Review Corner

Tag: rock

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    Trophy Scars: Holy Vacants

    When you load this into iTunes the genre is given as “punk”, which is a bit like saying Gilbert and George draw. The album is about (wait for it) a conspiracy theory surrounding the Nephilitic gene. The album revolves around the tale of two lovers who discover not only that the blood of angels contains…

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    The Best of Cerrone Productions

    There’s a number of cheesy disco hits we always lump together, nowhere near as cool as Donna Summer’s I Fee Love but classics in their own right, such as Space’s Magic Fly and Cerrone’s Supernature, both 1977. (That year is more likely to be remembered for punk, yet I Feel Love was probably even more…

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    DeStijl: Something Wicked This Way Comes

    The backstory to this band is (sadly) slightly more interesting than the CD. Pascal DeStijl is a musician and artist from France, who now lives in Manchester and Montpellier. He works for magazines, musicians and commercial companies, producing edgy designs. The band was formed in France in 1995 by DeStijl and John Cleary, bassist. Subsequent…

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    Christmas Joy In Full Measure: Various

    This was obviously planned some months ago, but we got it too late for Christmas. Bad planning, someone. Still you can buy it now for next year. The backstory is that record label Hand Of Glory records asked 12 artists for an original Christmas song. Presumably they left the remit wide open, because the songs…

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    Ratworld: Menace Beach

    Someone, somewhere must have said something wise about music constantly reinventing itself and this is the latest incarnation of shoegazy, scuzzy, distorted guitar pop. Teenagers who are new to all this will find this to be exciting and moshpit friendly music; older musos who’ve heard it all before will find Menace Beach entertainingly enthusiastic and…

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    Team Me: Blind As Night

    This is a proper mix of styles and influences: think Arcade Fire covering Kate Bush by way of a generic American pop punk band. The first time we played it through it all just slipped by, but it’s not an album you can half-listen to. We’ve warmed to it via successive plays. Opener Ride My…

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    Aled Jones: The Heart Of It All

    He’s come a long way since Walking In The Air and now he’s almost a national treasure, appearing on Songs of Praise as he does. We’re not being judgemental (and could be wrong) but we’d guess a lot of his fanbase are churchgoers, probably members of the WI or Mothers’ Union, and perhaps their spouses.…

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    Wu-Tang Clan: A Better Tomorrow

    This has met a mixed reception: the general Press has given it good reviews, long-time fans and the specialist writers have been less generous. One long-time fan on Amazon writes: “There are no moments that make you think ‘that was a clever lyric’, that you are listening to a potential single, or even something that’s…

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    Glass Caves: Alive

    We reviewed this a couple of weeks ago, using a faulty CD that skipped a couple of tracks. Now equipped with a fully working download, we’re going to plug them again, as they’re very good. Think Arctic Monkeys with a slick polish and sparkle (which you could read as “Arctic Monkeys having lost their edge”…

  • Kasse Mady Diabaté: Kirike

    We’ve been enjoying this album from the Mali musician, which goes back to the roots of his music, which we’d guess is religious or at least mystical. Tinariwen are also from Mali, and for comparison, this is like an acoustic version of them. Like much of this kind of music, the songs here lay down…