Category: Indie
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Ten Fé: Hit the Light
This enjoyable album delivers cool indie pop that’s also commercial; it’s likable and stands repeat plays but is a little derivative. Indeed, we noticed various reviews compared Ten Fé to various bands; we guess they sound like everyone and anyone, so if you like them they sound like your favourite band. Follow sounds a bit…
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Vant: Dumb Blood
We like this because they sound like a band at all times; some of the songs may not be the best but they always work because the band works as a unit. Opener The Answer is a great first track, with feedback, swirling guitar and throbbing bass held together by a tight drum pattern; if…
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Nadine Khouri: The Salted Air
Khouri is a British-Lebanese musician and songwriter based in London, whose work is described by the Press release as “music born of perennial outsider status”. The PR cites a four-star Mojo review (“dark, possessed beauty”) and a five-star Radio Two review (“fascinating musical tapestry”). We’d give it three stars (“all a bit the same, really,…
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Toothless: The Pace Of The Passing
Toothless is Ed Nash, the bass player for the excellent Bombay Bicycle Club, one of two English bands (Foals being the other) producing world class adult pop. They’ve now hung up their bicycle clips for a while, and Nash has made this. He’s a clever and learned chap, and the Press notes could probably act…
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Silent Riders: Silent Riders
Enigmatic is the word for this Danish electronic band. They wear masks on stage, are known only as Lu, Gee and C and play minimalistic music in the style of Portishead and Massive Attack. Of course, mononomic (is that a word?) stage names and masks are not new — Portishead and Massive Attack were pioneers;…
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Leif Vollebekk: Twin Solitude
Vollebekk is a Montreal singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who is/was a fan of Nick Drake. We’d also guess he’s a big fan of David Gray, whose White Ladder this sounds very much like. For older readers, Gray was a singer-songwriter whose fourth album White Ladder was massive, partly helped by a memorable televised performance at…
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Menace Beach: Lemon Memory
The new year is not even a month old (well it is now, but not as we write) and we have already got two albums that could still be favourites at the end of the year. One is Frank Carter (see elsewhere) and the other is this. Menace Beach are certainly confident — they open…
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The Sad Song Co: In Amber
The name of the band gives it away a little, though “The Thoughtful Band Co” would be apt. The Sad Song Co is the alter ego of Nigel Powell, drummer with Frank Turner and The Sleeping Souls. While at school (the independent Abingdon School, said to be as good as Eton, where his current boss…
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Phish: Farmhouse, Junta, Billy Breathes
In a week where we’re low on new releases, we thought we’d review some old albums from a band you’ve possibly never heard of — American jam-band Phish. Anyone who follows US culture will have come across Phish, who are loved in the States but largely unknown over here. We asked A&A Music, and its…
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