This is in a good cause and is a more-than-decent album. The cause: sadly not a local one but still good: the album is raising cash for No Us Without You, a US charity providing food security for undocumented back-of-house staff and their families. “Undocumented hospitality workers are the backbone of the hospitality industry,” says […]
Michael Bernard Fitzgerald: Love Valley
This is Fitzgerald’s fifth album but we’ve not heard of him before; he’s a Canadian singer-songwriter so he’s been honing his craft over there. It’s a nice little album, in the best senses of “nice” and “little”: it’s a cosy musical companion that will bring comfort to fans of Americana and folky roots in these […]
Royal Blood / Hello Cosmos / Retro Champ
Royal Blood: Trouble’s ComingIt’s not only trouble but a new album on it way from the noisy duo, who have an album out in spring. This new single is tight, crisp radio-friendly single with a bit beat, the guitar and kick drum working together to lay down a groove and a workmanlike chorus. The wild […]
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 […]
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 […]
Ryan Hamilton and The Harlequin Ghosts: Nowhere To Go But Everywhere
You could be in danger of hearing far too much of this likable pop album, which is basically Busted for adults and might get a lot of radio play. We’ve never heard of the band before but they are clearly all experienced musicians. Hamilton is American, and the Ghosts from the UK; Hamilton has played […]
Alec Benjamin: These Two Windows
Singer-songwriter Alec Benjamin reportedly made his name in 2019 with a mixtape, which was streamed 540m times worldwide. This is his debut album. Our first observation would be that Benjamin has an androgynous voice. The first few plays we assumed he was a girl named Alec; when we Googled him, we seriously considered that we’d […]
Denai Moore: Modern Dread
This is a very nice album for those who like soul, pop, RnB, even trip hop. It’s so good – and this is rare praise – it puts us in mind of Little Dragon’s album of the same name (as the band, not a this). For that album at least they played cool, genre-hopping music […]
All Time Low: Wake Up, Sunshine
Life’s been hard just lately so this slice of nostalgia is welcome and pleasant. All Time Low have been going for years, starting in 2003. While pretty big, they never hit the heights of Blink 182, although many of the Blink hallmarks are here: catchy hooks, drums given some echo before a build-up, rapid fire […]
Tim Fredericks: Singer Songwriter 2
This is a follow-up to an album that came out last year; they gave away the last one and we guess the same is true of this. It came out before lockdown, so now they can’t even give it away. The songs are by Tim Fredericks and his band, who are from Crewe, Macclesfield, Stoke […]
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