Category: Pop rock
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Chas Rigby: Pearls
This is doubtless unfair on Chas, who’s probably 6’ 4” with pecks like a gladiator, but we imagine him as one of those underweight singers with less hair than they once had, who turn out to have led interesting but ultimately tragic lives, maybe some drugs and an arrest or two, but all giving them…
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Blood Red Shoes: Get Tragic
Blood Red Shoes are — and we’d forgotten they existed — one of those indie / alt rock bands who never quite hit the premier league; never quite as good as Foals or Bombay Bicycles, but still pretty decent. Their fans probably wonder why they’re not bigger; their last tour played Manchester Gorilla. From what…
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Jenny Lewis: On the Line
This new album from Lewis encapsulates why she should be more famous — and why she isn’t. Musically, it’s damn near perfect with clever lyrics, flawless tunes and moments when you think pop music can get no better. Her backing band includes — get this — Beck, Benmont Tench (ex Tom Petty, delivers some lovely…
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Jaws: The Ceiling
Jaws call themselves dream-pop and hail from Birmingham. This is their third album; we quite like their last, Simplicity, as it’s melodic and clever while being inoffensive. You can listen to it and it’s fine, or not listen and your brain is fine filtering it out. This new one is a bit stronger and more…
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Jesse Mac Cormack: Now
It’s always interesting what one album makes you listen to: after this it was Duke Special, aka Peter Wilson, a songwriter from Belfast, we turned to. Duke Special is not a household name; Jesse Mac Cormack, similarly a solo bloke who sounds like a band, with synth supplying percussion and instrumentation, is probably heading for…
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Pottery: No. 1
Pottery — who should play Stoke Sugarmill, in The Potteries, as soon as possible — have drums/bass driving the songs along, and all very interesting. They’re the kind of band who’d go down well at the Blue Dot festival — a strong dance groove coupled with psychedelia. Although it’s not particularly innovative, we’ve been enjoying…
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Stevie Nicks: Stand Back, 1981-2017 (Box set)
A bit like Michael Jackson, we can overlook our favourites’ flaws if they turn out good tunes. Nicks not only turned a blues band into Fleetwood Mac but bashed out some good tunes of her own, for which we forgive her the cocaine abuse, the brandy, the champagne and the chain-smoking that ruined her voice.…
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Ten Tonnes: Ten Tonnes
Just when you thought landfill indie — disposable tunes from bands with guitars — had gone away, up pops Ten Tonnes. He’s at the posher end of the genre, more The Kooks than Pigeon Detectives, but it’s formulaic. He lifts it above the routine by being bright and breezy, and he (Ten Tonnes is Ethan…
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Nouvelle Vague: Curiosities
Nouvelle Vague the band passed us by, we must confess. Nouvelle Vague to us was an album curated by David Byrne of a new wave of French folk bands, which was excellent. This was still French — from a man who speaks it so well he could write “Qu’est-ce que c’est” in the Psychokiller lyrics…
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SWMRS: Berkeley’s On Fire
SWMRS are from the US but they really should be English; equally this CD is ostensibly punk but in reality it’s a gang of lads having fun and playing songs that are the modern equivalent of Knees Up Mother Brown. Opener Berkeley’s On Fire has a guitar riff and some wonky singing — as well…
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