New Music Reviews
Rats on Rafts, The Victoria review - crepuscular Dutch quintet begins to see the lightTuesday, 25 February 2025
An album is one thing, a live show is another. A truism of course, but one which is inescapable during this London date by the Rotterdam-based Rats on Rafts at a shabby chic pub in Dalston, East London. Read more... |
Bilk, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - Essex rock'n'rollers blast into the weekendMonday, 24 February 2025
Sol Abrahams, singer and guitarist for Essex rock’n’rollers Bilk, was suffering from a bit of guitar trouble in Birmingham on Friday evening. By the time the band was ready to power through “On It”, from new album Essex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, he was already on his third or fourth instrument, the last one having literally fallen apart in his hands. Read more... |
Hinds, St Lukes and the Winged Ox, Glasgow review - Spanish garage rockers surviving and thrivingSunday, 23 February 2025
Hinds don't believe in God. They declared this as they surveyed the converted church that is St Luke's, and given the past few years you can't blame them for lacking faith. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Diggin' For Gold Volume 14 - Norway's Sixties beat-group sceneSunday, 23 February 2025
In 1964, the Norwegian division of Philips Records began issuing singles labelled “Bergen Beat.” The picture sleeves of 45s by Davy Dean and the Swinging Ballades, Sverre Faaberg and the Young Ones, The Jokers, Rune Larsen and Teen Beats, The Quartermasters, Helge Nilsen and the Stringers and Tornado bore a bold stamp recognising each band’s origin in the country’s second city. Read more... |
Josienne Clarke, Across the Evening Sky, Kings Place review - celebrating Sandy DennyTuesday, 18 February 2025
On the first date of a 17-concert tour that had its preview at Celtic Connections in January, Across the Evening Sky begins with the liminal, predatory dangers of associating in any way with the sly “Reynardine”, with Matt Robinson on piano and electronic keyboards and Alec Bowman-Clarke’s bass evoking the twilit murk of the magical faerie song, recorded by Sandy on Fairport’s Liege & Lief. Read more... |
Patrick Duff, The Mount Without, Bristol review - sacred music for the soulMonday, 17 February 2025
There is an atmosphere of otherworldly stillness within the stony womb of a large dilapidated church in Bristol, at the bottom of St Michael’s Hill, the winding road that climbs up to what used to be the favoured place of execution, where the city’s sombre gibbets stood. Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Sharks - Car Crash SupergroupSunday, 16 February 2025
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the band spilt in 1974. A 2017 reunion album featured former Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums. “Sophistication,” from Sharks' 1974 second album Jab It In Yore Eye, had an insistent riff Mick Jones repurposed for The Clash's “Should I Stay or Should I go.” Read more... |
Fat Dog, Chalk, Brighton review - a frenetic techno-rock juggernautSaturday, 15 February 2025
Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people. Their manic energy blew her head off. Vanessa and Al K first caught Fat Dog at the Rockaway Beach Weekender in Bognor Regis Butlins in January ’24. The tightly choreographed, manic show was the best thing all weekend. Read more... |
Northern Winter Beat 2025, Aalborg review - The Courettes, Dungen and Lubomyr Melnyk confront ideas of how to playWednesday, 12 February 2025
The exhortations don’t seem necessary as the audience is already letting off the steam which has built up in anticipation of a full-bore show. Nonetheless, The Courettes’ Flávia Couri knows higher levels of excitement are there to be tapped, that it’s possible to get the crowd to liberate themselves from any restraint they may have left. Limits are there to be pushed. Read more... |
Bowling For Soup, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton review - nostalgic, celebratory funTuesday, 11 February 2025
Bowling For Soup are celebrating their iconic album, A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, on a fun-filled, energetic tour for its 20th anniversary. Their sold out stop at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall was a joy to experience from start to finish, the light-hearted essence of the band evident from the minute we walked in. From comical merch to on-stage banter, the fun was infectious and made for a special evening executed by clear well-seasoned professionals. Read more... |
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