Laura Marling is back with her fourth album, which could so easily have been a couple of records. Its 16 tracks fitting neatly into two camps. Following on seamlessly from A Creature I Don’t Know, Once I Was An Eagle…
Category: Reviews
Album | Sparrow and the Workshop – Murderopolis
With past albums from Sparrow and the Workshop in mind, 2010’s Crystal Falls and particularly 2011’s Spitting Daggers, it wouldn’t be off-key to expect another thematically dark album from the Glasgow-based trio. One also may not be surprised to learn…
Album | Hero & Leander – Tumble
How is it possible not to like a band capable of producing a song so lovely as ‘Kiss Me By The Water Cooler’? How is it possible to have anything but good will towards a band who seem to be…
Album | Dear Georgiana – Dear Georgiana
Not enough people know this, but the Bandana Splits’ eponymous debut is the most exuberant record of the last five years and the best slice of upbeat comic-book girl-band retro-pop this side of 1962. Alabama-born Lauren Balthrop, one third of…
Album | CocoRosie – Tales of a Grass Widow
CocoRosie was only ever meant to be a project that existed solely in their own circle of friends but, about a decade on from their debut album, La Maison De Mon Rêve, they keep coming back for more. Since that…
Album | Just Handshakes – Say It
There is something deceptively and very definitely different about Just Handshakes. Never has a trademark sound been more understated than Clara Patrick’s candy floss-sweet vocals. It seems counterintuitive that such an innocent and ingenuous sound should have the heft to…
Album | She & Him – Volume 3
We’re guessing it wasn’t a long meeting between M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel before they settled on the title Volume 3 for this, their, uhm, third collection of 60s-tinged pop. But it wasn’t just the title that was inevitable about…
Album | Nancy Elizabeth – Dancing
Nancy Elizabeth is a true musical artist. There are few acts around in 2013 who have mastered the craft of making music like she has. Listening to Dancing, her third album and the one of which she says she is…
EP | Patch & The Giant – The Boatswain’s Refuge
If you’re already familiar with Patch & The Giant you’ll have been expecting their debut EP to be named after a boat or a boatman. And so it is. Drawn from all four corners of our little Island – and…
Album | The Baptist Generals – Jackleg Devotional To The Heart
The Baptist Generals’ sophomore album begins like a schizophrenic soundtrack to an Atari computer game, beeping and buzzing as a guitar tries to make up its mind which key to play in. ‘Machine En Prolepis’ does settle down after a…