The Joy Formidable

Florida's Coastline Festival 2013 is set to arrive in less than two weeks, bringing with it a handful of the recent indie and rock sensations as well as great beer and great food.

The festival will hit the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre in Tampa on November 9th 2013 before moving to the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm on the 10th. It describes itself as a 'A Musiculinary Experience' - and that it certainly will be with an absolutely stellar line-up led by Massachusetts' Passion Pit, whose second album Gossamer was in the top five on the US Album Chart last year, and Irish collective Two Door Cinema Club who topped their Nation's charts with their sophomore release.

Continue reading: Passion Pit And Two Door Cinema Club To Play At Coastline Festival 2013

A Week in Video... Wakefield’s indie rockers The Cribs release ‘Leather Jacket Love Song,’ a nostalgic look back at their last decade of existence as a band. The video inter-splices archive footage of one of the brothers’ early gigs at Ossett Town Hall in Yorkshire, with the Cribs circa 2013 observing their younger selves. The Cribs’ sounds hasn’t altered a great deal over time, but their popularity seems to show no signs of wavering; their commitment to their DIY roots remains strong and even with Ryan breaking out with his new band Exclamation Pony, we reckon there’s a few years left in The Cribs yet.

Palma Violets have been causing a stir, with their accessible, psych-tinged garage rock. The video for ‘Step Up For The Cool Cats’ is a vaguely trippy, home-video style shoot; footage of the band playing is mixed with footage of them driving around in a car together, looking like it’s being played back on an old TV set. The band have gained a lot of attention since playing recent slots with London based Savages. It looks like 2013 could well be their year.

Continue reading: A Week In Music - The Cribs Look Back Over A Decade, Palma Violets Cause A Stir, Adam Ant's Awkward Return, Yeah Yeah Yeahs Hitting The Road

There’s not much in the way of big hitters to shake Les Miserables off it’s spot at the top of the UK album charts this week. The remainder of the Top 5 is still looking like a ‘who’s who’ of 2012, with Emeli Sande, Jake Bugg, Calvin Harris and Everything Everything filling the rest of the slots.

Straight outta leftfield this week is a new album from Adam Ant – a man plagued, in recent years, by a tarnished reputation. He initially announced the album title back in 2010 and then announced that it would finally be seeing the light of day back in September of last year. Entitled Adam Ant is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying The Gunner’s Daughter, the album is being released on his own label, which he’s called Blueblack Hussar Records he’s previously described the album as “a live record that lends itself to performance,” which will feature “a kind of concept. It’s a very old fashioned, old school, step by step album.”

The album’s getting the deluxe release treatment, with a CD release, a gatefold vinyl release and to really appease the old school enthusiasts, a cassette release as well. Mixed reviews for the album have veered from a paltry 4 out of 10 from NME to an enthusiastic response from The Independent’s Simon Price – a long time Ant fan. It’s Ant’s first solo album since 1995’s Wonderful, so there’s a lot riding on this release in terms of his reputation and the sheer length of time it’s been in gestation.

Continue reading: Out Now - UK Albums Releases: Adam Ant Returns, I Am Kloot Buoyed By Mancunian Chums, Bad Religion Fierce As Ever