Review Corner

Category: Ambient

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    Bat For Lashes: The Bride

      This remarkable album follows the story of a woman whose fiancé is killed in a crash on the way to the church for their wedding (complete with Leader Of The Pack-style sound effects). The bride goes ahead with the honeymoon on her own and the album reflects on meditation on love, loss, grief, and…

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    Air: Twenty Years

    There must be people who love Air (and we did play Pocket Symphony a lot when it came out) but they’re one of those bands we never think of, then enjoy when we do hear them. You can guess what this double CD is all about, and the surprising thing is how many tunes are…

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    Deftones: Gore

    We like Deftones but they’re hard to review: they’re just Deftones. They sound like Deftones and their sound is very Deftones. This new album is like Deftones, but quieter. For those who don’t know, Deftones are nominally metal but it’s a singular metal. It’s like a wall of sound, dominated by singer Chino Moreno, who…

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    Kate Halsall: Miniaturised Concertos and Maché

    In the paper, we lumped this together with John Metcalfe’s Appearance Of Colour because they seemed similar but they’re not really. Metcalfe’s album is soothe and calming and reflective of nature, Halsall is angular and unsettling, and more based in hardware. Like Metcalfe, Halsall, a pianist, mixes genres; the album stems from a project started…

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    John Metcalfe: The Appearance Of Colour

    We bought this after previewing a gig he was playing: he’s a violinist who was once a member of The Durutti Column, and has provided string arrangements for the likes of Morrissey, Blur and Bat For Lashes. He sounded interesting. You’ve got to listen closely to this, otherwise it drifts by. The music varies between…

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    Meadowlark: Paraffin EP

      Meadowlark’s last EP Dual is one of our favourite releases in the 15 years we’ve been writing reviews. It’s lovely, mainly because of Kate McGill’s voice, but her bandmate Daniel Broadley’s minimalistic guitar and synth arrangements complement her rather elfin vocals to perfection. They produce nuanced and textured sparse tunes, to which the word…

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    Mmoths: Luneworks

    We’ve been bathed in a warm sea of happiness this week in the Review Corner, thanks to some lovely music across several genres. Mmoths’ Luneworks is one. Yes, it’s ambient, which too often denotes hoochy Zen background music sold in wacky shops that believe lumps of rock can make you emotionally stable. Or Clannad. Ugh.…

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    Kimmo Pohjonen: Murder Ballads

    Last week we reviewed Kimmo Pohjonen’s latest album (a take on accordion-led prog with classical leanings), but this week it’s one he did a couple of years ago. It’s in Finnish but it’s wonderful (English translations of the lyrics are supplied). The songs are all stories about murders and murderers. The tales are told in…

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    Kimmo Pohjonen: Sensitive Skin

    They’re pleasantly mad in Finland: any country that would enter a hard rock/heavy metal band into the Eurovision Song Contest has got to be eccentric. The fact that Mr Lordi won shows that we find such behaviour endearing. Thus with this, a prog album from an accordionist, featuring the Kronos Quartet and distributed by the…

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    Mind Enterprises: Idealist

      We liked this more than Frøkedal (posted below/yesterday) but it just proves how tastes differ. You could argue this was bland, inoffensive electronic pop that merits a bit more edge and and that Frøkedal has the voice of angel, but we’re writing this and not you. The title track opens and a tune Rob…