indulgent or messy. Grandaddy, a band that have thrived on the lo-fi and literal homemade music have mastered the art of rogue arrangements. They have become known for creating a musical landscape populated by straightforward analogue instruments that co-exist with newer devices and effects to pave a route of meandering melodies. On paper, Last Place – Grandaddy’s…

  • Sleaford Mods – English Tapas

    March 6, 2017 - By 

    Sleaford Mods are some of the last punks standing. Their songs are slim, no muss, no fuss affairs. Like ESG before them, the pair rely on a basic setup of bass and drums to carry hip hop infused vitriol to the listener. They are lyrically snotty and upfront with tales of frustration and degradation at the hands of a society which has bred and demeaned them. What their words offer is an insight into the world of the marginalised; people feeling the impact of austerity politics, Brexit and the complacency of the South to the suffering of the North. Yet it…

  • Ibibio Sound Machine – Uyai

    March 3, 2017 - By 

    Ibibio Sound Machine are back with their second album, Uyai. The scintillating record which lands today via Merge shows the group on top form with a sound that is bigger, bolder and funkier than ever. The London-based collective, led by front woman Eno Williams, have returned with an assured mastery of their sound. Inspired by the golden era of ‘70s and ‘80s disco and funk, the overall tone is a colourful fusion of West-African grooves, brassy electronics, modern pop tempos and powerful synths. There’s an air of fearlessness about this release. Focusing on themes of empowerment, freedom, courage and the…

  • Stormzy – Gang Signs & Prayer

    February 27, 2017 - By 

    Almost fifteen years after bursting out of East London, grime has officially taken over the mainstream. The genre, originally popularised by the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Kano, has had a sudden second wave and has been creeping up AOTY lists and making loud impressions at the Brit Awards. Out of this second wave has emerged Michael Omari AKA Stormzy. The Thornton Heath based 23 year old racked up a ‘One To Watch’ nod at BBC’s Sound of 2015, has won Best Grime Act twice at the MOBO Awards and has scored a summer of appearances at some of the UK’s…

  • Sun Kil Moon – Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood

    February 24, 2017 - By 

    In his fifty years on this earth Mark Kozelek has, as he informs us on this new record, lived many lifetimes. His listeners have lived a large part of them too – from his Red House Painters days in the ‘90s, through his solo work and with Sun Kil Moon, Kozelek has never shied away from baring the hard truths and hurts as well as indulging in the simple joys. Album number eight, despite being a double, is a more condensed temporal experience, recounting the same number of months in the singer’s life from January to August in 2016 while…

  • Los Campesinos! – Sick Scenes

    February 22, 2017 - By 

    Remember when we thought George W. Bush was as bad as it could get? What idiots we were. That’s the thing about getting older; hindsight will always make even your deepest insights ridiculous and your perception of what’s truly bad a constantly rising gradient on a graph that ends in a point with a flaming eye at the top. Or something. The point is that looking backwards has a way of creating context but also highlighting some of the folly of our endeavours. So it’s best to take it with a pinch of salt. Case in point is Los Campesinos!…