Author: jerobear
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The Travelling Band: Sails
In many ways, The Travelling Band play admirable music but this is their sixth album and they’re still most famous for having their van and gear nicked from Levenshulme. We play The Travelling Band’s last album The Big Defreeze quite a lot, the thought process being: “We’re a bit tired, let’s play something inoffensive but…
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Pet Shop Boys: Release
Although we were fans of Pet Shop Boys back in the day (and have seen them live, the Review Corner males being the lone representatives of straight men in Manchester Apollo) we’ve missed their latter albums so this, the first in a series of re-releases, was welcome. The Review Corner’s pet PSB fan says this…
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Tiny Magnetic Pets: Deluxe Debris
This lot are from Dublin and the reviews we read (it’s a small city, they all seem to know each other) talk of their Krautrock influences, Bowie’s Berlin albums and Gary Numan but, in reality, none of it is that dark or original. What it is, is Hotel-era and later Moby, except without his budget.…
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Sparks: Hippopotamus
Well, that’s one of life’s mysteries sorted, though it’s going to cost us. The mystery was, “what’s the point of Sparks?” Aside from their hits (This Town Ain’t Big Enough, Beat The Clock etc) we could never see past the fact that they were a bit odd – the grunty falsetto vocals, the quirky/arty tunes,…
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The Charlatans: Different Days
We’ve never had an album of The Charlatans to review. We suspect they’ve carved out a nice (and niche) market for themselves with a loyal fanbase but this is — by virtue of us getting a copy — their best album for some time and they’re hoping for a wider impact. On the plus side,…
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Starsailor: All This Life
Starsailor were one of those bands that did well for a time when melancholy indie was popular, a time when Keane could mysteriously sell millions of records and vapid clichés (musical and lyrical) were enough to get a number one album. Starsailor sounded like they knew who Coldplay were and what rock was, they just…
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Fumiko Miyachi: Transitional Metal
A brass band features on this but the title refers not to the composition of their instruments but (as the merest glance at the sleeve would inform) is inspired by the Periodic Table of the elements. This is decidedly modern music that fans of more traditional classical music could get a grip on from the…
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Gun: Favourite Pleasures
Gun, from Glasgow, are best known for their hit cover of Cameo’s Word Up. But they formed in 1987 and have kept going, releasing nine albums, Favourite Pleasures being the tenth. As a melodic hard rock album, it’s impossible to fault, and we’re really enjoying it, which is, after all, the point. This style of…
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Fantastic Negrito: The Last Days of Oakland
Xavier Dphrepaulezz (pronounced De-Frepple-Ez) is about the most interesting musician you could come across, and now he’s got a successful enough album that it’s out on a major label, after an initial release a year ago. Last Days is out on Cooking Vinyl, after coming out on Fantastic Negrito’s own Blackball Universe. The UK label…
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Black Grape: Pop Voodoo
Surprisingly this is really good and captures the groove of the excellent Black Grape debut, 1995’s It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah. The opener Everything You Know Is Wrong—Intro sees Mr Ryder give the listener both barrels of his endearing daftness as he monologues about the world: “Hillary’s an old bird who —-s up on her…
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