Every October Huw Stephens puts on a wondrous, glorious, often slightly damp and cold festival in the bars, music halls and converted churches of Cardiff town, and this year FFS’s own Helen True spent three music-rich days in the Welsh capital. Read about her experiences here.
Category: Reviews
EP: Alela Diane and Alina Hardin — Alela & Alina
When this collaboration between Alela Diane and her touring companion Alina Hardin opens with ‘Amidst the Movement’, one of Diane’s trademark gutsy folk songs that defies you not to join in with its sing-along chorus, it’s easy to think this EP is merely a supplement to her well-received album To Be Still. It soon becomes clear, however, that this offering is much more than that – it is a master-class in the sublimely simple beauty of classic folk music, delivered by two equally impressive songbirds.
Album: The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come
There will be some who will balk at an album where each and every song is named after a different bible verse. Then there will be others who will fervently use this to find some higher meaning in John Darnielle’s customarily intriguing lyrics, listening with a bible in their hand to reveal religious insights that frankly may or may not be there.
Single: Wild Beasts – All the Kings Men
What can I say about Wild Beasts that have not been said already? This is a band that has taken us all by surprise. They are teasers and challengers to and of the senses and the preconceptual ideas of the laws of anticipation and music formulas of best practice. ‘All the Kings Men’ is a supreme delight – it is like the cherry on the cake, like the feeling you get when getting a shy kiss on the cheek from that beautiful girl at high school or like the giggles of a baby when it’s being tickled.
Album: The Young Republic – Balletesque
End Of The Road Records’ flagship band, The Young Republic, have returned with their second album. Stuffed full with virtuoso performances and the kind of epic orchestral arrangements not seen since The Arcade Fire’s debut. Balletesque has all of the hard-hitting edge of their debut 12 Tales From Winter City but is even more glorious for its complexity and softness.
Album: Boo Hewerdine – God Bless the Pretty Things
Firmly grounded in folk and country, with harmonies that would be perfectly at home on a porch swing in the deep south, Boo Hewerdine’s latest album is a sweet stroll through life, love and the like. That said, this dude doesn’t sit comfortably in a musical box. He’s a wanderer when it comes to musical styles, and that makes for an album of kaleidoscopic shade and tone.
Album: A.A. Bondy – When the Devil’s Loose
Ten years since Scott Bondy and his band Verbena caught the eye of grunge legend Dave Grohl, who then produced their second album (the averagely received Into the Pink), an older and (perhaps) more mature Bondy has released his second album under the name A.A. Bondy, When the Devil’s Loose.
EP: Treetop Flyers — To Bury the Past
Reid Morrison’s gentle, yearning voice opens this timeless gem of an EP as he introduces the troubled protagonist of ‘Mountain Song’, before raw guitar and subtle harmonies melt into the beautifully crafted tale, and rather than burying the past, this London-based band marrying minds from both sides of the Atlantic effortlessly transport you to a different musical time and place entirely.
In pictures: End of the Road festival
End Of The Road festival returned in its fourth year with more magic and sparkle than ever before. All of the old favourites were there, including the secret disco, hidden piano lounge and of course the free-roaming people-loving peacocks.
EP: Withered Hand – You’re Not Alone
Withered Hand’s gnarly name reflects his sound perfectly – warts and all folk music that’s more world-weary than we will ever be.