Review Corner

Author: jerobear

  • Monkey See Monkey Do: The Night Out

    They’ve self-released this, so if you like folk and are missing your favourite folk club, you should buy it on principle. Happily, it’s also good; they play folk that sounds modern and traditional at the same time, and tells a good tale. It opens with Pound A Week Rise; we Googled the lyrics and it…

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    Nick Faber … presents The Lost Highway Tapes

    It’s always a problem reviewing albums from bands like Biffy Clyro or Foals: you know the sound, you expect the quality, and unless they cover Agadoo badly, you’re not going to be surprised. It might be the pinnacle of musical perfection, but it’s hard to get worked up about. The flipside is that albums from…

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    Murray McLachlan: Gregson: Complete Piano

    This is an appealing collection of piano pieces. It takes in different styles and sounds, and ranges from the intimate to the more extravagantly romantic, but it’s got a definite charm throughout. It gets off to a cheery start with An Album For My Friends, 11 pieces written for friends and showing a love of…

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    Pete Judge: Piano 2

    Kicking sand in the face of under-achievers everywhere is Pete Judge, a professional trumpet player with the jazz / rock quartet Get The Blessing, but who can play more than one instrument, in this case the piano; this is a collection of tunes he wrote for another band he’s in, Three Cane Whale. It’s a…

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    Ward Richmond: Highly Meditated

    This charmer of an album is both interesting – Richmond has been in bands for years but now reflects on getting sober, becoming a father, yoga and meditation – and melodic. The first song is either nihilistic, or about some kind of meditative revelation. Before the music even starts he’s telling us: “I’m thinking about…

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    Asylums: Genetic Cabaret

    Asylums first album Killer Brain Waves was great: heads down no-nonsense rock played fast and tight but with lots of melody and a nice DIY ethos about it; a good band having fun. They obviously did ok out of it (and the second, which we missed) and this new one sounds more expensively made ……

  • Biffy Clyro: A Celebration of Endings

    This is Biffy’s ninth album and possibly the most approachable: all the early roughness has gone, along with most of the pomp and theatricality of the later stuff. It’s just (just!) a classic melodic rock album; some heavy moments, but more reliance on melody. It’s a positive and upbeat album, too, and pretty well instantly…

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    Murray McLachlan: Gregson: Complete Piano

    This is an appealing collection of piano pieces. It takes in different styles and sounds, and ranges from the intimate to the more extravagantly romantic, but it’s got a definite charm throughout. It gets off to a cheery start with An Album For My Friends, 11 pieces written for friends and showing a love of…

  • Robin Stevens: Prevailing Winds

    This is a mostly enjoyable mixed bag of short works; you probably won’t like them all but it’s a diverting collection of music. In his sleeve notes, Stevens says that composing miniatures such as presented here can be liberating: if it doesn’t work, it’s less time wasted. They also add to a composer’s technical skills,…

  • Camargo Guarnieri: Chôros, Vol 1

    We’ve got bogged down a little with this: it’s so engrossing we’ve played it on repeat instead of getting on with other reviews. Guarnieri was born Mozart Camargo Guarnieri in 1907, and his dad was an Italian immigrant and music lover. He not only named his sons after great composers (Mozart, Verdi, Rossine and Belline,…