• Future of the Left – How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident

    I think it’s fair to say that every now and then a person like Future of the Left frontman Andy Falkous is needed. He’s a man whose piss and vinegar vitriolic diatribes would fit comfortably with the George Carlins, Lenny Bruces, Charlie Brookers and Bill Hickses of the world. These are people who can stare into the unending abyss that we know as culture, see the gunk that halts the gears of progression and report back to us with details of the horrors from the underbelly that are steadily herding us toward the trappings of insanity, idiocy and incompetence. Plus…

  • The Dismemberment Plan – Uncanney Valley

    It’s strange meeting an old friend after an extended absence. Will they be the same person that you remember?  I first listened to the Dismemberment Plan during a hospital stay and it was during this time that Emergency & I and the band who created that album became very close to my heart. So when the band announced their new album – their first in 12 years –  I was genuinely afraid to hear it. I didn’t know if I could stand listening to this band and knowing that what mattered so much to me was just a passing thing.…

  • Pelican – Forever Becoming

    Woah. It’s apparent from the gargantuan opening thuds of ‘Terminal’ that Chicago riffmongers Pelican have undergone some major surgery in the four years since the lacklustre What We All Come to Need limped into earshot. Indeed, it transpires that founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec has flown the nest, to be replaced by The Swan King’s Dallas Thomas. Gone, too, are the grungy guitars, spacier textures and vocal dabblings of the previous record; Pelican 2013 is an angrier beast, pounding the listener with monolithic slabs of guitar abuse, pummelling rhythms and huge bottom end. If all this sounds strangely familiar, it’s because…

  • Mojo Fury – The Difference Between

    Having successfully completed a pledge campaign to ensure its release, the ever singular Mojo Fury unveil the sprawling mastery of The Difference Between having reignited the fire in the hearts of their fanbase. Considering the almost necessary participation of the latter, not to mention the band’s own open-handed generosity in return, there is a very real sense of both camps being in it together. That said, with the grandiose silhouette of their groundbreaking 2011 debut album Visiting Hours of a Travelling Circus looming large in the background, the question remains: will the Mike Mormecha-fronted band falter in the wake of huge expectation or…

  • Grey Reverend – A Hero’s Lie

    Getting tied up in a cycle of habitual listening is all too easy. Weeks can go by where Hip Hop turns to House, House turns to Techno, and Techno to IDM and so on until the breadth of music discovered becomes a cross to bear, outweighing the pleasure sought from the outset. Trapped, for lack of a better word, in one’s own rituals. With that in mind, breaking the habit with a chance discovery of an old favourite can be a useful exercise in re-calibrating one’s approach to musical tastes, if not a relief from the norm. As much as…

  • Gambles – Trust

    New York-based singer-songwriter Matthew Daniel Siskin knows full well the traditions that he carries on his shoulders when he sings on his debut album, Trust. Siskin’s musical idols – the likes of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Elliott Smith – have all obtained legendary status in an overcrowded genre where vocals and an acoustic guitar are all that are needed to convey the most powerful of emotions.  But it’s true that for every Dylan or Tallest Man On Earth there are ten if not fifty unnecessary and unoriginal fanboy acts, which only serve to dilute the enjoyment that there is…

  • The Weeknd – Kiss Land

    When Abel Tesfaye mysteriously emerged two years ago with a dazzling set of ice cold mixtapes that vividly depicted post-breakup anxiety, lurid sexual encounters and drug-enhanced paranoia, the impact of his music was only heightened by the ambiguity surrounding the artist. Preferring to lurk in the shadows of promotional imagery (or not appear at all) and presenting himself under the peculiar misspelled guise of The Weeknd, the faceless Ontario native leaned on his piercing falsetto to lure listeners into his desperate and debauched world. While Tesfaye may have crept to the spotlight over time by breaking his anonymity, performing live,…

  • Chequerboard – The Unfolding

    Back in 1993, Damon Albarn coined the phrase Modern Life Is Rubbish for the title of his band’s second album. Damon, mate, you didn’t know the half of it. 20 years later and modern life is rubbisher than ever. There’s just so much noise: constantly connected to our ubiquitous bleeping smartphones, we’re hit with a non-stop barrage of tweets, texts and emails, while social media sites urge us to ‘like’ and ‘follow’ every two-bit product and adverts blare at us from every conceivable space. Honestly, it’s enough to make you wish they’d just drop the bomb and bring an end…

  • Jesu – Everyday I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came

    Justin Broadrick has long been a progressive influence in heavy music, from his pioneering work in industrial legends Godflesh to the stunning ambient/drone soundscapes of Final or any one of his other countless side projects. His output under the Jesu moniker has seen him marry shoegaze blur with metallic heft to remarkable effect. Like its predecessors, Every Day I Get Closer To The Light From Which I Came  features pretty melodies nestling snugly inside woolly swathes of distortion, guitars chiming and chorusing around languid drum patterns and gargantuan low-tuned bass, while distant vocals float airily over glacial tempos. It’s a…

  • Haim – Days Are Gone

    It’s genuinely difficult to find information about the trio of sisters that make up Haim which doesn’t draw attention to their likeness to 70’s soft-rockers Fleetwood Mac. Such affiliation is certainly warranted, and it would be easy to assume Haim is no more than an impersonation of those rock icons they aspire to – but underneath the obvious influences lies a stark, almost outrageous character all their own. It would be impossible to say Haim are presenting a completely fresh sound, but what they have managed to do on their debut album Days Are Gone is take an amalgam of…