Having enjoyed success as a rank-and-file member of The Verve, Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad and The Queen, Simon Tong is surely one of the biggest-selling guitarists you’d struggle to pick out of a line-up. His latest collaboration with…
Category: Reviews
Album: William Fitzsimmons – Gold In The Shadow
Before listening to the album, I’d heard word that Gold in the Shadow is the most optimistic of William Fitzsimmons’ releases so far. Everything is relative of course, and bearing that in mind I’m inclined to agree. The title immediately…
Live: Decemberists @ Hammersmith Apollo, 15/03/11
If you often feel that time passes too slowly and you’d like, more than anything, to hurry yourself towards death, you need to see The Decemberists live on as regular a basis as finance and geography permit. They have the…
Album: Josh T. Pearson – Last of the Country Gentlemen
Ten years on from his work with Texan psych-rockers Lift to Experience, Josh T. Pearson is a broken man, and Last of the Country Gentlemen is a sparse, delicate and unrelenting trawl through the darker recesses of the soul. Confessional…
Album: Paper Aeroplanes – We Are Ghosts
Paper Aeroplanes started life back in 2005 when Sarah Howells and Richard Llewellyn first crossed paths in West Walians, Wales. The duo promptly headed to Cardiff and began playing acoustic sets under the name of Halflight and began to gain…
Album: Thousands – The Sound of Everything
For those of us who resolutely refuse to heed the long-given advice not to judge a book by its cover, seeking out new bands can be a fraught mission. You look for little hints – the cover art, a particular…
EP: Laura Hocking & the Long Goodbye
In this, the first official release through Laura Hocking‘s own label Chrome Yellow, four of her songs are given the full band treatment at the hands of The Long Goodbye. The EP comes in the form of a double A-Side…
Album: Tiny Birds – Hymns For The Careless
I reviewed Tiny Birds for the New Bands Panel back in June, and liked what I heard – ‘Ariadne’ remains perhaps the best song I’ve been introduced to via that route – so when Hymns For the Careless cropped up…
EP: Austra – Beat and the Pulse
I was first made aware of Katie Stelmanis through her work with Canadian wonders Bruce Peninsula. Stelmanis now goes under the name of Austra, a project that sees her powerful vocal talent given an electronic twist. ‘Beat and the Pulse’…
Album: Ron Sexsmith – Long Player Late Bloomer
From the opening bars of ‘Get In Line’, it’s clear that Ron Sexsmith is in an unusually good mood. A man who has made a long career out of singing songs of loss and dejection has a smile on his…