• Mogwai – Music Industry 3. Fitness Industry 1.

    December 15, 2014 - By 

    Another Mogwai release, another excellent title. Following on from solid yet divisive 8th studio album Rave Tapes, released earlier this year, Music Industry 3. Fashion Industry 1. is a short collection of remixes and unreleased tracks recorded in the same sessions, and if Rave Tapes‘ surprisingly restrained nature was main the reason for such divided opinion, then that shouldn’t be an issue here. Lead track ‘Teenage Exorcists’ includes vocals, a secret weapon Mogwai tend to unleash sparingly but effectively, and in fact it instantly establishes itself as one of the finest vocal tracks in their catalogue. While their vocals often…

  • Marillion @ The Forum, London

    December 14, 2014 - By 

    A lot can happen in a quarter of a century. 1989 saw the release of the debut releases of The Stone Roses, Nirvana amongst others. That same year also saw the debut release of Marillion with Steve Hogarth fronting them after the band had taken off to Mushroom Farm Studio near Brighton with a selection of music previously recorded in demo form with Fish. However, when Fish left the band in 1988, he took his lyrics with him, a lot of which ended up on his solo debut, Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors, while Steve Hogarth and John Helmer…

  • Manic Street Preachers @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    December 14, 2014 - By 

    You sometimes have to wonder if people do these “Let’s play the album everyone likes” shows in order to destroy the album. If you’ve made one truly significant album in your lifetime, fair deuce to you, but after a while it must feel like a noose. If you were to do such a show, how would you do it? Could you do it in such a way that puts this awful beauty that hangs over you to rest, while not screwing over the people who’ve connected themselves to the record and provided the opportunity for you to perform this show?…

  • Peter Gabriel @ 3Arena, Dublin

    December 12, 2014 - By 

    Let’s face it: Peter Gabriel still has it. For a man who was in his prime both musically and physically thirty years ago, he seriously puts this (almost) thirty-year old to shame, leaping and bounding across the 3Arena stage and exercising vocals that sound as fresh as they did back then. Unassumingly strolling onto the stage, with the full house lights still, Gabriel announces that the show will be divided into three parts: a “supper” if you will, and he as our waiter. The first course will be the acoustic appetiser, the second, the ‘savoury’ course of a full electric set complete…

  • Sun Kil Moon @ The Button Factory

    December 11, 2014 - By 

    There’s a relaxed, seasonal warmth upon entering the Button Factory for tonight’s mostly seated, limited capacity show, which sees Mark Kozelek at possibly the most critically acclaimed stage of his career – almost every song performed tonight comes from the last two years of his career – due in no small part to this year’s Sun Kil Moon LP, the mortality-fixated Benji. With no support act, Kozelek ambles onstage accompanied simply by a keyboardist and electric guitarist, standing with a sole tea-towelled drumstick for his lone tom, holding a straight beat with the intent of a serial killer for the entirety…

  • Assassin’s Creed: Rogue

    December 10, 2014 - By 

    Those of us who can’t get enough of Assassin’s Creed will be tickled pink at the release of not one, but two games in the franchise. Whereas Unity is the first title to be developed exclusively for next generation consoles,Rogue offers something else entirely. To some it might seem like a fond farewell to the consoles on which the series launched: evidence that, while abandoned by many gamers, the lowly Xbox and PS3 still have plenty of life in them yet. To others, it is a curio, an excised chapter from a parent narrative that is already fairly convoluted. In reality, Rogue is all of these things…

  • Elton John @ 3Arena, Dublin

    December 10, 2014 - By 

    Singer, songwriter, straight, gay, father, activist and important enough to a second-tier North London football club to have a stand named after him: Elton John’s certainly led a colourful life. Similar colour in his life show, then, is something of a given. Tonight’s one hundredth show of 2014 and the final date of a tour commemorating 41 year old classic ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ starts with an old school rock n’ roll bent. ‘Funeral For A Friend’ and ‘Bennie and The Jets’ lead the tributes to one of Elton’s finest records, the former preceded by an epic piano lead in which sets the…

  • Hozier @ The Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    December 5, 2014 - By 

    Hozier returns to his hometown crowd for the first time since things have really blown up for him. The pride and excitement in The Olympia is palpable. What makes this pride stand out even more is that all of tonight’s acts are homegrown talent. Alana Henderson opens with her cello and piano-driven set. Next up are Wyvern Lingo, who are incredibly impressive, the three piece putting on a show that raises the standard for the night in a way that a support does not often do. With their harmonies, unique sound and stage present, the girls put on a very…

  • Paddington

    December 4, 2014 - By 

    Like its eponymous Peruvian exile, the cinematic adaptation of Michael Bond’s iconic children’s book series arrives under choppy circumstances. A late-in-the-game change of lead voice talent (from Colin Firth to Ben Whishaw) and a flat teaser trailer were casting doubts on the viability of StudioCanal’s most expensive film to date. They need not have worried: like its marmalade-guzzling, duffle-clad hero, Paddington is a sweet, immensely likable creation that is sure to find a hearty welcome on adopted shores. Writer-director Paul King and co-plotter Hamish McColl have delivered a lovey, lovely live action/animation film which doubles as a great Christmas watch.…

  • Ken & Ryu – Fantasy Ink

    December 5, 2014 - By 

    Space and electronic music are seemingly intrinsically linked. It’s understandable; the initial development of electronic instrumentation happened when the Space Race was in full swing. The sounds themselves feel otherworldly and wondrous and though synthy space music is by now a path well-trodden it’s far from an exhausted source of interesting sounds and good vibes. This is none more evident than on Fantasy Ink, a solid record of stellar funk from Belfast’s James McConville, aka Ken & Ryu. Clocking in at just over fifteen minutes, the EP treats us to a short and sweet galactic trip. Opener ‘Backbone of the…