King Krule Man Alive! Matador Records There is a shift in dynamic that occurs midway through Man Alive!, musician Archy Marshall’s third full-length release under his foremost musical alias, King Krule. Rhythmic, linear drum grooves and throaty [...]
Sarah Harmer Are You Gone Arts & Crafts As is often the way with relationships, they get complicated and sometimes you aren’t able to realize how much you have missed someone until they step back into your life. Sarah Harmer’s return on Are [...]
Biff Byford School Of Hard Knocks Silver Lining Music Anyone who was in an English High School in 1980 could not have missed Saxon’s Wheels of Steel, it was the album every teenager into rock was carrying around with them. Many years later, lead [...]
Marshall Holland Nice To Meet You (始めまして) Ricky Ninja Records It may seem an odd turn for a singer/songwriter/pop/rock performer to create an album of instrumental electronica, but that is exactly what the San Francisco Bay Area [...]
Elephant Stone Hollow Elephants On Parade Elephant Stone has been around for almost a decade, and with the youthful originality of their sound, it’s often easy forget that. With such a vast and genius grasp at genre-bending psychedelic and [...]
AM Clouds Rainmaker Independent Is it OK for a band to re-create a certain musical vibe? That is the question that immediately comes to mind as soon as “Paradise” kicks in, the second track on Rainmaker, the new album by Oregon quartet AM [...]
Hold On Hollywood Love Stories Independent Up and coming rock band Hold On Hollywood have released their second studio EP. Love Stories follows their 2016 debut, Save Me and, more recently, their 2019 single, a cover of Eddie Money’s 1986 hit, [...]
stAlkid Spooky Tunes, For Lovers And The Dead Independent The story goes that Minneapolis’ Roman Non, aka stAlkid was part of that city’s experimental metal/industrial scene. Maybe. Judging by his album Spooky Tunes, For Lovers and The Dead, you [...]
Brian Posehn Grandpa Metal Megaforce Records Heavy Metal as a genre has often shown that it has a sense of humour. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Spinal Tap or The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years will know that the [...]
Nathaniel Rateliff And It’s Still Alright Stax Records He is a journeyman and a musical omnivore, and Nathaniel Rateliff’s third solo album and first in 7 years is a testament to both his staying power and to his impressive vocal ability. [...]
Tame Impala The Slow Rush Modular Recordings A decade ago when Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker dropped, it was if Cream had a love child with The Flaming Lips. With fuzzed out guitars, dreamy melodies and Lennonesque vocals, Kevin Parker’s one-man [...]
The Saxophones Eternity Bay Full Time Hobby Back in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, ballrooms and dance halls were in vogue. One of the popular features during dance nights was the so-called ‘ladies’ choice’, when the girls would pick their dancing [...]
Black Sugar Transmission Wandering Into The Bullseye Independent For the uninitiated, Black Sugar Transmission has existed for around a decade now, and they are about to enter an almost ridiculously prolific year, with three album releases all [...]
Olivia Henry Expectations Independent On Expectations, her second release, Los Angeles singer Olivia Henry tries one of the harder things in modern pop – give her alt-pop some jazz/soul overtones. To make it work, she would have to make it as [...]
Gil Scott-Heron & Makaya McCraven We’re New Again: A Reimagining By Makaya McCraven XL Recordings 10 years ago, Gil Scott-Heron released I’m New Here. It was not only his 13th studio album, but it was also his first album of new music [...]
Bryan Ferry Live At The Royal Albert Hall 1974 BMG Times have changed. For the most part, today’s artists are not like the artists of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. I know, I sound like an old guy but it is true. Take Bryan Ferry, for example. In [...]
Green Day Father Of All Motherfuckers Reprise If records were rated on titles alone, then Green Day would win album of the century with Father Of All Motherfuckers. Unfortunately for us and the veteran punk band, that simply is not the case as [...]
Stone Temple Pilots Perdida Rhino Channelling the beauty and melancholy that is the band’s legacy, Stone Temple Pilots have emerged with Perdida. This is a band, after all, despite being among the greatest alternative rock outfits of the ‘90s, [...]
Bobby Patterson It’s Just A Matter Of Time Real Gone Music There’s plenty to celebrate with It’s Just a Matter of Time, the 1972 collection by Texas soul man Bobby Patterson. Despite its vintage, there is a freshness in the throwback sound [...]
BisonBison Hover Zozaya Records BisonBison is collaborative project that consists of producers Dani Ramez and Chad Skinner, alongside drummer Brad Weber of Caribou, harpist Sinéad Bermingham, and vocalist Sophia Alexandra. It is a talented [...]
Len Mizzoni Forever Independent The first thing you will notice when Forever kicks off, is just how much Len Mizzoni continues to grow with each release. Forever is extremely well-produced pop music. The sound of an accomplished artist, who is [...]
Caveboy Night In The Park, Kiss In The Dark Independent Coming out of Montreal, one of last year’s most hyped Canadian buzz bands was the alt-pop three-woman outfit known as Caveboy, whose debut album [...]
Another Day Dawns Stranger Independent Among a growing scene of emerging hard rock bands that has been sweeping across America over the past few years, a number of independent bands have come to stand out for their musical output. Another Day [...]
Destroyer Have We Met Merge Records Since the release of Streethawk: Seduction in 2001, Dan Bejar has been coming up with one great album after another. Destroyer’s Rubies from 2006 Poison Season from 2015 can certainly end up on many, ‘best of [...]
