For the best part of the last decade The Decemberists have been making albums of ever increasing ambition, scope and complexity, reaching apogee in 2009’s ‘Hazards Of Love’, a full blown concept album with narrative arc and characterisation. ‘The King Is Dead’ can perhaps be seen as a reaction to all of that complexity, as step back from the high minded concept and a return to a more stripped down ethos and perhaps a homage to some of their roots; REM (in fact Pete Buck features on a couple of tracks here), Springsteen, Americana and bluegrass to mention a few,…

Wow, the penultimate day of 2010, that was quite a year. Some great records were released over the last 12 months, also some not so great ones but we’ll gloss over that. As ever in the last few months of the year, we’ve been ridiculously busy; gigs, parties, general debauchery and the like. The consequence of this is that there’s a whole pile of records that we now feel very guilty about not covering, so in an effort to rectify this somewhat here’s a quick rundown of the pick of them… Read More…

Bad Love Experience
Humanfly
Dinosaur Pile-Up
I…

There’s been something of a resurgence of good post rock of late; bands like Kasper Rosa, To Bury A Ghost and a whole tranche on Deep Elm records like Goonies Say Never Die, Athletics and I Am Sonic Rain have all given a recently somewhat moribund genre a shot in the arm but the ones that have really grabbed our attention by the short and curlies is Killington Fall. Read More…

Teeth Of The Sea have set a difficult problem for me here. You see, I am a lazy writer with the vocabulary of a 3 year old. This means I usually cheat by saying 'this band sounds like that band', or 'that bit on that track sounds like that other bit on that other track', however I can quite honestly say that Teeth Of The Sea sound like nothing else out there at the moment, and to try and pigeon hole them in a specific genre would be futile. You could probably find all of the following '….rocks' in their…

Now, I really do like my IDM – a bit of hippity hoppity, an hint of electronica, and even a pinch of industrial on occasion, but sometimes I do just crave a bit of raw rock and roll with deep down dirty guitars. Luckily, the new album ‘$’ from Mark Sultan provides this up the ying yong. Read More…

Former Ghosts is the project of LA based Freddy Ruppert, and ‘New Love’ is the follow up to last year’s well received debut album ‘Fleurs’. Released this week on London based label Upset The Rhythm, bleak and desolate were my first thoughts on hearing this album, but that is by no means a criticism. Read More…

Halloween has just been and gone, and it seems quite fitting to be listening to this album. This is Glyn Bailey’s third album, but the first with his accompanying band.

Glyn Bailey has some strange tales and a range of ideas that he relays to us over wailing guitars, piano, and a range of other sounds. ‘Prog’ was the first word that occurred to me on my initial listen; but actually, it’s not a particularly fitting description at all. Power chords and concept writing may be at work here at times, but the songs aren’t very long, have a clearly…

I’d love to see these guys live.

I reckon it’d be one of those gigs where you stand still for the duration; just absorbing and feeling the sound, with a slight lump in your throat, a tear in your eye, and a hint of murderous rage for the guy next to you who won’t stop talking to his mate throughout the proceedings. Read More…

She Bears

I’ve been putting off reviewing ‘The Quiet Lamb’, the second album from Leeds five(ish) piece Her Name Is Calla, because frankly it’s been getting so much glowing coverage elsewhere (even The Sun gave it four out of five for God’s sake!), so many beautifully expressed reviews full of florid praise that it’s become a bit intimidating. However, it’s time I confronted my demons, stepped up to the plate and added my two cents worth. Read More…

I'm almost loathe to compare Tapso II with Shellac as it feels a bit lazy but, to be honest, you could do worse if you were looking for a reference point as to what to expect from this album. I'm fairly confident my money would be safe if I laid a bet that this Italian trio has more than a nodding acquaintance with the works of Mr Albini et al, and they make a pretty good fist of emulating them. This is almost post-rock by numbers - loud/quiet, fast/slow, pause…..GO! Read More…