What the critics both personal and musical failed to understand was that any Babyshambles fan willing to idolize Pete Doherty’s contrivances had no desire for it to make sense anyway.
It’s very easy now, with two decades of hindsight, to be unaware of the absolute shitstorm into which Down In …
AVTT/PTTN is a beautiful country music vehicle, but with all the brutal mechanics exposed.
On paper, this shouldn’t work.
Mike Patton, the man behind Faith No More’s genre-hopping chaos, Mr Bungle’s demented brilliance and Fantomas’ cinematic maximalism teaming up with The Avett Brothers feels like a punchline waiting for a …
Pete Doherty with The Libertines live in Manchester (Gary Mather for Live4ever)
Playing to the crowd, Babyshambles walked on to The Wurzels’ Combine Harvester; as ever with Doherty in charge, the line between sincerity and surrealism is always blurred.
Peter Doherty has always been consistent and prolific; either through playing …
The results of The Saints’ recording process are a spectacular tribute to Chris Bailey.
There’s always a difference in the way you process music released posthumously.
In the case of The Saints, by way of introduction there remains a story about them and singer Chris Bailey not told enough, …
‘Weather Vane’, ‘Hey Presto’ and closer ‘Gardeners’ World’ are rough edged Joanna gems from a time capsule nobody even knew was buried.
London’s always the reason.
Joanna’s story is an interesting one, although not unique.
By the end of the 1980s, in what was a rare moment of inversion, …
As if to match their chaotic narrative, a groovy cover version of Step On made the Happy Mondays household names and the Kings of Madchester.
This only works when everything has an equal and opposite, right?
You might have heard of the NME’s C-86 compilation, not so much related to …
What is lost now is just how unique The Return Of The Durutti Column sounded, a beacon of melody in a sea of post punk gloom and throwaway pop ephemera.
Everyone has their own view of Tony Wilson, the sadly missed impresario who meant many things to many people.
Known …
FYC 40 proves that Fine Young Cannibals’ appeal went far beyond a reliance on studio trickery.
It’s a music quiz question for the ages: What connects Prince with the city of Hull?
Firstly, well done to all those of you who didn’t cheat, and secondly the answer, as those of …
Gans by Benji Charles
GANS are not the only loud two-piece around, but they’re definitely the hardest and funkiest.
“Make a circle, you bastards!”
Not the typical rallying cry you’d expect on a Tuesday night in Hebden Bridge, but then nothing about GANS tonight at the Trades Club feels typical.…
If anything counts for momentum in the currently artist-hostile environment of creation and performance, then Pavey Ark surely have it.
One of the most striking differences between the musics of the 20th and 21st centuries is the lost tradition of being able to give something a specific geographical root.
Way …
Having turned solo a few years ago, it’s clear that Iona Zajac’s new album has an energy to it which comes from obsessively picking through some fucked up 21st century metas.
Choose your cliché: on a hiding to nothing, accepting a poisoned chalice, falling on a double-edged sword?
Truly there …
The songwriting throughout ‘Fickle Friends’ is simple and insistent, never flashy or contrived. Everything feels natural, like the songs almost formed themselves.
Have Fickle Friends ‘gone pop’?
The comparisons write themselves: there’s Sabrina Carpenter vibes here, flashes of Olivia Rodrigo there, maybe some others if you squint.
It’s shimmery, it’s …
Levellers’ super-power was cloaking pop in the guise of palatable, home by midnight radicalism, tapping into flaring anti-authoritarian sentiment.
In Britain you can still trace the paths the Romans walked, sixteen hundred years after they last abandoned the place.
Rock n’ roll archaeology tends to live on much shorter cycles, …
Adult DVD by Lindsay Melbourne
As has been the trajectory of their year, Adult DVD take Rough Trade by storm with an intricate, euphoric blend of indie rock, electronica and acid-house shimmer.
The only real issue with Bristol’s Simple Things Festival is abundance.
There’s simply too much good music, too …
Daniel Avery by Keffer
Daniel Avery is a past master, and here he maintains a balance between control and abandon.
With the Simple Things festival officially underway, a dark, pulsing energy filled the Bristol Beacon on Friday night as Scaler and Daniel Avery brought two distinct visions of electronic intensity …
Hotel Lux have made a second album that would delight the indie scene’s original provocateurs, with a disregard for the algorithmic nature of the modern game.
David Cavanagh’s book The Creation Records Story will tell you, although it isn’t the first and won’t be the last.
Dismissed out of hand …