Tag: opinion
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Calva Louise: Rhinoceros
Who remembers The Subways? They’re still going (playing with the legendary Die Toten Hosen in Germany this summer), but long ago disappeared into their fanbase. They were a fun rock pop band, most notable for having a couple who split romantically but carried on the band. After an initial bursting on the scene they settled…
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Kim Wilde: Here Come The Aliens
Yeah, so you’re Kim Wilde, pop singer, best known for being poptastic and slightly cheesy, and though you’re gigging aplenty, your new collection of songs is so good you want to reach a wider audience. What you going to do? How about package the new collection as a 50s pulp fiction sci fi film and…
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The Go Team: Semicircle
When the Go Team first emerged, we (and lots of other people) loved them: infections, joyous pop/hip hop performed by a lively band, led by a singer called Ninja. We saw them live three times; by the third time we were a bit “meh”, the lack of depth to their tunes soon leaving the listener…
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White Room: Eight EP
You know it’s a tight budget when your review copy is a CDR with hand-written track titles, but we can’t see the White Room being that cash-strapped for long. They don’t do anything original, but they do it well. The sound is somewhere between the dance-rock of Kasabian and the more recent psychedelic pop of…
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Laura Oakes: Nashville Stole Your Girl (Acoustic EP)
The title says it all: Nashville, acoustic. It’s acoustic country pop that sounds like it’ll get played on Nashville easy-listenin’ day-time radio, except that Laura is from Liverpool. If you like pop country, you might have heard of her: this charted at No.2 in the iTunes album country chart on release day. It features four…
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Madeleine Mitchell: Violin Muse
This CD demonstrates the violin at its most bleak/stark/purest; take your pick. Even Atlantic Drift, which opens with the sound of a lively folk song, is sparse and with an edge. This is not a criticism, just to say the album is mostly not warm or romantic, just dry and slightly melancholy; more a funeral…
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The Septura Ensemble: Music for Brass Septet, Vol.5
This is not really a Christmas album, but it’s Christmassy. Septura (not to be confused with the Brazilian metal band from Belo Horizonte) brings together a number of London’s leading brass players. It’s a brass septet and thus has no traditional repertoire, and is creating its own, recording a series of 10 CDs of different…
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Piano A Deux: France Revisited
An album we have played a number of times without being able to decide what its main attraction is: sprightly air, nice atmosphere or the rather luxurious effect of having two pairs of hands playing. It’s an engrossing and entertaining album. Piano A Deux is husband and wife Robert and Linda Stoodley. This new album…
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Allmänna Sangen: Femina Moderna
This is an interesting album that combines modern choral work with the more traditional, as well as something in between, though the programme of recent works by Swedish and international female composers, and has a preponderance of modern works. The newest piece is Anna-Karin Klockar’s Speeches, winner of the Allmänna Sangen and Anders Wall Composition…
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Grandaddy Last Place
Grandaddy formed in 1992, the band led by main writing talent Jason Lytle, and split in 2006. We were a little surprised to see this appear, as we thought they’d gone forever. Their popularity can be seen by the fact that — presumably before hearing a note — at least one UK festival has booked…
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