When bands release self-titled albums, it can signify numerous things, most of them negative, such as lack of inspiration or effort (…)
Latest Reviews
26-02-2010 Liars / Sisterworld
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 (…)
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.
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…
