• Mothers – Render Another Ugly Method

    September 24, 2018 - By 

    “Hard to focus and efforts fruitless…” So sings Mothers’ frontwoman and creative nucleus Kristine Leschper on the jagged ‘MUTUAL AGREEMENT’, crystallising the looming themes of dread and futility that permeate the band’s woozy second album. Sadly, the quote also serves as a succinct review of this imperfect and ultimately exhausting release. Downcast opener, ‘BEAUTY ROUTINE’ comes tentatively into focus with shivering fronds of detuned guitar and the first of many keening but gloomy vocal performances. The track drifts idly along as if bobbing underwater, seemingly reliant on tidal micro currents to sluggishly propel itself to the end of each verse. Leschper…

  • Menace Beach – Black Rainbow Sound

    September 22, 2018 - By 

    Over the last few years, Leeds has been quietly asserting its place as one of the UK’s most reliable cities for guitar music. Bands like Alt-J, Pulled Apart By Horses and Sky Larkin have consistently been putting out material that can’t help but restore people’s faith in the classic format. Within this scene, one group who’ve been etching out a serious name for themselves is Menace Beach. The punk five-piece have been dropping excellent releases without much fuss over the last six years. Their most recent releases, 2015’s Ratworld and 2017’s Lemon Memory, are excellent examples of what this group…

  • David Kitt – Like Lightning

    September 21, 2018 - By 

    David Kitt rounded off the first quarter of 2018 with Yous, a welcomed return to the sound he’s cultivated over the last two decades. The Dublin-based musician greets the autumn with Like Lightning, a six track EP led by the title-track which was originally featured on the quietly acclaimed album that preceded it. Like Lightning offers fans of Kitt’s varied repertoire of records under his own name an introduction to his more immediately electronic New Jackson material. On the surface, this EP could be construed as a compilation of B-sides and offcuts from the Yous recording sessions. These five songs…

  • Villagers – The Art Of Pretending To Swim

    September 20, 2018 - By 

      Not to put too fine a point on it, the latest full-length release from Villagers is a lovely thing. At times so fragile it appears as though the music itself might break, at others dense and swirling with otherworldly sounds, the album never fails to intrigue and surprise whoever takes some much-needed time out from the day’s push and pull. Opener ‘Again’ immediately sets both the tone and style of the entire work: delicate fingerpicking is counterbalanced by a strange, robotic voice repeating the title while Conor O’Brien, sounding as sweet and forlorn as ever, sings of dejection and searching for…

  • Death Cab for Cutie – Thank You For Today

    September 15, 2018 - By 

    In the midst of a tumultuous period in the revered band’s development, Death Cab for Cutie have stripped back to basics for ninth album, their most accomplished of the past eight years, Thank you For Today. Thank you for Today is without a doubt Death Cab’s most retrospective album in over a decade, and is in many ways a celebration of the past. As the past four albums have been burdened by darker and more personal tones, Thank you for Today comes as a welcome relief in many ways but never risking flipancy. The buoyant and Beck-reminiscent single, ‘Gold Rush’…

  • Hozier – Nina Cried Power

    September 13, 2018 - By 

    There was a while where the world wasn’t sure if it had seen the last of Hozier. Quiet bar the odd tweet, after the thunderous success of his debut album in 2014, the Wicklow native retreated back to the studio, appearing only to tease his return or offer social commentary, aware of the gnawing fans clambering for more tracks as devastating and ethereal as that of his self-titled debut. With Nina Cried Power, his first release since that album, it feels as though Hozier is testing the waters of reaction and criticism to see what listeners want and expect from…

  • Spiritualized – And Nothing Hurt

    September 13, 2018 - By 

    Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce should not be with us. After nearly 30 years in the music industry, the man has gone through so many trials and tribulations that it really is a surprise for him to be alive, nevermind kicking. Heroin addiction, suicidal despair and and cancer are tough to manage on their own, but encountering all three in such a short space is dumbfounding. Yet through all this, he’s still managed to produce some truly staggeringly good work. With Spaceman 3, you’ve got The Perfect Prescription and Playing With…

  • Big Red Machine – Big Red Machine

    September 12, 2018 - By 

    Cast your mind back to early 2009, and recall the exceptional Dark Was The Night charity album. In the middle of disc one, tucked neatly between Antony & Bryce Dessner’s ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’ and The Decemberists’ ‘Sleepless’ sat Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner’s ‘Big Red Machine’, an exquisite clash of strings and hammered piano keys that was perhaps clouded out by the diversity and richness of the album. Fast forward nine years, and the collaboration has been revisited, or rather, finally finished. The result, Big Red Machine, has been in the works for the best part…

  • Elaine Malone – Land

    September 12, 2018 - By 

    On first listen, Elaine Malone’s debut EP Land seems to have arrived in timely fashion. Built upon a homespun foundation of spartan guitar picking and Malone’s darkly burnished vocals, the release seems to encapsulate the end of summer with its rain storms, dimming evenings and the creaking resurgence of central heating systems country wide. This autumnal cosiness proves to be something of a red herring though, acting as sumptuous camouflage for a release at least partially strewn with dark themes and blood chilling turns of phrase. On ‘Vonnegut’ Malone wastes little time grabbing the listener’s attention, intoning the arresting opening…

  • Ólafur Arnalds – Re:member

    September 4, 2018 - By 

    Despite an exhaustive back catalog brimming with collections, mixtapes, EPs and scores, it is worth noting that Re:member is only BAFTA award winning Icelandic composer and pianist Ólafur Arnalds’ fourth full length studio album. Since debuting in the late ’00s, the now 31 year-old artist has carved an identity as a serial collaborator, and has worked extensively with Erased Tapes labelmate Nils Frahm, German classical pianist Alice Sara Ott and Haukur Heiðar Hauksson, not forgetting Janus Rasmussen for his melodic techno side-project, Kiasmos. Usually synonymous with crafting spacious and contemplative melancholic soundscapes – check out his chilling soundtrack to Broadchurch – Arnalds has turned to technology…