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…
I have been listening to Jim James’ take on the Grateful Dead’s “Candyman” for the last three weeks straight. I can’t get over his version of this song. To be honest, I can’t get over this album. It’s important to…
The last Richmond Fontaine concert I went to a decade ago saw their set sabotaged by stage monitors blowing, leaving the band battling in vain to hear their own instruments. I’d not really given them a second thought since but…
After making his debut solo album House Music in his living room, this follow-up sees Steven James Adams join forces with producer Dan Michaelson. Michaelson’s 2014 Distance was a minor classic, a break-up record with a luxuriant sound that swathed…
Steve Mason’s plumbed the range of human emotions in recent years. Once of High Fidelity-featuring, boiler-suited experimentalists The Beta Band, his last album was 2013’s double-length Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time. That was a skulking, snarling, dog of a…
Will Oldham has been scratching his name (or one of several others including Palace Brothers, Palace Music and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) into the tree trunks of indie, folk and country for over two decades. Rooting his often dark, sometimes funny,…
Cass McCombs has existed just beneath the radar for the last decade or so – and he seems comfortable that way. His last album, 2013’s Big Wheel And Others, both delighted and befuddled with its 22 tracks which included some…
When he’s not working on late-night misadventures with ex-Arab Strap frontman Aidan Moffat, prolific pianist, bassist and arranger Bill Wells is knee deep in fascinating projects like this one. It’s a simple idea – get a roomful of avant-garde artists…
Darren Hayman decamped to (you guessed it) Florence to record this charming collection which, surprisingly for such a prolific writer, is his first strictly solo album, finding him home alone in his hosts’ Firenze flat. Opener ‘Nuns Run The Apothecary’…
By rights, Martin Courtney’s debut solo album is four months too late. Many Moons is the sort of record that soundtracks a perfect summer road trip – soft-top down, open roads, scenery unrolling before your eyes. The Real Estate frontman…