• Exploded View – Summer Came Early

    November 14, 2017 - By 

    Exploded View’s self titled debut was easily one of the finest albums of last year, even if it did fly a little further under the radar than it deserved to. Then again, it did come seemingly from nowhere. Vocalist Anika had already put out some promising solo material with the members of Beak but her work had been dominated by covers so its shelf life seemed limited. After finding a natural chemistry with a backing band assembled for some shows in Mexico, Exploded View were born, and the resulting, all-original album – self-described as being “for fans of Can, dub…

  • Angel Olsen – Phases

    November 13, 2017 - By 

    Last year Angel Olsen released My Woman, an evocative record which exposed experiences of vulnerability that would later become lyrics brimming with defiance: “I dare you to understand what makes me a woman”, and so forth. Typically then, listening to an Angel Olsen song incurs a fleeting foreboding feeling. It’s a feeling akin to glancing through a diary that you shouldn’t be sifting through but it’s there in front of you, waiting to be consumed and picked apart. It’s human nature to be curious, especially in the context of dissecting lyrics that are forthright in their meaning. It can be…

  • Converge – The Dusk In Us

    November 11, 2017 - By 

    Any discussion of contemporary hardcore or metal is always going to lead right to Converge. To describe the Salem five piece as influential is an understatement. Since 2001’s Jane Doe they’ve been working at a level that none of their peers could match. Not only did they lay the blueprint for their own sub-genre, but they have consistently delivered the best records it has to offer. 2004’s You Fail Me. 2009’s Axe To Fall and 2012’s All We Love We Leave Behind were great records with vitality, technicality, and unadulterated fury. Wisely, the band has bucked the album-tour-album two-year cycle…

  • The Cyclist – Sapa Inca Delirium

    November 9, 2017 - By 

    Derry’s Andy Morrison AKA The Cyclist has produced some of the most compelling home-grown club-ready cuts in recent memory and it’s arguably down to the fact that he’s so singularly focused. “Tape Throb”, a line of peculiar yet inviting analogue elements that Morrison has applied to his output since 2013’s Bones in Motion, typically exhibits a crackling warmth in tone and dulled melodic sheen. For the most part, this transformative “filter” morphs dance-floor orientated releases into sub-sonic grooves that bury themselves in your ear and refuse to leave – see 2014’s wildly unshakeable Flourish. With Sapa Inca Delirium, his first album…

  • James Holden & The Animals Spirits – The Animal Spirits

    November 8, 2017 - By 

    It’d be an understatement to say that there’s been a few high profile career curveballs of late. Private complaints resulted in the resignation of a defence secretary, sexist Facebook comments culminated in the suspension of an MP and Beyoncé announced her first foray into acting. Heck, even the Queen turned out to be a shareholder in rent-to-buy retailer BrightHouse (kinda). Spare a thought for James Holden, who amongst all these revelations has quietly executed a brilliant career change of his own, albeit with much less than his fair share of the limelight.   Holden has always had a taste for…

  • Slow Place Like Home – When I See You … Ice Cream!

    November 8, 2017 - By 

      If you’ve had your finger anywhere near the pulse over the past half decade you’d be aware of chill. Everything can, and most probably will, be described as “chill” in 2017. Your boyfriend is chill. Your dog is chill. Even your boss can be “pretty chill” sometimes. For once, this term doesn’t feel like a gross understatement when describing Slow Place Like Home; he’s an artist so chill it will make your weekend on Inishmaan look like a four day bender in Marbella. Keith Mannion has been making music under the moniker of Slow Place Like Home for nearly six years…

  • A. Savage – Thawing Dawn

    November 5, 2017 - By 

    Andrew Savage has been ensconced in the music scene since his teenage years growing up in Denton, Texas. He played in bands, organised small-scale guerilla marketing campaigns – promotional bathroom band graffiti – and self-released lo-fi tapes until firmly establishing his position within the independent DIY realm with his band Parquet Courts following their debut in 2011. Their reputation has grown steadily and they have seamlessly become an act that figures into the same conversations that laud the likes of Ought and Black Lips. In a relatively short space of time they have become stalwarts of a scene of bands…

  • Album Review: Lankum – Between The Earth And Sky

    November 2, 2017 - By 

    Lankum (under their previous name Lynched) released their well received debut album, Cold Old Fire three years ago. Having been plugging away for some time on the live scene, this record helped establish the band as one of the luminaries of a recent wave of Irish folk. Alongside acts such as Landless, Spook of the Thirteenth Lock, and The Gloaming and individual artists such as Lisa O’Neill and Brigid Mae Power, amongst many others, Lankum represent a new generation of practitioners, deeply aware of and knowledgeable of the folk tradition, yet unafraid to draw from beyond the confines of the…

  • Album Review: Fever Ray – Plunge

    November 1, 2017 - By 

    Artists can spend an entire career trying to forge a distinguished identity, but every now and again one arises and manages to do just that after one record. Karin Dreijer, AKA Fever Ray is one of those. Dark, distorted monochrome throbs and nuanced icy atmospheres helped her self titled debut reach critical acclaim back in 2009, revealing an ear for the organic compositions and textures that Dreijer couldn’t express with her sibling as one half of The Knife. It’s devilish that a surprise follow up album, Plunge, would be released digitally (physical release landing February 2018) in late October, arriving…

  • Album Review: John Maus – Screen Memories

    October 31, 2017 - By 

    John Maus strikes you as the kind of man who would be making music regardless of whether anyone was listening or not. And for a long time they weren’t. His first two albums, Songs and Love Is Real, went by largely unnoticed. It was only on the 2011 release of We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves that critics started to really pay attention, despite a considerable and devout cult following having formed through the years. Most people would have been eager to capitalise after this new-found attention; to milk that cow for all it’s worth. But Maus is not most…