Mark Chadwick, Simon Friend and co are among the originators and the great survivors of the folk-rock crossover and, now more than two decades in, have produced an album to rekindle memories of their glory days. The brief opening title…
Category: Reviews
Album | Jesca Hoop – The House That Jack Built
Championed by Tom Waits and Guy Garvey, California-born, Manchester-based singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop is back with a sumptuous third album. Infused with dark grief and surreal lyrics, the collection is beautifully balanced by full-blown quirky pop and imaginative dream-folk (not to…
EP | Slow Skies – Silhouettes
When you’ve been listening to a heap of new music, a mass of unfamiliar tunes, it’s easy for things to start to bleed into one, for the mind to glaze over and stop processing things. Normally, for something to break…
Album | Giant Giant Sand – Tucson
Tucson, the latest release from Howard Gelb-organized music collective Giant Sand (a group expanded here to become ‘Giant’ Giant Sand), is balanced, coherent, and aesthetically consistent. The aforementioned adjectives may not sound like a glowing review, but, in fact, those…
Album | Catherine AD – Reprise
With a handful of EPs under her belt an a mini live album, Communion, to which the NME attached cult status, Catherine AD has built up a fair amount of expectation for her debut full album. But that project got…
Album | Dent May – Do Things
Dent May emerged in 2009, an endearing geeky-looking crooner toting, in his own words, a magnificent ukulele. Three years on, he is back with a studio full of synths, ready to burrow his way into your summer soundtrack. The straightforwardly-titled…
Album | Duke Special – Oh Pioneer
Having made his name with wonderful baroque pop, Duke Special – AKA Peter Wilson – took a diversion with 2010’s The Stage, A Book And The Silver Screen, a triple album featuring the soundtrack for a production of Brecht’s Mother…
EP | All We Are – We Hunt
Liverpool-based trio All We Are sound so instantly accomplished that I’m a bit taken aback that I’ve never heard them before. Their latest EP, We Hunt, opens with ‘Trainspotting’ and a beguiling guitar riff reminiscent of Nirvana’s ‘Come As You…
Album | Stevie Jackson – (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson
As massive Belle and Sebastian fans (no surprises there), FFS were pretty keen to hear this album from their adorable guitarist Stevie Jackson. He is adorable in a sort of scatty-uncle-who-tells-the-best-stories-in-awkward-family-situations kind of way, and the inoffensive charm in his…
Album | Garforth & Myers – Garforth & Myers
Garforth and Myers is certainly a band name to remember if their debut album is anything to go by. Following on from their impressive EP Bonfires, the self-titled debut features a collection of beautiful folk songs reminiscent of Fleet Foxes.…