Angus Stone – Bird on the Buffalo ‘Bird on the Buffalo’ is a happy rambler, a head-nodder, a toe-tapper – ideal for that hazy summer we’re all hoping will still emerge. Simple drums and guitars in the intro blend easily…
Category: Reviews
Album | Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart – Dedication
Dedication seems a fitting title for a Stacey Earle album. Steve Earle’s sister has been writing and recording with her husband Mark Stuart for two decades now, playing up to 170 gigs a year and putting out albums on their…
Album | Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Here
It’s three years since the former front man of dance-punkers Ima Robot Alex Ebert rebranded himself as Edward Sharpe and joined up with the sprawling Magnetic Zeros to deliver an eccentric, magical ride of west coast psychedelia. Since then, in…
Album | Sansa – Savior
Finnish songstress Sansa, along with regular collaborator Janne Oinas, returns with a varied third album blending folk and pop and even the occasional dash of electronica. The album starts enticingly with the rocky ‘Waiting For The Sky’ followed by the…
Album | The Chieftains – Voice of Ages
When marriages have lasted 50 years, it is traditional to receive presents of gold. For Irish trad-folkies the Chieftains, that particularly anniversary has brought a variety of even more glittering gifts. Keep your Rolex watches and charming carriage clocks. Bin…
Album | Cold Specks – I Predict A Graceful Expulsion
Etobicoke, Canada is a long way from the Deep South but it is clear that is where native Al Spx, now a resident of the even more distant London, finds her inspiration. Her homespun blues are built on the old…
EP | Holly Taymar & Christopher Bilton – Never Winter Mind Part Two
We first came across Holly Taymar last year during the unenviable task of whittling down 125 Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition entries to three. Taymar grabbed our attention, and a place on that final shortlist, not by doing anything new or…
Album | The Pond – The Pond
I saw Kathryn Williams live in the summer of 2009 at Stockton-on-Tees’ wonderful free festival. The Futureheads had just finished an excellent main stage set, finishing in signature fashion by splitting the crowd down the middle to sing the harmonies…
EP | Matt Norris & The Moon – The Kingdom EP
Everything about Matt Norris & The Moon’s music makes sense to me: modern, Mumford-esque arrangements with Nizlopi vocals and tunes that sound rooty and traditional, like Wheeler Street. There are flutes, trumpets, acoustic guitars – if I listen hard enough…
Album | Sons of Noel and Adrian – Knots
Sons of Noel and Adrian is more than just a band. The group is filled with English folk’s undercover movers and shakers; whether through the Willkommen Collective, extensive touring, or the other bands in which its members take part, the…