rock
CD: Muse - The 2nd LawSaturday, 29 September 2012![]() Muse have spent their careers becoming Muse. With each album they have consolidated their most obvious influences – Radiohead, Queen, U2, various prog and metal, widescreen science fiction visions and paranoia on a global scale – more and... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: R.E.M., Alice Cooper, The Durutti Column, Aztec CameraSunday, 23 September 2012![]() R.E.M.: Document 25th Anniversary EditionKieron TylerAlthough the band themselves have not lasted out the 25 years since the release of their fifth album Document, R.E.M. haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. The memory will live, fed by... Read more... |
CD: P!nk - The Truth About LoveWednesday, 12 September 2012![]() It's hard to hear P!nk without thinking of the kind of “punks” that scowl in the corners of American high-school movies, possibly befriending some “nerds”, revealing a sensitive side, and/or standing up to a “jock” at some crucial point in the plot... Read more... |
The Killers, RoundhouseWednesday, 12 September 2012![]() The moment everyone will remember came exactly an hour in: Brandon Flowers was singing “All These Things That I've Done” with the conviction of a man at confession. Behind him a video screen showed a loner carrying a long wooden sign on his... Read more... |
CD: David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This GiantWednesday, 05 September 2012![]() There's a lot that's right with this album. Love This Giant sounds like Talking Heads for one, suggesting that David Byrne has made his peace with what made him great in the first place, and has seemingly stopped his slide into becoming a... Read more... |
10 Questions for Ian HunterMonday, 03 September 2012![]() Ian Hunter’s new album, When I’m President, is an almost obscenely vibrant piece of work for a man who – despite that impossibly golden mop of hair – is now 73 years old. But then Hunter has always been a rock'n'roll survivor. Born in Shropshire in... Read more... |
CD: Bloc Party – FourSunday, 19 August 2012![]() Bloc Party's fourth album comes after a lengthy break during which various members did various things with varying degrees of success. Most notably vocalist Kele Okereke pursued a more synth-based, dance-flavoured direction with mixed results. There... Read more... |
DVD: This Must Be the PlaceTuesday, 07 August 2012![]() Those familiar with Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s elegant political feature Il Divo (2008), or perhaps the beautiful, cynical The Consequences of Love (2004) may find themselves struck (pleasantly) dumb by the direction of his latest. Inspired... Read more... |
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Etihad Stadium, ManchesterMonday, 25 June 2012![]() When Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, the E Street Band’s charismatic saxophone player, died of stroke-related complications this time last year, there were those among us who wondered if we’d ever see the band together again. His on-stage interplay with... Read more... |
Jack White, O2 Academy BrixtonFriday, 22 June 2012![]() The suspicion that Jack White is a humourless plank-spanker, harboured by certain members of the media at least, has been thrown into deeper conjecture this past month, with the news that he’s entered into a war of words with the compilers of The... Read more... |
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Royal Albert HallTuesday, 19 June 2012![]() Back in Britain for the first time in 13 years, Tom Petty and his indestructible crew seemed delighted to be playing at the Albert Hall, and taken aback by the frenzied reception from the audience. They have a soft spot for Blighty, since this was... Read more... |
Punk Britannia: Post-Punk (1978-1981), BBC FourSaturday, 16 June 2012![]() The Sex Pistols played their final live show on 14 January 1978 in San Francisco. According to the third and final programme in the Punk Britannia series, “for many, it would be the end of punk”. It certainly was for ex-Pistol John Lydon, who'd form... Read more... |
