tue 13/05/2025

punk

Yungblud, Barrowland, Glasgow review - pop chameleon gives the kids something to shout about

According to local press, Yungblud’s fans had been queuing up outside the Barrowland throughout the day before each gig in his two-night Glasgow stint. If that was one indication of the reverence his following hold him in, another came early in this...

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Album: Various Artists - A Damaged Christmas Gift For You

Christmas albums can traditionally be slippery beasts with a whole host of quality control issues. This is not unlike the compilation albums that also make an appearance at this time of year, with one or maybe two previously unreleased tracks, which...

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, The Mill, Birmingham review – Geordie rockers blow the roof off

When those cold winter nights start closing in, there is really only two choices for facing up to the unpleasantness that this brings. Stay at home, batten down the hatches, whack up the heating and blow the expense. Or go out and immerse yourself...

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Album: Idles - Crawler

Perhaps surprisingly for a band famed for the raw, tightly wrought, balled-up fury of their music, the most affecting moments of Idles’ fourth album are slower numbers. Chief among these is “Progress”, whose looping, repeated lyrics may reflect...

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theartsdesk Radio Show 32: a conversation with Matt Johnson of The The

Peter Culshaw’s occasional global music radio show returns with a two-hour conversation with one of the most innovative and enduring post-punk artists.TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW CLICK THIS LINKMatt Johnson, under his nom de guerre The The emerged into...

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Album: They Might Be Giants - BOOK

“We’ve always tossed in some super-dire, high-voltage, death-trip lyrics that offset the merriment of a melody,” John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants explained recently. And that, in essence, has been a substantial part of the band’s unchanging...

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Fontaines DC, Barrowland, Glasgow review - flowers and football terrace anthems from triumphant Dublin quintet

Upon emerging onstage at the Barrowland, Fontaines DC took time to pass flowers into the crowd. Aside from the occasional thank-you later on, that was the only genteel note struck in a thrilling, compelling and often bruising set. Their last...

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Manic Street Preachers, Brighton Dome review - solid gig occasionally explodes to another level

There is a three song segment midway through Manic Street Preachers’ set which suddenly ramps everything up. For this brief while, the performance and response in the sold-out, nigh-on-2000-capacity venue, elevates the concert from another decent...

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Patti Smith, Royal Albert Hall review - a wild ride from a musical legend

Patti Smith has been making rabble rousing punk rock for half a century. She’s spent a lifetime on the road with rock stars and poets, surfing the charts, bringing music and wisdom to the people in myriad ways from beatnik to mainstream and now here...

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Album: The Specials - Protest Songs 1924 - 2012

When The Specials returned with their chart-topping 2019 album Encore, it was a wonderful surprise. As well as being their first in nearly four decades (excluding material by alternately named intermediary incarnations), it proved they were more...

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Album: Black Dice - Mod Prog Sic

There’s a strand of music that a friend of mine once referred to as “Caveman Electronics”, which snakes through the decades, never quite becoming a genre. It’s surfaced in scenes and moments like postpunk and electroclash, you can hear it in bands...

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 66: Etta James, BABii, George Harrison, Helloween, Cat Stevens, Gnod and more

As the summer folds away on itself, theartsdesk on Vinyl returns. Beset by backlogs at pressing plants and delayed by COVID, it's finally here, jammed to the gunwales with commentary on a grand cross section of the finest music on plastic. Dive in!...

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