CDs/DVDs
Blu-ray: Rio GrandeWednesday, 15 April 2020
Although it followed on from the previous hits Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande found director John Ford suffering from straitened finances. The third of his so-called “Cavalry Trilogy”, Rio Grande was made under a... Read more... |
Album: Enter Shikari - Nothing Is True & Everything Is PossibleTuesday, 14 April 2020
In the press release for Enter Shikari’s new album, lead singer Rou Reynolds is proclaimed as a “visionary”. However, for the work of a visionary, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is a decidedly pedestrian effort. Filled with bluster and... Read more... |
Album: Nightwish - Human II: NatureMonday, 13 April 2020
When it comes to new releases by Scandi rockers Nightwish, it’s not unusual to hear the well-worn phrase “I like their early stuff…” – usually referring to the mythical times when the band were with their first singer Tarja Turunen. Indeed,... Read more... |
Album: Hodge - Shadows in BlueSaturday, 11 April 2020
For underground music producers, there almost always comes a phase in life when they accept they're no longer young guns and embrace either massively complicated synthesisers, floaty new age music, or both. For Bristol-based Jake Martin aka Hodge it... Read more... |
Album: Laura Marling - Song for our DaughterFriday, 10 April 2020
Laura Marling has always loved to weave the textures of Seventies Laurel Canyon folk-rock into her music. Never before, though, has she evoked the spirit of David Crosby and Joni Mitchell quite like on her new record. From the opening strummed... Read more... |
Album: Nels Andrews - Pigeon and The CrowThursday, 09 April 2020
This is the perfect album for these dark and dislocating times, a delicious slice of folk-Americana, 10 beautifully crafted songs (plus a bonus online) that envelop you in the gentle winds and fogs of California’s Monterey peninsula, and the waves... Read more... |
Album: The Strokes - The New AbnormalWednesday, 08 April 2020
Their debut’s title was a disillusioned shrug, and for most of the 19 years since Is This It, The Strokes have continued with seeming reluctance, releasing new albums fitfully. But here they are, still riding the afterglow of Manhattan’s decadent... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Buster Keaton - Three Films, Vol. 2Tuesday, 07 April 2020
These three films come from Buster Keaton’s mid-1920s purple patch, the high spots of which prompted critic Roger Ebert to describe Keaton as “arguably the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies”. High praise indeed. And while I’d rank... Read more... |
Album: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – VisceralsMonday, 06 April 2020
The perfect introduction to Newcastle’s mighty Pigsx7 is undoubtedly to be made in the live arena, for it’s here they seriously let sparks fly with monolithic slabs of sound and an exuberance that is truly infectious. That isn’t to say that their... Read more... |
DVD/Blu Ray: The Elephant ManSunday, 05 April 2020
David Lynch’s second feature, his only period movie, is as good as anything else he has ever done, building on the claustrophobia of his first, Eraserhead (1977) The story of Joseph Merrick, born in Victorian times with the most terrible... Read more... |
Album: Pokey LaFarge - Rock Bottom RhapsodySaturday, 04 April 2020
Talk about a great big melting pot! The eighth studio album by the man born 36 ago as Andrew Heissler in Bloomington, Indiana, and known to the world as Pokey LaFarge digs deep into the bubbling cauldron of Americana, in its very broadest sense. He... Read more... |
Album: Ren Harvieu - Revel In The DramaFriday, 03 April 2020
Filmic. Lushness balanced with intimacy. Ren Harvieu’s follow-up to 2012’s Top Five Through The Night is crammed with wide-screen aural dramas. Take “Cruel Disguise”. It begins with a slinky Sixties spy thriller vibe along the Shirley Bassey lines... Read more... |
