• Frank Turner – Be More Kind

    May 9, 2018 - By 

    With an uninterrupted streak of 20 years in the game, Frank Turner is undeniably an institution. Over that time, he’s tried on a number of different guises and styles with the most explosive being the proselytising political polemics of his earlier work. While over the last five years, the focus has been more on the introspective and personal, there was always a hope that the man would turn his acid tongue back to the multi-headed hydra of contemporary society.  With his latest effort, Be More Kind, those hopes seemed to have been fulfilled. This is a socially conscious and politicised…

  • Iceage – Beyondless

    May 4, 2018 - By 

    “Beyondless is the 4th LP from Iceage. This record radiates joy.” So claims Daniel Stewart, frontman of fellow post punk outfit Total Control, in Matador’s press release for the new Iceage record. As one would imagine from an album that owes it’s name to Samuel Beckett, this isn’t exactly true: frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt still snarls his way through tales of heartbreak, war and suicide, with a lurking, gothic menace underlying the band’s attack. They have, however, embraced a fuller and more emphatic sound, bringing in horns and further exploring the Americana elements of 2014’s Plowing Into The Field OF…

  • Ulrika Spacek – Suggestive Listening EP

    May 3, 2018 - By 

    For most bands, the EP format proves a useful starting point, a way of getting their earliest tracks out there when not in possession of enough money, time or material for a full LP, while also functioning as a low stakes release while they find their feet, not yet ready to commit to that ultimate statement of “the album”. Others though, like Ulrika Spacek, arrived so fully formed that work on an album was the first port of call, and indeed their 2016 debut release The Album Paranoia is still their strongest work to date. After last year’s quick follow…

  • Drinks – Hippo Lite

    May 2, 2018 - By 

    Drinks, a collaboration between Welsh experimental-pop musician Cate Le Bon and Californian sonic-chameleon Tim Presely of White Fence (and The Fall for a brief period), have returned with their sophomore record Hippo Lite. Its creation stemmed from the following activities and amenities or lack thereof: No Wi-Fi, a month in an old mill, river swimming, night sounds. It is by their interpretation, “An album made for each other by one another with no piercing the bubble, the opposite of a typical recording experience”. While it may have been made for each other though, Hippo Lite will, if there is any…

  • Grouper – Grid Of Points

    May 1, 2018 - By 

    Recording as Grouper, Liz Harris has been alchemising ethereal and enigmatic albums for over 13 years, combining her gossamer voice and sparse instrumentation with seemingly bottomless layers of tape hiss and static to craft richly detailed and emotionally resonant worlds of sound. With her latest release, Grid of Points, Harris’ spartan musical palette has been pared back even further, dispensing with the looped guitars and fuzzed out atmospherics of her earlier albums to create a pristine and glacial piano and voice record filled with space and extended moments of silence. In lesser hands, the album’s extreme economy of sounds could…

  • My Fellow Sponges – My Fellow Sponges

    May 1, 2018 - By 

    Having met through performing drama in university, Anna Mullarkey and Donal McConnon are the creative forces behind Galway act My Fellow Sponges. It’s no surprise then, that among the influences of jazz, folk, pop and rock in their music, one finds a wealth of theatrical experience. Accompanied by David Shaughnessy on drums, Sam Wright on bass and a flurry of instruments, this often unusual, yet carefully constructed combination is the band’s unique selling point. Following success in both music and theatre shows in the time since their last record, the Galwegians have now released their self-titled outing. Where 2015’s debut Bonne Nuit…

  • Manic Street Preachers – Resistance Is Futile

    April 25, 2018 - By 

    It’s strange to think that of all the bands who could have lasted long enough to unquestionably become an institution, it was the Manic Street Preachers who claimed the honour. The Welsh punk rockers began their career with middle fingers firmly erected and a depth of knowledge to match their vicious tongues. This is a band who on their first album had Public Enemy’s The Bomb Squad and porn star Traci Lords sitting effortlessly alongside Slyvia Plath, Confucius, and Phillip Larkin. They claimed that would sell “16 million copies” of their debut and then break up in the purest distillation…

  • Le Galaxie – Pleasure

    April 21, 2018 - By 

    Any conversation about hard-working bands in Ireland is going to have to include Le Galaxie in some way, shape or form. The Dublin outfit have been making their own brand of slinky 80s electro-pop for nigh on a decade now with a live show that consistently beggars belief. Unfortunately, like many great live acts, the band has struggled to fully distill the manic, magical energy of their stage show to record. While the songs are always fundamentally good, something is often lost in translation; The edges aren’t as spiky and the energy is more muted. Having scored at decent chart…

  • Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Sex & Food

    April 16, 2018 - By 

    Filled to brim with squelching alien textures and off kilter grooves, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Sex & Food is an intriguing and at times disquieting listen. Largely preoccupied with themes of isolation and disconnection, it seems fitting that the majority of the album was conceived and recorded far from the outfit’s New Zealand home in a dizzying array of far flung locales ranging from typhoon drenched Hanoi to an earthquake devastated Mexico City.  The disorientating effect of this strange release evokes the free floating ennui of having been on the road too long, feeling washed out and jet lagged in a suddenly unfamiliar…

  • Daniel Avery – Song For Alpha

    April 13, 2018 - By 

    Daniel Avery has been DJing for 14 years. In such a relatively short space of time, few others have managed to traverse the techno spectrum quite in the same was he has. While his 2013 debut LP Drone Logic was widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest ever techno offerings, his studious back catalogue has seen him expertly morph the genre with flashes of acid house, psychedelia and trance to name but a few stylistic ventures. Whether Avery’s trademark energy and intensity has been splashed across his original productions, or cast over in remixes Factory Floor’s, Django Django’s or Munk’s material, the recurring theme…