Category: Rock
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Field Music: Open Here
We guess you can either write tunes to make money or write what you feel you need to, sod the market and keep your self-respect. Field Music are in the latter camp; from what we can gather brothers David and Peter Brewis make minimal money from their music but have accumulated a back catalogue to…
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The Xcerts: Hold On To Your Heart
The Xcerts have been going for years, formed by 13-year-olds Murray Macleod and Jordan Smith in 2001, and have toured with Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Fightstar and Taking Back Sunday. They were meant to support Guns N’ Roses but for “logistical reasons” all the support bands were forced to drop off of the tour.…
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Fleetwood Mac: Fleetwood Mac
This was their breakthrough album, released in 1975, and a big hit, reaching No1 in the States; Say You Love Me and Rhiannon are both on here. The band’s complicated lives were already unravelling and that turmoil led to Rumours, a much better album; admittedly one of the best albums ever. This one is good,…
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DeStijl: Debut
DeStijl love a joke: they formed before White Stripes released their album De Stijl in 2000 and so released an album White Stripes in 2011. This album is not their debut. As you all know, De Stijl is Dutch for “The Style”, aka Neoplasticism, a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 in Leiden by artists…
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The Limiñanas: Shadow People
The last Limiñanas album we had to review was cool but a little dull, the highlight a song with Hooky on bass. This new album from the hip French duo is much better, so much so that the apparently statutory Hooky song is something of a jarring oddity on an otherwise fine album. (We assume…
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Weaves: Wide Open
Weaves mix genres as readily as Heston Blumenthal blends snails and porridge: New Order, the B-52s, a dash of glam rock; just when you’ve got a comparison they switch direction. At heart it’s raucous indie with swagger and ideas aplenty. Opener #53 is inspired by Springsteen but it’s more for the moshpit than lyrical analysis;…
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To Kill a King: The Spiritual Dark Age
The cover art and the lyrics (“poetry about serotonin and dopamine”) shout “Arcade Fire!” and To Kill A King attempt the same trick: Deep and Meaningful lyrics coupled with danceable music. But they’re just an indie band with high ambitions and, in the Arcade Fire stakes, fall short. But it’s solid, albeit overly polished in…
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Neil Young: The Visitor
Young’s 39th album is another partly political one, this time with an electric band. It’s typical Young at his loosest, a little sprawling and all over the shop but still good. Clearly Trump gets some stick (“I’m living with a game show host / Who has to brag and boast” but he addresses other topics,…
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Ducking Punches: Alamort
Ducking Punches deserve to do well with this rather decent album; they’ve played 1,000 gigs say the Press notes, which is good going, and explains the tight sound. They play high energy and melodic indie rock, veering towards pop punk in places, and with enough quirkiness to make it appealing. The title is taken from…
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The Lovely Eggs: This Is Egglando
Should anyone make us rulers of England, our first act would be to give everyone in the realm a copy of this CD. In this post-Brexit North Korean Trumpian world we need some cheer and the Eggs are the ones to do it. Sure, there’s some swearing (one song is called Dickhead, another has the…
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