Wild Beasts are back in the groove, more so than ever before. After a short hiatus between 2011’s Smother and 2014’s Present Tense, the band now looks as relevant and pumped up as ever. There’s a significant change in sound,…
For Lou Rhodes the distance between trip-hop and folk music is shorter than you think. As one half of Lamb she’s recorded six trip-hop albums, yet it’s not hard to see how with different instrumentation those songs would still work…
Fountains of Wayne were never held in the same regard as other power pop players like Teenage Fanclub or Weezer. Maybe it’s because their biggest moment, ‘Stacy’s Mom’, was a bubblegum MTV hit about a schoolboy crush which McFly would’ve…
Bess Atwell is just 21, yet her first album, Hold Your Mind, is the work of a mature artist. Written over the space of three years, these songs, these arrangements stay with you long after the disc has ended. Initially…
Singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka, whose 2012 debut Home Again drew comparisons to the greats of soul music, has joined forces with producer Danger Mouse for his second album, Love and Hate: a wonderfully intriguing pair of unique, talented artists whose music…
This release couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. With anti-immigration and scapegoat antics ruling Western politics, French folk favorite Woodkid (aka Yoann Lemoine) and ambient pianist Nils Frahm have teamed up to create an emotional and haunting soundtrack…
Since his self-titled first full-length release in 2012, Novi’s Michael Dause has exemplified himself as a tour-de-force, capable of completely self-producing a competent release from top-to-bottom. From a contemplative, versatile lyric and vocal delivery paired with complex multi-instrumental backing courtesy…
Roisin Murphy is the kind artist record companies hate. She doesn’t follow traditional paths, instead working at her own speed and following her own agenda. The seven year gap between her second and third CDs is proof of that. Stemming…
Love Run is the debut release from Soho-based The Amazing Devil. I had never heard of this band before their release announcement email arrived in the FFS mailbox, but one song was enough to get my attention and one play-through…
TV reality singing competitions have a way of producing fans reluctant to see their favorite idols change. Take the case of 22 year old American singer-songwriter Holly Henry, who has just released her third independently produced album. The eleven tracks of ‘King…