Review Corner

Category: Rock

  • Asylums: Killer Brain Waves

    Asylums are a DIY band and this is out on a label run out of a back bedroom in Southend-on-Sea, but the lack of external, objective control is perhaps their Achilles heel. There are some outright excellent songs on this album, which falls short of greatness by a lack of focus. The tunes fall into…

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    Hawklords: Fusion

    As this album’s first notes ring out, it’s like putting on Hawkwind’s excellent 1980 space rock album Levitation — psychedelic guitars, thumping bass and drum pounding on a par with Ginger Baker, who joined the Hawkwind for that album. Then the vocals come: Ron Tree is not Dave Brock, but this is a different band…

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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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    Oxfam presents Stand As One — Live At Glastonbury 2016

    Good cause, average album. It’s raising money to tackle the refugee crisis and in memory of MP Jo Cox, with profits split 75-25 between Oxfam and the Jo Cox Fund. You can also sign a petition Fair play to the artists, who have donated the songs from their Glastonbury Festival set to this live album.…

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    ZZ Top: Tonite at Midnight

    Some live albums undergo more than a little studio engineering before hitting the shops; as one might hope with ZZ Top, they seem to have pressed “record” and what they played is what you get. The mix on opener Got Me Under Pressure sounds a bit raw and if a drum fill starts a fraction…

  • Butch Walker: Stay Gold

    Yey, it’s the summer of ‘69 all over again, or at least 1984, when Bryan Adams’s song of that name was around. Hair metal was still a thing — Van Halen released the imaginatively titled 1984 and Bon Jovi’s debut (equally imaginatively titled, Bon Jovi) came out, while Whitesnake could still release albums with snakes…

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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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    Mutter Slater Band: The Champ

    Mike “Mutter” Slater was front man and flute player for 70s cult band Stackridge, produced by George Martin and signed by Elton John. They played for The Old Grey Whistle Test and John Peel, but their story resembles a Ripping Yarn script for a spoof 70s rock band. Stackridge Lemon was formed from the remains…

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    Martha: Blisters In the Pit Of My Heart

    We call this punk because they do, but it’s as much indie as punk, and it’s rather marvellous. Hailing from the splendidly named hamlet of Pity Me (either a shortening of something like Petit Mere or an ironic name for an agriculturally barren area), Martha play a kind of indie emo punk. Musically, it’s bright…

  • Biffy Clyro: Ellipses

    We’ve been fans of Biffy in the Review Corner for yonks, from back when they were three wee lads from Glasgow making in-your-face rock that was somewhere between metal and prog. Since then they’ve become bigger and bigger and the sound has evolved to this. It’s a bit Thin Lizzy, whose early albums are much…