Matt Corby: Rainbow Valley

He’s a hard one to describe is Corby. Superficially he’s a singer- songwriter and writes nice piano-led tunes. But they’re too clever to be called pop and not heavy enough to be called rock; not quite cool enough to be cool but too cool to be bland. His last album, Telluric, had a similar quality. […]

Wandering Monster: Wandering Monster

This impressive modern jazz debut comes from bassist Sam Quintana, who leads the Wandering Monster quintet, and the CD opens with his confident double bass to the fore. Wandering Monster were winners of the 2016/17 Jazz North Introduces Award and have supported bands including Trio HLK and Mammal Hands. The sound is clearly jazz but […]

She Drew The Gun: Revolution Of The Mind

She Drew The Gun’s debut (Memories of the Future) has stayed on the Review Corner iMusic system — no mean feat considering how much music we listen to — their indie bluesy folk always a pleasant listen. Listening, you wonder why they’re not bigger but then know the answer too; charm is fine for a […]

Busted: Half Way There

For the first couple of tracks we thought Busted were trying to reinvent themselves as a British Blink 182 — the opener has echoes of songs such as Blink’s I Miss You, and Busted sing over the riff in the same way as Blink. But this cutting edge doesn’t last long and it soon calms […]

The Good, the Bad and the Queen: Merrie Land

We got involved with a Twitter discussion this week; an American was fretting that he didn’t like Pink Floyd but felt he should, and where could he start (Wish You Were Here, obvs). We and others told him that he didn’t have to like Pink Floyd, and that we were always unmoved by Bowie and […]

Anna Szalucka: A Century Of Polish Piano Miniatures

This is a pianists’ piano album, as Szalucka is an exceptional pianist and can play both softly and very intensely; a couple of moments on this CD are incredibly fast. She’s won more prizes than you can shake a metronome at: 1st prize together with the Eller, orchestra, recital and Estonian Museum Awards at the […]

Skinny Lister: The Story Is…

Skinny Lister are one of those good-time live bands, all punky folk catchiness and entertainment; we saw them live at Rode Hall’s Just So and they’ve recorded at Newcastle-under-Lyme, although they’re not local. It’s three tracks in before Skinny Lister hit the sound we were expecting, the first three songs all showing a new pop […]

The Coral: Move Through the Dawn

Clearing out last year’s CDs from the Review Corner we came across this; came out in August, got forgotten. At a time when most bands are of an age to be worrying about their third or fourth album, The Coral started so young that they hit peak cool at about 15, had done all their […]