Category: Punk
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Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes: Modern Ruin
A friend in music radio once told us that some pretty decent bands fail because their members are so unpleasant — be mean to venues, music journalists and sound engineers and your career will be short lived. By the same token, Frank Carter must be the nicest man in music. Despite a decade-long career that’s…
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Beans on Toast: A Spanner in the Works
Beans On Toast is the stage name of folk singer Jay McAllister from Essex. He’s a mate of Frank Turner, and thus gets to play Wembley supporting Frank and then considerably smaller venues on his own account. (He just played Manchester Gorilla). A Spanner in the Works opens with an angry rant about 2016. If…
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Letlive: If I’m The Devil…
We’ve not come across this band before. From what we can tell from other reviews, their previous albums have mixed raucous punk with soul; singer Jason Aalon Butler is revered by fans as a genius, and this new album is either brilliant or terrible. One website had two reviews, one good one bad. We can…
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Dr John Cooper Clarke and Hugh Cornwell: This Time It’s Personal
The original new wave poet and Strangler produce an album of their favourite tunes. Given that an early Stranglers classic was Walk On By it’s perhaps no surprise; what is a surprise is how good Cooper Clarke’s voice is; think Richard Hawley. Nearly as good as Walk On By is their cover of MacArthur Park,…
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My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade/Living with Ghosts
You should all know the story of the Black Parade — all about dying of cancer (the black parade is what the dead patient sees in the afterlife), a young man reflects on life, the band all die at the end. It sold a gazillion copies. This is the 10th anniversary re-release. There’s not much…
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Green Day: Revolution Radio
We never really got into the whole Green Day thing. They were a decent punk band with albums that were good in places, but we suspect the success of American Idiot surprised them. Dookie shifted 20m copies but at the time of Idiot they were winding down and not getting on. American Idiot was a…
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Baby Strange: Want It Need It
Every few years a band comes along with the message for young music fans that rock n roll can be fun. The last one was Vaccines, and before that Glas Vegas (maybe not so fun, but it was stripped down) and before that; well, there would have been someone. Baby Strange play swampy garage rock…
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Billy Talent: Afraid Of Heights
Billy Talent are one of those bands you only hear of when you see a long queue of young people outside a gig and wonder who the big draw is. We had them pegged as punk, albeit the grungier end, but we’re guessing that loyal fanbase is getting older and Billy Talent see the need…
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Skinny Lister: The Devil, The Heart, The Fight
Londoners Skinny Lister beat the listener into smiling submission; it’s impossible not to find something to like or a toe to tap on this raucous and lively album. The sound: imagine if Frank Turner played punk sea shanties. They’ve got the same earthy folk sound as Turner but with added concertina and tin whistle. The…
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