• 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…

  • Album Review: Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile – Lotta Sea Lice 

    October 26, 2017 - By 

    It’s a laid-back love-in and we’re all invited – we always knew these two kids would get it together. The Melbourne-Pennsylvanian alliance of Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile sprang organically from the grooves of Vile’s Smoke Ring For My Halo, an album with deep personal resonance for Barnett. Her then band, CB4, ended up supporting Vile’s own Violators a couple of years later as his Wakin on a Pretty Daze record was taking hold in people’s consciousness, and the two became gradual friends over the ensuing years’ international festival circuit. Ideas were bounced, files were shared, and eventually Lotta Sea…

  • Album Review: Julien Baker – Turn Out The Lights

    October 25, 2017 - By 

    Two years ago Julien Baker put out her debut, Sprained Ankle. A white-knuckled, minimal lo-fi listen, the EP was predominantly Baker and her guitar with the occasional flourish of piano. It was an intimate-veering-on-discomforting voyage into a late teenager’s emotional fragility, isolation, and desperation. There are too many things to be said about that record, but needless to say, it was fantastic from back to front. In keeping with its low-key aesthetic, it was released via Bandcamp wherein it subsequently exploded and pushed Baker into the indie rock spotlight. Upon the announcement of her latest full length, Turn Out The…

  • Album Review: King Krule – The Ooz

    October 24, 2017 - By 

    Sunday evenings are traditionally reserved for reclining in a state of hazed relaxation for as long as physically possible. A sleepy air descends upon the climatic hours of the weekend, you grasp tightly onto the feeling of not having to fulfil any commitments. And yet there is, always lingering in the background, a sense of agitation. The calm is impeded by a menacing presence, the knowledge of something inevitable and an uncertainty of what has happened or will reveal itself in due course. The Ooz has all the sonic hallmarks of a Sunday night: Calming, alluring, hypnotic, but also audacious,…

  • Album Review: Liam Gallagher – As You Were

    October 23, 2017 - By 

    So here we are, Liam Gallagher has done something he would never said he’d do and presented to us his debut solo album, As You Were, a straightforward rock album with no if’s, no but’s and certainly no synthesisers. As You Were amounts to just about everything it says on the tin. Ironically enough though, for his alleged tribute to all things “rock ‘n’ roll”, Gallagher has called upon the A-List of pop-songwriters, Greg Kurstin and Andrew Wyatt. While there’s no stand-out strokes of genius, the album should be accredited with worthy acclaim for its lack of filler tracks – It’s…

  • Album Review: Bully – Losing

    October 19, 2017 - By 

    There are some voices that leave words somewhat redundant. Those special chords that can conjure inordinate amounts with so little. In spite of its deliberately anarchic and amateurish intentions, the punk community has had more than a few. Think of John Lydon’s instantly recognisable sneer, H.R.’s reggae inflections or Corin Tucker’s earth-shattering roar. There is a real magic to them, so every time you find one that even approaches their majesty, it should be a call for celebration. Bully’s Alicia Bognanno has one of those voices: One of those voices that demands your attention and instantly embeds itself in your…

  • Album Review: And So I Watch You From Afar – The Endless Shimmering

    October 19, 2017 - By 

    As they embark on a vast European tour in support of their fifth album, The Endless Shimmering, it is nice to make the note that it was as a result of a decade’s worth of extensive, ubiquitous touring and ferocious dedication that North Coast instrumental behemoths And So I Watch You From Afar got to where they are now, holding a place as one the island’s best and widely loved acts. It’s something that saw them play over 300 shows between 2009 and early 2011, venturing on sprawling tours across continents and countries rarely travelled by independent and relatively niche acts –…

  • St. Vincent – MASSEDUCTION

    October 15, 2017 - By 

    You do wonder how hard Annie Clark, AKA St. Vincent, would have to fall before we stop paying attention to her. In the ten years since her first LP, she’s proven herself to undeniably be one of the best guitarists working today, outmatched David Byrne on their wonderful Love This Giant collaboration and consistently provides a formidable live show to boot. Add to this a run of stellar releases and you’ve got a very rare and special thing on your hands that it’s hard to imagine life without anymore: an artist who can consistently surprise you and yet never let you…

  • Wolf Parade – Cry Cry Cry

    October 12, 2017 - By 

    There’s something so intrinsically pleasant about a group like Wolf Parade reforming despite the fact that the Montreal four-piece never really set the world ablaze with their brand of vibrant, multicoloured indie rock. After eight years they gave up the ghost and moved onto different things. Yet, seven years later here we are with same key players and a new album to boot. This kind of reunion doesn’t feel like some flagrant cash grab or attempt to milk nostalgia tendrils of listeners who are closer to forty than thirty. It feels like they came back together because they had more…