rock
Ron Sexsmith/ Jim White, BarbicanSunday, 01 May 2011
Two cult singers on the same bill. A stirring prospect in itself, but last night they were both also at watersheds in their careers. The headliner, Ron Sexsmith, was looking to cultivate a more mainstream audience. He’s had his moments over the... Read more... |
CD: Guillemots - Walk the RiverSunday, 17 April 2011
These days it’s all meant to be about tracks, not albums; modern music listeners, it’s said, have pitifully short attention spans and skip flightily from one song to the next, like bees with ADHD in a blossoming orchard, without pausing to put... Read more... |
CD: Foo Fighters - Wasting LightSaturday, 09 April 2011
All of rock is here. Like, really, all of it. One tries to avoid too many direct comparisons with other artists in a review but with Foo Fighters it's impossible. Just on my first casual listen through this album, I jotted down the following... Read more... |
CD: TV on the Radio - Nine Types of LightMonday, 04 April 2011
Brooklyn band TV on the Radio have been critical favourites since they first appeared almost a decade ago. Always an intriguing proposition, they also seemed from their inception to be shrewdly aware of their musical Catholicism, as if they'd... Read more... |
Paul Heaton, KokoSunday, 03 April 2011
After a couple of false starts, former Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton’s last solo album finally received the high critical praise of the old days. But at 49 you can’t imagine him really caring too much about anyone else’s approval. This is the... Read more... |
Big Audio Dynamite, Shepherds Bush EmpireSaturday, 02 April 2011
One of my most enjoyable gig-going experiences last year was seeing Mick Jones guesting with Gorillaz at the Roundhouse. The former Clash guitarist was clearly loving every minute of it. So much, in fact, that shortly afterwards he decided to reform... Read more... |
CD: Glasvegas - Euphoric /// Heartbreak \\\Thursday, 31 March 2011
This is the sound of a band who want to be big. Really big. Produced by Flood (The Killers, U2 etc) and recorded in California, the second outing from Scotland’s Glasvegas bursts with epic widescreen soundscapes, its chiming guitars designed to... Read more... |
Elbow, O2 ArenaTuesday, 29 March 2011
Is Guy Garvey really as lovely as he seems? I hope so. Last night, on the first of two nights for the Bury band at the O2 Arena, their lead singer, this big bearded bear of a man, came across as clever, funny, confident, warm, positive and... Read more... |
R.I.P. The Acid KingTuesday, 15 March 2011
One of the great adventures of the 20th century is the story of LSD. A warped, unlikely slice of history not taught in schools, it has flavoured many aspects of life to this day. The countercultural explosion of the Sixties influenced the broader... Read more... |
CD: The Vaccines - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Judging by the ballyhoo London’s Vaccines generated at the beginning of the year, it seemed a dead cert that they’d be pretty spiffy. If not the best thing since sliced bread, then they’d at least be fairly toothsome. Based on this, though – their... Read more... |
CD: Josh Bray - Whisky & WoolSunday, 13 March 2011
This impressive debut from the Devon-born Bray teems with allusions to a raft of classic British songwriters, not least Nick Drake and John Martyn, though Bray also claims to have had his synapses jangled by everyone from Led Zeppelin and Nirvana... Read more... |
CD: Elbow - Build a Rocket Boys!Saturday, 12 March 2011
There’s a gorgeous song on this album called “With Love”, on which singer Guy Garvey rhymes “dentures” with “adventures”. And there, in a nutshell, you have Elbow: juxtaposing grubby, prosaic earthbound reality with soaring romance, finding magic in... Read more... |
