Latest Reviews

26-02-2010 Liars / Sisterworld

When bands release self-titled albums, it can signify numerous things, most of them negative, such as lack of inspiration or effort (…)


26-02-2010 Marina & the Diamonds / The Family Jewels

Four years ago, Welsh-Greek warbler Marina Diamandis couldn’t play the piano. Now she’s managed to put together a whole album (…)


20-11-2009 The King Khan & BBQ Show / Invisible Girl

Filthy humour, a doo-wop sensibility and garage rock production are bound to make for a novel, if not sloppy cocktail. The third album from (…)


20-11-2009 Various Artists / Ghana Special

After Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957 it gradually moved into a period of relative affluence. (…)


23-09-2009 Mayer Hawthorne / A Strange Arrangement

Back in your boxes you merchants of stern and deep bass-heads, because here’s a man with a deft touch (…)


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Reviews

Wild Beasts / Hoxton Hall, London

Far more than Two Dancers at London show

Gossip / Scala, London

Gift Of The Gab: No bad mouthing as the Gossip let their music speak volumes

Women, Wavves / The Lexington, London

Wavves washed up as Women go with the tide

The Phantom Band / Hoxton Sq Bar & Kitchen, London

Glasgow’s Phantom Band put on quite a Spectrecal in London

R.E.M. / Waldbühne, Berlin

R.E.M. mercifully not automatic for the people in Berlin

Nissennenmondai / The Freebutt, Brighton

What in the blue blazes is this, I wondered? I was all set for a quiet Sunday night watching assorted friends go through their usual improvised performances (nods of acknowledgement here to Bad Orb, Little Creature and Vitamin B12), alongside, let’s be frank, a sparse hardcore of the more chin-stroking breed of music fan: us few who were neither still raving nor cripplingly hungover after Brighton’s legendarily hedonistic gay pride weekend. True, there were some mutterings about a Japanese band headlining, but I had no reason to suspect that the night would turn up anything as arse-shakingly tremendous as Nissennenmondai.

Read more on Nissennenmondai / The Freebutt, Brighton…

The Edge Festival / Various venues, Edinburgh

Re-branded Edinburgh festival fails to cut to the mustard

The Wildest Cats In Town / Pontin’s Holiday Village, Kessingland

When a young sprite that helps us put The Stool Pigeon together asked if I was going to any festivals this year, I said, “Yes, I’m going to a rocking little weekender on the Suffolk coast.”

Read more on The Wildest Cats In Town / Pontin’s Holiday Village, Kessingland…

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