The synth blast, urgent backbeat and whirling guitars that kick off Real Estate’s fourth LP augur well. You’d never accuse the New York band of urgency; they’re more prone to meander down melodic rivers with their jangle pop influences bobbing in their…
The idea of reviewing of Stornoway’s last gig of their farewell tour, in the town where they built their career strikes me as inappropriate. It’s like trying to review any sort of local, natural, beautiful, beloved phenomenon in Oxford. One…
The newest addition to the every burgeoning Bella Union label, Holly Mcvae, has released her debut record Golden Eagle, and deserves the plaudits she is sure to receive. The opening track, ‘White Bridge’, sets the tone for the record. The…
At this point Alynda Segarra is Hurray for the Riff Raff – her songs, her music, her vision. Leaving the Bronx at the age of seventeen and riding the rails like a female Woody Guthrie, Segarra spent three years exploring…
Matthew Edwards is back in Birmingham. After two decades living in the United States Edwards, formerly of The Music Lovers, has moved back to his hometown. Along the way, he gathered enough material for Folklore, his second album with the…
The ‘Black Lives Matter’ flag so often draped over an amplifier is missing. ‘What It Means’, Patterson Hood’s song about the violence directed at African Americans of late, may have been a setlist mainstay during the North American leg of…