• oOoOO – Without Your Love

    When Chris Dexter first emerged into the mainstream consciousness back in 2010, he was surrounded by much talk in the music press about the so-called ‘Witch House’ genre and was joined by a slew of seemingly like-minded contemporaries, most notably the likes of Salem and Purity Ring. While it was a tag that Dexter attempted to eschew, the similarities were unavoidable — their releases all utilisisng a now-familiar mix of hip-hop, pop and shoegaze to form a hazy blend that had hacks squirreling away at their keyboards. Some three years later and we are now belatedly presented with the first…

  • Floor Staff – The Good Luck EP

    It’s really difficult to write good pop music; unlike most other genres, great pop requires a level of clarity of vision and perfection that can be cripplingly hard. So it’s always a real treat when exciting pop music lands straight on your lap. With their debut release, The Good Luck EP, Dublin duo Floor Staff have given the world a proper Summer treat. Working with a kitchen sink mentality, the EP mixes emotionally volatile vocals, tight and powerful rhythms and a cracking brass section with effortless effect. The production and mixing is one of the most laudable aspects of the…

  • A Fight You Can’t Win – A Fight You Can’t Win EP

    Having been earning their stripes on the Edinburgh live circuit over the last few years, alt-rock quartet A Fight You Can’t Win have been threatening to unleash their barraging, uniquely wrathful craft for some time now. Off the back of last year’s altogether promising Every Last Breath EP – itself worth a cursory listen, at the very least – the foursome have returned with a brief but vehement self-titled effort that could well see break new ground beyond the would-be confines of their whereabouts and serve as inspired springboard of sorts for a potential full-length release. Fronted by Ballycastle native Matthew…

  • Guided By Voices – English Little League

    At this stage, fourth album in, may we at least pretend that we all know Guided By Voices are back? Is it ok for The Thin Air to skip the history lesson and pass over the obligatory “Robert Pollard is prolific” spiel? OK, good! We will try not to look back. And so onwards to the future and for now the present and another GBV album. English Little League reveals that the reformed “classic line-up” may not have quite hit the ground running with 2012’s three albums, but instead it seems they were paying their dues all over again. These…

  • Maya Jane Coles – Comfort

    Maya Jane Coles has steered a steady and prolific career as a DJ and remixer since teaching herself the rudiments of her trade at the age of fifteen through the wonders of computer based DJ packages.  Having filed Essential Selection mixes for Radio 1 and remixed for top dogs such as Gorillaz and Massive Attack, Maya Jane was named fourteenth most influential DJ in the world by Rolling Stone, a prestigious feather in anyone’s musical cap and headphones.  The perpetual challenge for a DJ when creating an album is the choice of vocalist for the tracks; it can either lift…

  • Lemuria – The Distance Is So Big

    Given the mercurial nature of Lemuria’s sound, the fact that the group take their name from a mythical lost island continent seems somewhat apt. This third full-length sees the trio as difficult to pin down as their eponymous land mass, kicking off with a brief choral swell before opener proper ‘Brilliant Dancer’ shuffles into view. The twanging first few bars are pure slacker indie, but the track suddenly takes off on an unexpectedly raucous tangent, its skewed rhythm at first appearing utterly at odds with the effervescent pop melodies being played out on the surface. No sooner have you sussed…

  • Surfer Blood – Pythons

    It’s fair to say that amongst most people of a certain age you’d struggle to find anyone who doesn’t, or didn’t at one time love Teenage Fanclub, Pavement or Weezer. That combination of Ric Ocasek guitar, sweeter than sweet melodies and chunky fuzzy distortion is the perfect mixture for the music fan who loves the power and energy of punk but needs that wonderful hook to drag them in. When done right, you end up with Bandwagonesque, Slanted and Enchanted or The Blue Album, albums so good that cries of heresy instantly follow any sort of critical dissent.  But when…

  • These New Puritans – Field Of Reeds

    Distant, stand-offish, awkward in the extreme and too serious by half. With the music press expressing such sentiments to describe These New Puritans, you get the impression that, despite the praise heaped upon 2010’s Hidden, the Southend trio would be afforded little leniency or understanding if they were to make a misstep with its follow-up. Thankfully however, Fields of Reeds once again sees the brothers Barnett unequivocally delivering a record worthy of bountiful acclaim that will surely feature in many critic’s reckoning for album of the year come December. Recorded over the course of twelve months, throughout the LP’s conception Jack…

  • Kanye West – Yeezus

    Yeezus is Kanye West’s most polarising album to date, and it’s not just down to the testing sonic wonderland he’s created from such anti-pop genres as Chicago drill, house and industrial. Detractors who charge West with accusations of egotism, narcissism  and a bloated sense of self worth are unlikely to tolerate the most confrontational and aggressive piece he’s ever made, with topics such as power, materialism and a creeping distrust of women on Ye’s increasingly insular agenda. Inevitably, deriving enjoyment from Yeezus comes down to whether you can endure what’s on the mind of the man who in a recent…

  • James Holden – The Inheritors

    The Thin Air was always rubbish at maths (GCSE Grade B, y’all!). Frankly, we couldn’t see the point. Now, of course, we very much regret not concentrating more on the ol’ sums. For one thing, it’s embarrassing being unable to work out whether you’ve been given the correct change in a shop. For another, if only we’d been better at the subject we could have ended up like James Holden, self-confessed mathematics nerd, feted DJ and producer and – with his second album The Inheritors – producer of some of the most dense, dissonant and downright uncomfortable sounds you’re likely…