• Bee Mick See – The Belfast Yank

    March 18, 2015 - By 

    Does belonging to a location make an album better? Is Springsteen as interesting if you remove New Jersey or Nebraska? What about NWAand Compton? If this is the case, then rapper Bee Mick See’s debut Belfast Yank deserves some serious credit. The album is entirely engulfed in Belfast. Its language, culture and people are the subjects of various tracks ranging from loving portraits (‘Belfast Slang’) to lacerating polemics (‘Natural Scents’). Even his flow, which owes an obvious debt to Slug from Atmosphere, is heavily accented; it could only belong to this city. In spite of its overproduced beats, which bares a welcome resemblance to Malibu Shark Attack, it’s a strangely emotionally honest album. BeeMickSee is surprisingly…

  • Modest Mouse – Strangers To Ourselves

    March 17, 2015 - By 

    Given their track record, the announcement of a new Modest Mouse record should be cause for excitement; lest we forget Lonesome Crowded West and The Moon and Antarctica. While their 2007 effort, We Were Dead Before This Ship Even Sank, was somewhat lacking, the group have such a unique sound and energy that this could be written off as an unfortunate blip in an stellar track record. Sadly, while Strangers to Ourselves does have many excellent tracks it, fundamentally, is a messy and disappointing album. Beginning with a solid one-two of ‘Strangers to Ourselves’ and ‘Lampshades on Fire’, the album…

  • Two Gallants – We Are Undone

    March 16, 2015 - By 

    Despite the fact that they’ve been playing music together since they were both twelve years old, and have performed under the Two Gallants name since 2002, not too long ago it seemed like we might never hear another album from folk rock duo Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel. Following their 2004 debut and an incredibly productive period between 2006 and 2007 where they released two fine follow up albums an EP in between, it took a whole five years for them to return with The Bloom & The Blight in 2012. While they may not have regained their earlier rate…

  • No Monster Club – People Are Weird

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    No Monster Club is a cacophonous creature that can’t be categorized. Styled by Dublin’s own Bobby Aherne, this musical act is a creation born of many genres, many trials, many errors, and many years in production, with latest release People Are Weird proving no exception to this theme. In fact, this eighth album represents a lot of Aherne’s transformation as an artist these past eight years. Dipping his hands and his listeners’ ears into various pots of sound across the set, Aherne flees from being pinned to one classification, weaving an opus which draws on the influence of past artists…

  • John Carpenter – Lost Themes

    February 2, 2015 - By 

    Within seconds of hitting play on director John Carpenter’s first ‘real’ album, pictures start to form in your head. Kurt Russell, chewing on a cigarette, sullenly peeking out with his one eye, stubble so rugged you could grate cheese on it, and a fashion sense that is questionable, at best. There might never be another Snake Plissken movie, but when John Carpenter is behind the synth, suddenly there doesn’t need to be.In some part due to necessity, Carpenter composed the soundtracks to the vast majority of his films, working quickly and cheaply, utilising basic rock band instrumentation and heavy, primitive…

  • Jape – This Chemical Sea

    January 29, 2015 - By 

    How do you follow up not one, but two Choice Music Prize winning albums? This is a dilemma that so far no one has ever had to face other than Jape’s Richie Egan. He’s Ireland’s answer to PJ Harvey in that respect, although even she didn’t win her two Mercury Prizes with two consecutive albums.  First properly establishing himself with 2008’s Ritual, still a bona fide Irish classic and arguably Egan’s first solidly consistent piece of work, having benefitted from the success of minor hit single ‘Floating’ to show him which direction to settle on, 2011’s Ocean Of Frequency was…

  • Val Normal – Fly The White Flag of War

    January 25, 2015 - By 

    The importance of editing should never be underestimated. It takes a lot for a person in any creative medium to step outside themselves and be able to recognize that, while you may be intensely proud of what you’ve made, some of it needs to be cut off to save the rest; a kind of apoptosis. Never forget that, while a cheeky wee guitar solo can be essential, after a point it’s just diminishing returns. It’s nigh on impossible to count the number of genuinely interesting prog rock songs that have been lost to unwieldy length and arrogance on the part…

  • Sleater-Kinney – No Cities To Love

    January 23, 2015 - By 

    If, after ten years and numerous highly influential albums, you want to call it a day, that’s perfectly fine. That old Neil Young line about burning out holds as much weight now as it did in back in 1979. But if you are going to reappear without warning, you’d better have a damn good reason. You can talk about legacy ultimately being redundant, but how many great bands are tarnished by a bad comeback album. The Pixies’ Indie Cindy is a record chock full of cuts that wouldn’t be considered C-sides back in their heyday, the world wasn’t begging for…

  • The Dodos – Individ

    January 20, 2015 - By 

    Some bands have one album in their discography that will simply never be bettered and will always slightly overshadow all subsequent releases. The Dodos are one of those bands. After debuting with the pretty solid Beware Of The Maniacs, the duo came to most people’s attention with second album Visiter, an hour long indie folk odyssey, characterised by Meric Long’s intricate yet sometimes ramshackle finger picking and honey-like voice accompanied by Logan Kroeber’s frantic percussion, performed as if by a man with at least 3 arms. Wonderfully melodic, occasionally chaotic, it was the overlooked gem of 2008. They followed it…

  • Aphex Twin – Syro

    October 3, 2014 - By 

    To give Richard D James an introduction seems redundant. Anyone uninformed of his past work has almost certainly listened to other artists inspired by it; such was the impact of many of his staple albums throughout the 90s. His reach within electronic music has oft been referred to as game changing, immeasurable, and essential. So when his unmistakable emblem began appearing on blimps, tagged across multiple European capitals and even within the darkest reaches of the deep web accompanied by a stark ‘2014’, the electronic music producer from Cornwall sent music lovers worldwide into a state of frenzy. The hype…