• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2

    November 17, 2020 - By 

    Back in the day, the Tony Hawk series was one of the most successful videogame franchises around. It is not difficult to see why: released at the tail end of the nineties when console rivalry was beginning to escalate, the original Pro Skater made extreme sports easily accessible to those who lacked either the means or the courage to go grinding through their local park or town centre. With minimal effort, players could quickly pick up basic tricks that, when strung together into combos, made them feel almost superhuman. It was empowering, fun and addictive, even more so with the addition of multiplayer albeit…

  • Myles Manley – Cometh The Softies

    November 27, 2020 - By 

    Myles Manley’s new album has been a long time coming. After a series of EPs earlier in the decade, along with ironically titled compilation Greatest Hits 2012-13, the last few years have only seen occasional singles emerge from the hive, though his live shows have promised plenty, with a string of new songs and a sterling three piece band lineup completed by Chris Barry and Solamh Kelly – the former expertly juggling guitar, bass and keys, while the latter takes his place as one of the country’s most impressive drummers, full of jerky, jazz-inflected rhythms across a kit that even…

  • Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou – May Our Chambers Be Full

    November 25, 2020 - By 

    On paper, a collaborative album by a singer-songwriter and a sludge metal band seems unusual. To those in the know, however, it makes complete, perfect sense. Neither featured act on May Our Chambers Be Full are strangers to collaboration; Emma Ruth Rundle has been a member of experimental bands the Nocturnes, Red Sparowes and Marriages, and provided backing vocals on Thrice’s 2018 album Palms, while Thou have released a litany of split 7” and EPs with various peers, and in 2015 released You, Whom I Have Always Hated a collaborative full-length album with fellow doom merchants, The Body. More to the…

  • PUP – This Place Sucks Ass EP

    November 24, 2020 - By 

    At the beginning of 2020, Canadian pop-punks PUP were in the midst of a promotional tour for their breakthrough 2019 album,  Morbid Stuff. That album’s mix of hook-filled anthems and passionate torrents of self-deprecation made it one of the year’s best punk albums, being met with universal critical praise and a new legion of fans on both sides of the Atlantic. With the advent of COVID-19, the perennially on-the-road band no doubt found themselves at a loose end as the as the live entertainment industry came screeching to a halt. And thus, we get This Place Sucks Ass. Comprising one brand…

  • Banríon – Airport Dads

    November 10, 2020 - By 

    With a refreshing youthful energy, and a clear sense of care and purpose, Dublin band Banríon’s debut EP, Airport Dads, slots them firmly into the Irish music scene as ones to watch.  Singer-songwriter Róisín Ní Haicéid fronts this indie-rock outfit, completed by drummer Michael Nagle , bassist John Harding and guitarist Ivan Rakhmanin. The three track EP was entirely mixed and produced in Nagel’s home in Connemara, and you can hear a dedication to craft in its charmingly lo-fi sound, calling to mind the likes of Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy and Julia Jacklin. Opening track, ‘Yesterday’s Paper’ is a strong…

  • Adrianne Lenker – songs/instrumentals

    November 6, 2020 - By 

    In April, Adrianne Lenker retreated to an isolated cabin in the midst of two crises: one public (the coronavirus pandemic) and one personal (a tough breakup).  Two albums, ‘songs’ and ‘instrumentals’, were recorded concurrently during this period, and feel at once like separate entities and like something whole. Comprising a collection of the lyric-based tracks we’ve come to know for Lenker, and two long instrumental pieces, they compliment each other perfectly, while offering many of their own charms. Had ‘instrumentals’ been released on its own, it would have risked being sidelined as a minor side project, but when paired with…

  • clipping. – Visions of Bodies Being Burned

    October 26, 2020 - By 

    If your only knowledge of Daveed Diggs is his roles in Hamilton, Black-ish and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, then you’re in for a shock. A bit like finding that Neil Buchanan from Art Attack was the lead guitarist in a NWOBHM band, Diggs’ work with clipping. is a firehose of cold water. The trio, composed of Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes, have been putting out their brand of experimental hip-hop for the better part of a decade now. Since their debut mixtape in 2013, they’ve existed in that same space as Death Grips and JPEGMAFIA, embracing harsher industrial sounds, wrapped up in…

  • Róisín Murphy – Róisín Machine

    October 13, 2020 - By 

    Much of the monotonous conversation surrounding dance albums released during lockdown – be it by Lady Gaga or Disclosure – dwell on not being able to hear it in a club. While it is frustrating to not be able to go out dancing, the music is not made for just one setting. Ultimately, many will spend more time listening to dance music while going about our daily lives than at raves anyway. Róisín Murphy understands better than anyone that, with the right mindset, you can turn anywhere into a makeshift dancefloor.  Over the past few months, Murphy has shared a series…

  • Paper Mario: The Origami King

    October 7, 2020 - By 

    In 1981, an unknown character called Jumpman first appeared in the arcade game Donkey Kong, bounding up a lattice of wonky girders to rescue his girlfriend Pauline from the titular ape. Four years later, the same rotund yet nimble character – now, inexplicably, an Italian plumber named Mario – appeared in Super Mario Bros., still valiantly coming to the aid of his girlfriend, and the rest is gaming history. There are few franchises that can compete with the longevity and universal appeal that Mario has held over the video game industry since its inception, and fewer still that have placed…

  • Osees – Protean Threat

    October 7, 2020 - By 

    Another year, another album, another confusing name change. After a flurry of name variations in their earliest years, John Dwyer and co. seemed to finally settle on Thee Oh Sees for nigh on a decade, releasing 12 albums under the monicker before suddenly deciding in 2017 that it must be shortened to simply Oh Sees. Along the way, a one-off return to the band’s original OCS moniker allowed Dwyer and former member Brigid Dawson to revisit the band’s quieter, folkier roots, but only served to confuse archivists further. Now, a further contraction sees them rebrand once more as Osees for…