If Belle & Sebastian are indeed, as they are often described, the “acceptable face of twee”, then bands like Allo Darlin’ are very much the unacceptable depth of the iceberg below the water – intimidating in their lightness, in their…
Category: Reviews
Album| Ty Segall & White Hair – Fence
Enfant terrible: the favoured term of writers who seek to envelope youths, of immense promise and questionable mental lucidity, in a cloud of castigation. Or, alternatively, just a stick used by bitter elders, to beat against the reputations of youngsters…
Album | Sweet Lights – Sweet Lights
After 2011 turned into a huge Kurt Vile/War on Drugs love-in, 2012 gives the third wheel of this Philadelphia musical family his time to shine. Shai Halperin – briefly a member of War on Drugs alongside Vile after inviting Adam…
Singles Round-up | Matt Norris & The Moon, Anja McCloskey, Jack Hayter, Wildeflower, Paper Aeroplanes and more
Matt Norris & The Moon – Roots Below Edinburgh’s Matt Norris & The Moon bring us sweet harmonies, an array of differing strings and horns…I was going to try and get through a paragraph on them without mentioning the words…
Album | James Yorkston & The Athletes – Moving Up Country 10th Anniversary Edition
It is rare for an album to so effectively embody the mood of the location it was recorded in; yes, apart from THAT album from Bon Iver’s wood cabin. Released in 2002, James Yorkston and The Athletes’ debut album Moving…
Album | Gravenhurst – The Ghost In Daylight
Whatever else he’s been doing for the last four years, it doesn’t sound like Nick Talbot has let much light in. The Bristolian returns with his first Gravenhurst album since 2007’s The Western Lands and The Ghost In Daylight is…
Album | George Harrison – Early Takes: Volume 1
George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass was a monster of an album is almost every sense. First unleashed on the world in November 1970 as a triple LP, marrying Harrison’s beautiful compositions with Phil Spector’s wall of sound, it arrived…
Album | Hannah Cohen – Child Bride
A first listen to Hannah Cohen’s debut album Child Bride may feel making a new friend who has a familiar face. Aspects of the album clearly resemble others’ good work, but it is surely best to take in Child Bride…
EP | The Staves – The Motherlode
The happy rise of folk as a commercial force in the last few years was always going to bring in some detractors. With charts in sight, there’s no doubt that those hitting them will perform the same trick as any…
New Bands Panel | The Slow Show – Brother EP
Named after a National song? Only been together a year and already supported Elbow? Seems like Manchester band The Slow Show have got it all worked out already, doesn’t it? But before they hit the big time, the FFS New…