Tear It Open is the forthcoming album from Scotland’s ‘Le Reno Amps’ – a band that, in its own words, tries “to write songs with all the fat cut off so you can savour their buttery goodness”. Ironic then that a band setting out such noble intentions should produce music that fails to either please or repell.
Category: uncategorised
EP Review: Kevin Pearce – Light Song EP
There’s an ethereal quality to Kevin Pearce’s voice which penetrates even the foggiest of minds. Light Song, the singer’s first EP, is a short collection of carefully crafted songs which call on many influences. Pearce lists Tim Buckley, Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen amongst his favourites, and the soft religiosity created by the combination of his raw vocals and melancholy song-writing is sure to win him favour among fans of those artists.
Single: Jeremy Warmsley – If He Breaks Your Heart
First of all let me say you would not like Mr Warmsley to be your girlfriend’s brother. While the London singer songwriter may appear serene and twee, at the heart he is clearly an imbalanced individual. Or at least that is the case if you believe the unnerving lyrics of his latest effort, If He Breaks Your Heart, complete with menaces and threats aplenty served up in a beautiful melodic plate. Imagine the Krays asking for money while performing the Bolero and you’re close.
Album: Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
Great artists don’t come immaculately conceived; it just seems that way. Really, they spend years listening, absorbing, and developing their craft. So it is with Animal Collective.
Single Review: Le Reno Amps – Outlaws
With a riff that gallops between a Johnny Cash track and the original Batman theme, though granted with more grit and less kitsch, this track is throwaway but accomplished jam.
Album Review: Noble Beast – Andrew Bird
It’s a sweet start for Andrew Bird’s new offering, Nobel Beast – a collection of soothing and winding indie folk tunes sure to be a hit among his loyal fans and new ones alike. The sweeping strings and twee whistle of Oh No (apparently influenced by a crying child on a flight) sets the scene for an album of enchanting and catchy songs, many with darker undertones, but always a sunny melody.
I Said Yes
They say: ‘i said yes’ are a group of friends who started out recording low budget covers of contemporary ‘pop’ tunes back in 2006. They’ve come a long way since then, playing their first gig at the Wee Red Bar…
Album Review: Eugene McGuinness
Eugene McGuinness certainly turned a few heads with his mini-album “The Early Learnings of Eugene McGuinness” in 2007, and with this – his first album proper – he will no doubt turn a few more.
EP Review: Jennifer Concannon- Freedom
Jennifer Concannon describes her music as sounding “like tin cans rolling down a hill” and, on listening, it’s hard not to wish it was you on that hill instead. Tin cans get all the fun. The Freedom EP has a refreshing sense of space that spurs the listener to get out of the front door and into the world, that is until they realise that it’ll be dark in half an hour and it’s pouring with rain.
EP Review: Ivan Campo – Super 7
Sharing a name with an overweight, curly haired, Spanish footballer might not be the first thing most musicians aim for when putting together a band. Indeed, the music created could not be further than the image of the former Bolton Wanderers midfielder huffing and puffing his way around a football pitch. In fact, Ivan Campo in the musical sense are a three piece folk tinged trio based in Manchester and this EP is their fifth release to date.