Category: Reviews

Album | Blossoms – Blossoms

Blossoms have no small dreams. They want success on the grand scale of like Oasis, the Beatles, and (dare I say it) Abba. On their first disc, they have the kind of radio friendly sound that’s mature beyond their years.…

Album | Wild Beasts – Boy King

Wild Beasts are back in the groove, more so than ever before. After a short hiatus between 2011’s Smother and 2014’s Present Tense, the band now looks as relevant and pumped up as ever. There’s a significant change in sound,…

Album | Lou Rhodes – theyesandeye

For Lou Rhodes the distance between trip-hop and folk music is shorter than you think. As one half of Lamb she’s recorded six trip-hop albums, yet it’s not hard to see how with different instrumentation those songs would still work…

Album | Look Park – Look Park

Fountains of Wayne were never held in the same regard as other power pop players like Teenage Fanclub or Weezer.  Maybe it’s because their biggest moment, ‘Stacy’s Mom’, was  a bubblegum MTV hit about a schoolboy crush which McFly would’ve…

Live Review | Latitude Festival 2016

Ah, Latitude. Don’t ever go changing. Returning to the Suffolk grounds of Henham Park for the 5th consecutive year, all things needed to make a festival ‘special’ seemed to be in place. A strong line up, beautiful weather, and reasonably…

Album | Bess Atwell – Hold Your Mind

Bess Atwell is just 21, yet her first album, Hold Your Mind, is the work of a mature artist. Written over the space of three years, these songs, these arrangements stay with you long after the disc has ended. Initially…

Album | Michael Kiwanuka – Love and Hate

Singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka, whose 2012 debut Home Again drew comparisons to the greats of soul music, has joined forces with producer Danger Mouse for his second album, Love and Hate: a wonderfully intriguing pair of unique, talented artists whose music…

Album | Woodkid and Nils Frahm – Ellis

This release couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. With anti-immigration and scapegoat antics ruling Western politics, French folk favorite Woodkid (aka Yoann Lemoine) and ambient pianist Nils Frahm have teamed up to create an emotional and haunting soundtrack…