SAM FENDER PEOPLE WATCHING (DELUXE VERSION) POLYDOR Was the world really crying out for a deluxe version of an album that only came out in the early knockings of 2025? Initially I felt not, perhaps because I didn’t really like the initial cut of [...]
THE SMASHING PUMPKINS MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS (30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP The latest in a series of anniversary releases that make elder millennials really feel their age, Mellon Collie And The Infinite [...]
OUR ONLY EXPECTATIONS ARE TO PLEASE OURSELVES, RIGHT? A CONVERSATION WITH CESCHI RAMOS OF CODEFENDANTS From my first moments with Ceschi Ramos of The Codefendants, a few things are obvious. One, he’s got a genuine passion for music, and two, [...]
FRANK TURNER THE NEXT TEN YEARS UNIVERSAL/POLYDOR There’s a chance that something has got Frank Turner feeling nostalgic of late. Discontented with reforming his previous hardcore band, Million Dead, he’s now releasing another boxset compilation [...]
CHARLATANS UK WE ARE LOVE BMG The latest in a series of 90s indie bands making new material, Charlatans UK open We Are Love by sounding like they’ve gone in a similar direction to The Farm, with “Kingdom of Ours” a suitably-trippy and [...]
JOHN BORRA LAST DANCE AT THE E ROOM COUSIN JEB RECORDS Being that I’m not of Canadian shores, this being my first listen to the four-decade legend that is John Borra was something of great happenstance. Last Dance At The E Room is a love letter [...]
FALL OUT BOY FROM UNDER THE CORK TREE (20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) UMe You know how old you’re getting when formative albums of your youth are receiving 20th Anniversary releases! Still, From Under The Cork Tree is probably one of the most seminal [...]
KIM GORDON – GIRL IN A BAND (10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) DEY STREET BOOKS BOOK REVIEW BY JOHN PORTER It doesn’t feel like 10 years since Kim Gordon’s witty, acerbic Girl in a Band first made waves in the rock world, but such is the various [...]
WOLF ALICE THE CLEARING RCA RECORDS It’s been four years since we’ve heard something of substance from Wolf Alice, and they’ve had their fanbase on tenterhooks, particularly since the much-trailed single “Bloom Baby Bloom” showed off the band’s [...]
NO OVERPRODUCTION, NO OVERTHINKING A CONVERSATION WITH DUNCAN LLOYD The first thing you learn about Duncan Lloyd is that he’s a man that isn’t in a rush, and that’s something of a relief given our meeting is delayed by at least 10 minutes by [...]
THE FARM LET THE MUSIC (TAKE CONTROL) MODERN SKY/ROUGH TRADE Just what is happening in British indie at the moment? After recent releases by The Cure and Pulp, the latest band to emerge from a long on-record hibernation is The Farm, who have [...]
SAVE THE RETRO A CONVERSATION WITH MANCHESTER’S RETRO BAR OWNER MARK ARMOR This July, roughly a quarter of a million Oasis fans, over four days, will make a pilgrimage to Manchester to see the resurrection of a band thought long dead. [...]
MATT BERNINGER GET SKUNK CONCORD RECORDS With The National’s recent resurgence, there’s an increasing demand to hear songs from Matt Berninger’s pen, and that’s prompted a second solo album, following 2020’s Serpentine Prison. What follows is a [...]
BUTTHOLE SURFER LIVE AT THE LEATHER FLY SUNSET BLVD RECORDS There can’t be many weirder bands to try and capture the essence of than the crazy-named Butthole Surfers. That said, this album succeeds where many live albums fall down, by mixing [...]
REAL ESTATE THE WEE SMALL HOURS: B-SIDES AND OTHER DETRITUS 2011-2025 DOMINO RECORDS Following on from 2024’s reinventive effort “Daniel”, Real Estate attempts to bless our ears with this collection of oddities and deep cuts, and it’s a [...]
MANCHESTER PUNK FESTIVAL 2025 @ MANCHESTER (UK) APRIL 18-20, 2025 Manchester Punk Festival continues to thrive. Now in its 10th year, the Easter weekend institution remains atop most UK punks’ calendars, and with good reason. Recently voted the [...]
40 WATTS FROM NOWHERE SUSAN CARPENTER/SLAMDANCE FESTIVAL FEBRUARY 23, 2025 What do you do with a bunch of burning ambition, a love for music, and a boredom with early 90’s commercial radio? For most people, the obvious answer wouldn’t be ‘start [...]
SAM FENDER PEOPLE WATCHING POLYDOR With People Watching, his first album since his 2022 breakthrough Seventeen Going Under, Sam Fender landed a big coup in hiring Adam Granduciel of The War On Drugs as his producer and collaborator. That [...]
GLEN MATLOCK – I WAS A TEENAGE SEX PISTOL VMI WORLDWIDE FEBRUARY 10, 2025 (US) I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol advertises itself as Glen Matlock’s tale of the rise of the Sex Pistols, and it delivers on that front from the off. Every step of [...]
CIRCA WAVES DEATH & LOVE PT. 1 LOWER THIRD There’s immediate joy in Circa Waves’ new album; “American Dream” opens in a blaze of sound and classic indie pop, an explosion of euphoria after trauma, which is probably not that far [...]
FRANZ FERDINAND THE HUMAN FEAR DOMINO RECORDS Franz Ferdinand’s first studio album in seven years (Always Ascending being 2018’s major effort) is instantly identifiable from its opening track “Audacious”. Alex Kapranos’s voice has lost none of [...]
THE NATIONAL ROME 4AD The National have had a busy few years, encompassing two albums, a well-received Glastonbury headline slot, and a much-needed return to the top table of indie rock. This, then, doubles as a celebration of that re-ascension [...]
KIM DEAL NOBODY LOVES YOU MORE 4AD When you hear the words “Kim Deal’s first solo album”, you’d be forgiven for expecting to hear more of the same clattering rhythms and incongruous lyricism that made her a behemoth of the alternative rock scene [...]
LESS THAN JAKE UNCHARTED PURE NOISE For an album named after discovering the unknown, it’s amusing that it’s incredibly obvious that this is a Less Than Jake album from the second you hit the play button. All the hallmarks of the best of the [...]
