• Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There

    There’s something inherently calming about Yo La Tengo. They’re a fundamentally solid band, the kind who, at worst, release records that you don’t like rather than outright bad ones. They’re these reliable old workhorses whose every album is going to give you a least one thoroughly pleasant gift. They don’t make records that you eagerly watch the calendar for, but rather ones that provide a humble, unassuming announcement of their presence and let you discover them for yourself. Everything about them is decidedly pleasant, which leads us to their latest LP, Stuff Like That There. Stuff is a cover album…

  • Call Super – Migrant

    Call Super’s bios on Twitter and Tumblr read “confuse, construct”. It’s important to bear in mind when navigating his ever-growing catalogue — just when one thinks he’s settled on a style or direction, he upends expectations and jumps into something either head-bangingly intense or daringly mellifluous. Following the impeccably layered and textured Suzi Ecto full-length for Houndstooth last year his next release was the two-track Fluenka Mitsu EP for Greek label Nous Disques, the first of which sounded nothing like anything he’d released before. Rolling, rumbling melodies run unchecked for 10 solid minutes on ‘Fluenka’s Shelf’, while thunderous echoes abound overhead…

  • The Weeknd – Beauty Behind the Madness

    Hailing from Toronto and one of Canada’s hottest talents right now alongside Drake, R&B singer The Weeknd drops his newest record Beauty Behind The Madness. With a number of hit singles before the release, something huge is expected from vocalist Abel Tesfaye for his sophomore album. The lyrical content of previous work often contained stories of sex, drugs and drink, and although there are a few songs with strong such references, the lyrical theme has been diluted on the record, and involves more of a sombre tone of hurt and relationships. Abel expresses the stories with a soulful voice that…

  • Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss

    Treacle-thick tones and monolithic riffing set the tone immediately for Chelsea Wolfe’s latest excursion, Abyss. Long a much-fancied purveyor of doomy, layered heaviness, the record’s title is apt to say the least. ‘Carrion Flowers’ trudges along, industrial tinges emerging here and there in clatterslap percussion as Wolfe’s sultry voice blushes the whole thing with a beautiful fatalism, her range equally as enviable as her depth and strength as an artist. The mechanics of the record maintain consistency throughout, alternating between gentle, damned balladry, and guttural sludge in the likes of ‘Iron Moon’. ‘Dragged Out’s’ looping, keening highnotes invest a detached,…

  • Roslyn Steer – Still Moving

    Roslyn Steer is a member of Morning Veils, who specialise in “forgotten folk”. She is also a PhD student at NUI Maynooth, writing a thesis on screaming at the department of music. These two interests come together on her solo release Still Moving, a tape for her own label KantCope (a delightful play on words). Side One is taken up fully by the title track, a half-hour meandering body of work that shifts between chilling spoken word, drawn-out, lilting harmonica and twisted church bells that meet rugged guitar distortion. A huge entity, its breadth and ambition is matched by its…

  • Albert Hammond Jr. – Momentary Masters

    Albert Hammond Jr. is a man whose solo work is put under severe levels of scrutiny because of his musical pedigree: son and namesake of a highly distinguished and decorated musician, and a key figure in the success of one of the most influential bands of a generation – in one sense it’s a badge of honour; in another, an encumbering lineage. It’s fair to say that previous albums, although competent, haven’t quite lived up to those somewhat daunting standards. The album’s first single, ‘Born Slippy’, opens proceedings, and is very different to the now 20-year-old track from Underworld, forever synonymous with Trainspotting.  Evocative of the intro to ‘Macho Picchu’ from The Strokes’ 2011 album Angles, it’s a nod to seminal New York insouciant…

  • Lianne La Havas – Blood

    For her second album, Lianne La Havas has traded the acoustic settings of her 2012 debut, Is Your Love Big Enough?, for a lusher, summery sound. Inspired, La Havas says, by her Jamaican and Greek heritage, the album fairly shimmers with plush, melodic soul numbers, usually of the most laid-back variety. At the same time, there’s a refined musical intelligence at work across the album that keeps the attention throughout – not least in La Havas’ expertly judged vocal delivery. While co-producers Di Genius (son of veteran reggae artist Freddie McGregor), Paul Epworth and Jamie Lidell all put in top-drawer…

  • The Flag – Heat Waves

    One-man racket-making specialist Ted McGrath has hit on to a nice niche here. With The Flag’s Heat Waves, he’s happened onto this strange electronic hybrid. Swathes of eclectic influences, styles and instrumentation all come together in this intriguing amalgamation. Sensations of Girl Band, The KLF and Young Fathers all come to mind as the album takes you on its rather spritely journey. It’s sharp, absorbing and more often than not quite compelling. There are issues with its layout and construction, however, that hurt the experience overall. The proceedings start well with the titular ‘Heat Waves’, this brooding creeping creature which…

  • Wilco – Star Wars

    “Why release an album this way and why make it free? Well, the biggest reason, and I’m not sure we even need any others, is that it felt like it would be fun. What’s more fun than a surprise?” So posited the ever quizzical Jeff Tweedy on Wilco’s Facebook page earlier tonight, just when pretty much every Wilco aficionado (especially those of us brushing our teeth before bed) was positively not expecting Wilco’s first studio album in four years to be let loose onto the internet for free. Now, rather than answer his concluding rhetorical question (let’s face it, there’s plenty…

  • Desaparecidos – Payola

    Bright Eyes, and by extension their central member Conor Oberst, are the sort of group who elicit a strong reaction from people. There are those who think him a Dylanesque wunderkind whose every word perfectly summarises all the emotion that their teenage selves never could, others see him as an obnoxious, overgrown perpetual adolescent who needs to get over himself rather swiftly. There is also a decently sized camp who are indifferent until he lets his frustration loose in the rawest manner. Of the three groups, the one who’ll be most satisfied by the man’s latest venture, the long awaited…