Author: Nick Gale
Paws, Waiters, Sex Hands & Dolfinz - Split 12" Album Review
That mixture of excitement and nostalgia you feel when you play your Slanted and Enchanted 12"? Paws, Dolfinz, Waiters and Sex Hands feel that too. That faded, home-made Guided By Voices t-shirt you can't quite...
Review posted on 23rd October 2012
This Many Boyfriends - This Many Boyfriends Album Review
This Many Boyfriends is good clean fun, a solid set of ten unfussy indie-pop tracks which zip past in less than half an hour. It's a record which embraces its influences, mimicking them rather than...
Review posted on 23rd October 2012
Post War Years - The Bell EP review
Post War Years are supporting Mumford & Sons on their December tour, which is a strange match-up. It's far from clear how fans of the latter will respond to Post War Years' subtle, attention-demanding electronic...
Review posted on 23rd October 2012
Stevie Jackson - (I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson Album Review
The new solo album by Stevie Jackson more or less continues from where the most recent album by his day-job band, the Scottish twee-popsters Belle & Sebastian, left off. I used to love B&S, for...
Review posted on 23rd October 2012
Roll Deep - X Album Review
Roll Deep's best early releases were distinctive and exciting, showcasing a raw, fresh sound (whether you choose to call it 'grime' or 'eski') and the talents of future stars like Dizzee Rascal and Wiley. Listening...
Review posted on 23rd October 2012
Kid Koala - 12 Bit Blues Album Review
12 Bit Blues works a lot better than you might expect a blues album by a Canadian turntablist to work. As at least one review has already pointed out, this is partly because of the...
Review posted on 23rd October 2012
Black Dice - Mr. Impossible
If you're the sort of person who puts genre tags on your mp3s, you must really hate Black Dice. Mr. Impossible, the Brooklyn-based experimentalists' sixth album, can't comfortably be filed under one catch-all term. IDM?...
Review posted on 21st May 2012
Battles - Dross Glop Remixes
Battles' new remix album Dross Glop is, in essence, a victory lap. Its source material, the extravagant math-rock whirligig Gloss Drop, was one the best albums released in 2011. The folks who have agreed to...
Review posted on 21st May 2012
The Wind-Up Birds - The Land
The Wind-Up Birds want to take you to a place where it's always raining; a grimy, post-industrial northern town where you can't go to the pub without being accosted by a knuckle-headed racist, where the...
Review posted on 21st May 2012
Breton - Other People's Problems
Breton are a South London art collective. If each of those last few words sent a small shudder through your spine, then, oddly enough, you'll probably quite enjoy Other People's Problems which sounds absolutely nothing...
Review posted on 21st May 2012
Various Artists - Movement 1977-1979: BBC Radio 1 Peel Sessions
John Peel's revered Radio 1 show pushed boundaries: it played music no other programme (or at least no other legally broadcast programme) would touch. Peel's early embrace of punk rock, together with its various splinter...
Review posted on 30th November 2011
Peaking Lights - 936
Peaking Lights make sun-kissed music, but they also make sun-cursed music. The duo's sound features dub-inspired bass and hazy, casually unfocused vocals; so far, so summery. Right now, you're imagining a relaxed and groove-driven record,...
Review posted on 30th November 2011
Seun Kuti - Rise
Fela Kuti made wonderful music in atrocious conditions. Living under a military dictatorship in Nigeria, he released a string of inspirational songs which dissolved musical boundaries whilst railing against the political status quo. His afrobeat...
Review posted on 30th November 2011
Atlas Sound - Parallax
Wafer-thin indie sprite Bradford Cox continues to produce high-quality ethereal pop music with a single-minded focus and efficiency which would shame most production lines. This is his third album as Atlas Sound, following Let the...
Review posted on 30th November 2011
LV - Routes
Chilled out and quietly enjoyable, consistent without ever being overwhelming, Routes is a strong, understated record. It's the result of a collaboration between post-dubstep producers LV and vocalist Joshua Idehen, but there are few signs...
Review posted on 11th October 2011
Rustie - Glass Swords
Rustie wants to do a lot of things at once. He wants to make you dance, but he also wants to make you stroke your chin. Sometimes he wants to make you do both at...
Review posted on 11th October 2011
Shield Your Eyes - Volume 4
I'm half-inclined to start with an apology. In my review of Theme From Kindness, Shield Your Eyes' mostly impressive previous album, I made a point of comparing them to the likes of Big Black, Shellac,...
Review posted on 11th October 2011
Sole & The Skyrider Band - Hello Cruel World
Anticon, the alternately celebrated and derided indie-rap collective of which Sole was a founder member and key musical contributor, have a lengthy mission statement on their website. It's an impassioned summary of their aesthetic; it's...
Review posted on 11th October 2011
Wild Flag - Wild Flag
Wow. Wild Flag is one of the best début albums you'll hear this year, an indie rock album with real bite, flair, and confidence. Rumbling inexorably forward, powered by snarling, gnarling riffs and adorned with...
Review posted on 11th October 2011
Various Artists - Johnny Boy Would Love This: A Tribute To John Martyn
You're a revered folk musician with a wonderful back catalogue. You tragically passed away back in 2009, but the songs you sculpted continue to inspire people, old and young, all across the world. You took...
Review posted on 11th October 2011
Jens Lekman - An Argument With Myself
It's been four years since Jens Lekman last put out any music. An Argument With Myself offers no apologies or explanations: it's just eighteen minutes of polished, confident indie pop storytelling. Business as usual.Lekman's precisely...
Review posted on 11th October 2011
Spank Rock - Everything Is Boring and Everyone Is a Fucking Liar
In the months leading up to the release of the sublimely titled Everything is Boring and Everyone Is a Fucking Liar, Naeem 'MC Spank Rock' Juwan has bemoaned the state of hip-hop, attacked other artists...
Review posted on 27th September 2011
Young The Giant - Young The Giant
Young The Giant are good at many things. Offering unique market penetration within the core 16-25 age bracket. Cutting across traditional customer demographics. Tapping into key commercial trends. That sort of thing. In many ways,...
Review posted on 27th September 2011
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lenses Alien
Patience is a virtue. Keep telling yourself that while you grapple with Lenses Alien, the new album by vaguely fashionable New Yorkers Cymbals Eat Guitar. It's an awkward album. It's a difficult album. It's an...
Review posted on 27th September 2011
Slow Club - Paradise
So: Slow Club have 'grown up'. They've 'matured'. That's what every review is keen to tell you about Paradise, the Sheffield twee-pop duo's second album. Charles Watson and Rebecca Taylor have abandoned the liveliness and...
Review posted on 27th September 2011
Comet Gain - Howl Of The Lonely Crowd
Comet Gain want to give you a tour of alternative guitar music's cooler regions. On Howl Of The Lonely Crowd, they take you by the hand and lead you on an ambling stroll through sixties...
Review posted on 27th September 2011
Zomby - Dedication
It's a sign of how blas' we're becoming about British dance music's ability to savage our preconceptions that nobody has reacted to the release of Dedication with anything approaching astonishment. Zomby's new album is coming...
Review posted on 10th August 2011
Wiley - 100% Publishing
Wiley has nothing to say, but he fails to say things so charmingly and confidently that it's hard to care. The topics he addresses on 100% Publishing are relentless banal. Wiley wants to make money....
Review posted on 9th August 2011
Toddla T - Watch Me Dance
Are you ready to party? Well, you'd better be. Sheffield-based producer Toddla T is here to play the role of the over-enthusiastic host of an underwhelming house party, chivvying his guests into dancing, forcing them...
Review posted on 9th August 2011
They Might Be Giants - Join Us
At this point, you probably know how you feel about They Might Be Giants. Some of you love their quirky, clever lyrics, their bright melodies, and their sense of fun; they remind you of an...
Review posted on 9th August 2011
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