Ok, Adam Miller is a bloody great guitarist and on his 3rd full release he lays his hand on a multiple of styles that are all dealt with magnificently. ‘Dinosaurs’ delivers a bouncy groove that is bright and joyous. With ‘Out Of My Hands’ he is just showing of. Super quick guitar work that is... Read more »
The virile combination of Jesse Hughes and QOTSA’s Josh Homme is back to give you another leathered slap. Drawing on Homme’s stoner-rock influence and Hughes’ penchant for Sourthern rock’n’roll (think ZZ Top meets Iggy Pop), EODM shoot straight from the hip - it makes you wanna throw on some... Read more »
Out of inner city Melbourne comes the debut album for The New Black, and it is full of pop hooks, sharp-edged guitar with a nice dose of 70’s punk simplicity thrown in. Bright and punchy stabs that will have you singing along even if you don’t know the words. ‘Can We Be Like Them’ thunders along... Read more »
Eugene McGuinness seems as starry-eyed as he is bursting with acidic humour. ‘Those Old Black And White Movies Were True’ sounds like it’s from the era in which it describes. In fact, most of McGuinness’ pop music sounds very dated - and deliberately so. The echoey vocals and soft layers of orchestral... Read more »
What begins with a pulse reminiscent to Radiohead, Awesome Color throws you into a swirl of multi-colour psychedelia, a sound that pushes boundaries yet sounds surprisingly familiar. I kept hearing influences that are totally unrelated, early 90s grunge, Mars Volta freak, 70’s Grand Funk stomp, and... Read more »
Temple of the Dog are the natural forefathers to Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Cornell up front, Ament, Gossard, McCready, Cameron backing, and Vedder lending support. Put together as a tribute to Mother Love Bone vocalist Andy Wood, this is a lost classic with a sound closer to Soundgarden... Read more »
A lthough their earlier albums supposedly had a pronounced jazz influence, Chicago’s enduring indie-pop group The Sea and Cake are still sounding as fresh as ever. Their eighth album in a fourteen year career, Car Alarm indeed changes gears between shoegaze-inspired rock and straight-up indiefolk.... Read more »
Deerhunter’s dreamy, half-awake approach to ambient punk has always divided audiences, despite echoes of groups like Velvet Underground and The Strokes. Although Karen O has been a long term fan, Deerhunter remain an underground entity. This feels like a vastly introspective record for singer Bradford... Read more »
Fans of The Bird & The Bee’s self-titled debut will be pleased to find all their wonderfully eccentric pop stylings well and truly present in this latest offering. Each track is whimsical and surreal, as Inara George’s sweet silky vocals drift amongst synthesisers and strings. The bass lines... Read more »
SNOW PATROL - A Hundred Million Suns< ?xml:namespace prefix =”" o ns =”" “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Universal 3/5 Those that discovered Snow Patrol via their breath-taking third album Final Straw, will continue to be disappointed with this very safe fifth... Read more »
After releasing two critically acclaimed records, Sunderland’s Field Music decided to stop being a band in the ‘traditional sense’. So now Field Music’s two creators, brothers David and Peter Brewis, are working on ‘solo projects’ where they help each other (yes, kind of like the Broken Social... Read more »
Local troubadour Bob Corbett has been receiving a swag of praise lately and Storyboard is the reason why. He calls himself a folk singer, but that title doesn’t do justice to the eclectic nature of these songs. Shifting from pop to alt-country, and then back through roots, reggae and blues, Corbett’s... Read more »
As the sprawling jangle of opener ‘Underneath The Stars’ bounds along like a bright-eyed child, it becomes apparent that this is a happy Cure album. While their ability to write dark, tortured goth-pop may define parts of their career, never forget that The Cure have penned dozens of joyous pop songs.... Read more »
There’s a twisted edge to this mini-album – maybe it’s Katrina Noorbergen’s raw vocals (that are often similar to a young Björk à la The Sugarcubes), the fuzziness of the guitars or a general roughness around the edges, but this is pop at its dirtiest. Driving rhythms and wailing choruses... Read more »
Belles Will Ring’s debut Mood Patterns was one of my favourite released of 2007, so being handed their new EP to review was a delight. The expected sound production is here, gleaming harmonies, atmospheric pop with a definite nod to the 60s. Nothing wrong with this as Belles Will Ring do it so well.... Read more »