It would be easy to dismiss JOHN as simply IDLES acolytes; particularly on Nocturnal Manoeuvres, where the production finally catches the scope of their sound.
Their music is confrontational and brutal, but with intelligence hidden behind frayed edges. So far, so similar. But basic comparisons miss the point: just because …
K Bay could be a step forward or backward, depending on how you look at it.
After the highly experimental Broken Mirror this is a return to more conventional songwriting territory, but if you’re after the straightforward songwriting of Big Inner or Fresh Blood, think again.
What would a band sound like if they were sent back in time like a musical Terminator and produced by Vangelis or Giorgio Moroder? And then maybe asked to soundtrack a movie?
It’s an unusual question, but then POWER is an unusual album in so many ways. It’s stylised, unapologetically …
Heaven Surrounds You isn’t as spiky and raucous as Nothing Yet or Buds if you take it track-by-track, but that would be missing the point. Heaven… is a much more cohesive and comprehensive picture than those records. What it lacks in …
Sbwriel Gwyn is a very unusual record, but not because it’s wholly in Welsh.
The language does add a dimension, but the ‘unusual’ really comes from what this record is born from. So many influences abound throughout, and not always from where you expect. As one track leads expectation in …
Twelve Nudes is different. Which is saying something considering Ezra Furman’s ever-shifting back catalogue.
You could play with its title and say it’s stripped-down, but that’s not why. So what’s different this time? Well, for one thing it’s lean. Clocking in at under 30 mins, there’s absolutely no fat or …
From the topics to the tone to the truths it depicts. Why? Because music surely has to hide behind something, doesn’t it? Psychodrama as a record works on two levels. First, you have what you can hear, and then you have what’s being said.
If it ain’t broke, why fix it? It’s this type of thinking that holds so many bands back, but not Drenge. Not on Strange Creatures.
On their third album Drenge have taken the seemingly unusual decision to recreate an already unique sound. What’s more interesting is the direction they’ve chosen …
Some artists challenge expectation, others challenge the form itself. Challenge it to be better. Challenge it to be different. Challenge it to mean something.
The word challenging often has a negative connotation when it comes to album reviews, usually suggesting an artist has lost focus, but what no-one ever says …
Idles playing Live At Leeds 2018 (Gary Mather / Live4ever)
Where and when tonight did righteous fury become poetic, or frustration a shield or honesty a weapon? For Idles it’s not enough to want change, it requires action.
Ten Years After once said, ‘I’d love to change the world but …
When posed with the question of what to do next, Nic Cester definitely isn’t someone who’d answer ‘if it ain’t broke why fix it’.
Instead, he’s attacking the question with a jackhammer. Jet were great, in so many ways. Their obsession with The Stones and The Faces meant everyone always …
Bodega are here to offend – or would be if they could bring themselves to take any of their targets seriously.
Sarcasm drips from every pore of their debut Endless Scroll; it would appear that, for Bodega, subtlety is for fools. In fact, the record is so bitingly sarcastic throughout …
Some combinations sound as unusual in real life as they do on paper.
The only difference is some are meant to. Welcome to Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay’s LUMP. The self-titled record is one of unmitigated experimentalism and unrelenting beauty but it’s also, beneath the layers of fascinating production and …