Review Corner

Category: Rock

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    Dead Buttons: Some Kind of Youth

    While LUH (elsewhere) try to create excitement by having an existential moment or two, Dead Buttons use rock n roll played fast and loud. It works much better. This is a great album and the first one in ages to make us go “Whoooa!” It’s a bit of of a mish-mash styles, all linked together…

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    Deftones: Gore

    We like Deftones but they’re hard to review: they’re just Deftones. They sound like Deftones and their sound is very Deftones. This new album is like Deftones, but quieter. For those who don’t know, Deftones are nominally metal but it’s a singular metal. It’s like a wall of sound, dominated by singer Chino Moreno, who…

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    LUH: Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing

    In 2011 LUH’s Ellery Roberts was part of Wu Lyf, a wilfully mysterious band whose self-funded debut Go Tell Fire to the Mountain was excellent. The band faffed about being clever with PR and marketing and then split. It was an excellent album, a novel, reverb-heavy mix of indie and tribal beats, “a cosmic soup”…

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    Mudcrutch: Mudcrutch 2

    Mudcrutch is the band Tom Petty was in before he became an American hero. It was formed in 1970 by Petty and Tom Leadon and since it split the other players have all continued to work as musicians, quite successfully until you compare them to Petty. Petty reformed Mudcrutch a while back and an album…

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    Sixx AM: Prayer For The Damned

    We were never fans of Motley Cru and glam/sleaze rock bands of their ilk, finding them clichéd and formulaic but this new album from Sixx Am — bassist Nikki Sixx, guitarist DJ Ashba and singer James Michael — is pretty good. It’s their fourth album (the first two were soundtracks for Sixx’s books) and as…

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    The VirginMarys: Divides

    It’s a shame VirginMarys were formed 10 miles down the road: Macclesfield has a bona fide successful modern rock band to boast about and we can’t wangle a local connection (other than drummer Danny Dolan has mates in Congleton). This is their second album and it’s a bit of a monster. It’s a sign of…

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    Frightened Rabbit: Painting Of A Panic Attack

    Last week we were wondering whether The Boxer Rebellion’s latest album would see them do a Snow Patrol and crack the big time, but noted it was hard to judge an album before and after greatness, because that greatness made you view it differently. Who knows? This latest from Frightened Rabbit is different: this is…

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    Max Raptor: Max Raptor

    We’ve been getting Max Raptor material for some years and the raucous punk/rockers get better each time. The opener on this new album, Keep The Peace, is excellent: it sounded like they poured the ingredients of high energy punk into a tube of toothpaste and what came out was more intense and focused than what…

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    The Boxer Rebellion: Ocean By Ocean

    We had a couple of The Boxer Rebellion albums last year; they’re one of those bands playing finely honed pop music whose fans adore them but who mysteriously fail to get big (though as getting big means playing barns like the Manchester Arena and staying smaller means playing more personal gigs at the Apollo or…

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    The Qemists: Warrior Sound

    There are two arguments to make over this album. The negative first: musically this is hugely similar to what Pendulum did a few years back, mixing rock and dance, specifically Dnb, though Qemists have more rock beats. Still, it’s a decade since Hold Your Colour and eight years since the big one, In Silico, so…