Category: Pop rock
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Courtney Marie Andrews: Old Flowers
This new album sees Andrews reflecting on a failed relationship, and the hurt caused has resulted in her best album to date. We played some of her older albums this week and they’re nice but not much more than that; this new one is crisp and tight, and while the songs are not really any…
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JoJo: Good to Know
You know when you go on holiday and sit at a beachside bar, all chilled and happy, and listen to the feel-good RnB played over the radio? This is the sound of that music if it was good, the kind of album you’d bring home and play, and feel relaxed and happy by association.…
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Jon Anderson: 1000 Hands
The lad from Accrington hasn’t rushed this one: it’s an album he started 28 years ago. The title is a reference to the fact that numerous guest musicians perform, including Yes bandmates Chris Squire, Alan White and Steve Howe, as well as the likes of Ian Anderson, Steve Morse and Chick Corea. Thankfully the album…
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Larkin Poe: Self Made Man
Larkin Poe’s last album was, to put it kindly, a little unmemorable so we were totally not expecting the opening track on this new one: a huge, bluesy Led Zep meets Black Keys riff that needs to be played loud, from the opening high hats onward. Remarkably, they keep the standard up, more impressive because…
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The Loft Club: Dreaming The Impossible
The influences of Devon boys The Loft Club can probably be written on the back of a postage stamp, ripped into quarters: it takes very little space to write “The Beatles”. It’s not that they’re going Wooo Ooo Ooo all the time and singing about Cpl Coriander’s Tindr Combo, it’s more the feel of their…
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The Dears: Lovers Rock
Montréal quintet The Dears, led by husband and wife duo Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak and a floating assemblage of musicians, have been going for some years but never really cracked it (assuming that getting more famous and playing bigger venues is their definition of success). We bought an album when they were on the…
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Badly Drawn Boy: Banana Skin Shoes
Private Eye mocks the term but Badly Drawn Boy is a bit of a national treasure; surely everyone likes him? Or at least likes the idea of him, a bobble-hatted troubadour turning out polished pop gems. You want all his releases to be good but if they’re not, you forgive him. We saw him live…
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HMLTD: West of Eden
The Guardian reports that HMLTD were active some years ago, winning a good reputation for gigs, getting signed by Sony and then dropped. You can see why; this album is not replete with hit singles, good as it is. So this is their debut and the Press notes call it “labyrinthine”, not an unreasonable description.…
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Joe Gideon: Armagideon
Joe must have thought this was a clever play on words … until we got locked down and it became a bit portentous. Gideon has been around a while and had a hit with his sister, known as The Shark (in musical circles anyway). Gideon’s style is a sing-songy way of speaking over dark, layered…
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Parachute For Gordo: Best Understood by Children and Animals
This is a great album, a clever ramshackle affair of what sounds like jams but is probably carefully arranged. The feel, if not sound, is somewhere between bands such as Ozric Tentacles and bands on the more stoner side (musically, anyway) such as Holy F–K or even Goat. You could also compare them to Explosions…
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