Album review: Pixies

Music Reviews Thu, Oct 06, 2016

IN THEIR original incarnation, the Pixies made four albums, at least two of which - 1987's Surfer Rosa and 1989's Dolittle - are high watermarks of indie/alternative rock, which continue to echo through the generations.

Album review: David Bowie - Who Can I Be Now? boxset

Music Reviews Tue, Sep 27, 2016

THE KEY artefact in this lavish new Bowie boxset, charting the artist's journey from post-Ziggy to 'Plastic Soul', to Thin White Duke, is one of the great missing pieces of the Bowie discography - The Gouster.

Album review: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Music Reviews Thu, Sep 22, 2016

NO PARENT wants to outlive their child, to do so seems wrong, unnatural. When that child is wrenched from his mother and father so suddenly, in circumstances both extreme and tragic, coming to terms with it must be near impossible.

Loner Deluxe - lunar folk and sci-fi sounds

Music Reviews Mon, Sep 19, 2016

"THERE IS abundant evidence that we are being contacted. Civilisations have been visiting us for a very long time. Their appearance is bizarre from any materialist Western point of view..."

Album review: Ryley Walker

Music Reviews Thu, Sep 08, 2016

MUCH HAS been made of this album's apparent shift away from Walker's 1960s psych folk-rock influences towards a 1990s indie singer-songwriter dominated sound, but the music within does not contain any kind of either/or exclusion.

Album review: Field Mouse

Music Reviews Thu, Aug 11, 2016

DESPITE THEIR death before dishonour pure indie, obvious love of the nineties indie aesthetic, and distinct Anglophilia, Field Mouse have largely gone under the radar.

Album review: Dinosaur Jr

Music Reviews Thu, Aug 04, 2016

DINOSAUR JR's comeback, ongoing for more than a decade, has largely been a success, with 2009's Farm in particular, proving they still had 'it' and something very worthwhile to say.

Album Review: The Driftwood Manor

Music Reviews Thu, Jul 28, 2016

THERE IS an argument to be made that Irish folk, while it has an outstanding repertoire to draw from, is often over-reliant on that repertoire, and this is stifling the creation and addition of new works to the cannon.

Album reviews: 50FOOTWAVE and Wesley Fuller

Music Reviews Thu, Jun 30, 2016

50FOOTWAVE - Bath White EP (HHBTM Records)
50FOOTWAVE IS one of Kristin Hersh's numerous musical outlets, one which can be seen as Throwing Muses in all but name, given its other key member is Muses bassist Bernard Georges.

Album review: Kristin Kontrol

Music Reviews Thu, Jun 16, 2016

IT MAY be strange that the opening song, of an album billed as a complete artistic overhaul and change of direction, concludes with the declaration: "There's no need to change yourself".

Album review: Christy Moore

Music Reviews Thu, Jun 02, 2016

THERE IS a Galway connection to Christy's new album, coming straight at the beginning with 'Mandolin Mountain', written by the late, great songwriter and musician Tony Small.

Album review: Car Seat Headrest

Music Reviews Thu, May 26, 2016

GOOD THINGS come, not to those who wait, but those who work hard for it. After years slogging it out on the internet, and releasing music through Bandcamp, 23-year-old Will Toledo is finally getting wider recognition.

Album review: Radiohead

Music Reviews Thu, May 19, 2016

RADIOHEAD ARE around long enough to be called 'veteran prog-rockers', though they would disown the term, yet that constant shape-shifting, boundary pushing, and experimentation keeps earning them comparison to Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin.

Album review: Jealous Of The Birds

Music Reviews Thu, May 12, 2016

"I'LL BUY a van the colour of Christ's blood." As an opening line it's an arresting image. When allied to the kind of woozy, anthemic, slacker rock groove that would surely earn approval from Steven Malkmus, it's a double whammy of good things.

Album review: Bleached

Music Reviews Thu, Apr 28, 2016

THEY WERE a duo of sisters - Jennifer and Jessie Clavin, now they are a trio, joined by bassist Micayla Grace. Whether it's the Micayla's addition, or more experience under their collective belt, the LA band are rocking harder than ever.

Album review: September Girls

Music Reviews Thu, Apr 21, 2016

IN THIS year of commemorating the 1916 Rising, one of the most welcome aspects has been the long overdue acknowledgement of the important role women played in the struggle for freedom.

Album review: Parquet Court

Music Reviews Thu, Mar 31, 2016

PARQUET COURTS' previous album, the excellent Sunbathing Animal, wore its Pavement influence on its sleeve and made no apologies for it. Human Performance, appears to do the same with their other chief inspiration - The Velvet Underground.

Album review: The Goon Sax

Music Reviews Thu, Mar 24, 2016

THE ESSENTIALS of Indie music - a sense of the fey and jangly; an appreciation for DIY punk, but softened by the melodicism of The Beatles and The Smiths; a regard for the slacker ethos; nerdy preoccupations, sometimes ambiguous sexuality; and always a deep strain of melancholy.

Album review: Lucius

Music Reviews Thu, Mar 10, 2016

COMING FROM nowhere in 2014, Lucius delivered, for my money, the best album that year in Wildewoman, which revelled in exuberant indie-pop contrasted with country tinged ballads.

Album review: Låpsley

Music Reviews Thu, Feb 25, 2016

IN SPITE of the name, she's not Nordic, but English. Liverpudlian Holly ‘Låpsley’ Fletcher has created some excitement with her EPs, but now comes her debut album Long Way Home. So, does it deliver on the earlier recordings promise?

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