rock
Album: Loop - SonancySaturday, 05 March 2022
Seven and a half years ago, Loop frontman Robert Hampson retired the band's back catalogue in front of a live audience. “You won’t hear these old songs again,” he told the audience at Islington’s Garage.As shocks go, it might not have been up there... Read more... |
Album: Tears For Fears - The Tipping PointThursday, 24 February 2022
Tears For Fears were an odd non-presence through their most successful years. They were right up there in the premier league of stadium rock-pop bands, but had none of the Celtic romantic bombast of U2 and Simple Minds, weren’t as weird as... Read more... |
Album: Johnny Marr - Fever Dreams Pts 1-4Saturday, 19 February 2022
Healing, ecstasy and transformation are the aims, from Johnny Marr’s Manchester counter-culture adolescence to this compendium of Covid-era EPs, released as he nears 60. Rock’s alchemising of dreams into action is Fever Dreams’ constant refrain,... Read more... |
Album: Andy Bell - FlickerFriday, 04 February 2022
Ride guitarist Andy Bell has clearly been busy since the release of his solo debut, 2020’s The View From Halfway Down. As well as getting his Space Station instrumental touring show up and running, he’s found time to record a sprawling, 18-track... Read more... |
Pam & Tommy, Disney+ review - the infamous sex tape that went globalWednesday, 02 February 2022
The transformation of Lily James, demure star of Yesterday, Cinderella and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, into smokin’ beach babe Pamela Anderson is the most memorable thing about Disney+'s uneven eight-part drama. At its core is... Read more... |
Album: Eels - Extreme WitchcraftSaturday, 22 January 2022
Mr. E’s music examines hellish depths, but always climbs back towards the light. Electro-Shock Blues (1998) was soon redeemed by “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues”, and a trilogy of sometimes feral, wracked albums ended with Tomorrow Morning (2010). As the... Read more... |
Album: Elvis Costello and the Imposters - The Boy Named IfSaturday, 15 January 2022
There is a sense in which Elvis Costello emerged as a recording artist fully grown, with that unique vocal mix of vulnerability and insolence, savvy and often brilliant lyrics. Although he has never stopped experimenting, always with the logic of a... Read more... |
Album: Kiefer Sutherland - Bloor StreetSaturday, 08 January 2022
Disclaimer: it’s a little unfair I’m reviewing Kiefer Sutherland’s third album. He seems alright, left-ish for an American, done his time in the bad boy lane, sense of humour, tried his hand at this and that, even as a rodeo-rider, and has... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2021: Katherine Priddy - The Eternal Rocks BeneathWednesday, 22 December 2021
Katherine Priddy’s debut album came out in the summer, and it’s remained a high point for the rest of the year as 2021 plays out to the sombre drums and drones of resurgent pandemic warnings, fresh lockdowns, closed venues, silenced auditoriums. Her... Read more... |
The Men They Couldn't Hang, Powerhaus Camden review - raucous farewell to the fallenTuesday, 14 December 2021
To clarify: this is less a review, more a dispatch from a raucous wake. We all have a band that means something extra. Mine is The Men They Couldn't Hang, who I saw on Saturday night at the Powerhaus in Camden for the umpteenth time.I first came... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 68: Patrik Fitzgerald, Oasis, Kathryn Williams, R.E.M., Bess Atwell and a seasonal load moreTuesday, 14 December 2021
As we ride towards the holiday break on our magic reindeer, it’s time for one last theartsdesk on Vinyl, a seasonal special that, if you scroll down, contains all the usual up-to-date music reviews but, before that, takes a look at Yuletide-themed... Read more... |
Yungblud, Barrowland, Glasgow review - pop chameleon gives the kids something to shout aboutFriday, 10 December 2021
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... Read more... |
