Tame Impala – Currents (Interscope)
HEY SO check out Tame Impala, huh. Check out that cover. A shiny silver sphere in a white/black void. It even looks like one of those post-prog 80s albums from Genesis or Yes, the whole “we’re modern now so we’ll have minimal geometric covers, hyuck hyuck.” Gotta hand it to ‘em for doing their homework. […]
Muse – Drones (Warner Bros)
By Miss Tiarney Miekus I haven’t been properly sickened by the self-delusions of the typical mainstream all-male stadium rock act since Alex Turner made a big show of wanting to smash through the glass ceiling (apparently forgetting he is the glass ceiling) or the staggering audacity that saw U2’s Songs Of Innocence digitally force-fed to […]
Girlpool – Before The World Was Big (Wichita Recordings)
How is a girl supposed to “mature”, anyway? Or, for that matter, how does a band “mature” after rocketing to fame with a tape about sex and female desire? Girlpool did that rare thing that not all bands do (*coughJoannaGruesomecough*) – they figured out what the press wanted them to be, and thus became something […]
Frog – Kind of Blah (Audio Antihero)
Oh, god. Help me, words. Help me convey what a blessing Frog is. The moment the guitars trickle in on “All Dogs to Heaven”, I am transported. The warm twang that rings throughout the LP sounds woody, tangible, distinctly not modern. I think about “Ventura Highway”, and I try to remember when that sandy southwestern […]
Speedy Ortiz – Foil Deer (Stop Start)
Around about this time last year, the internet was busy picking pixels out of Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg’s Ban Bossy campaign: those of us empowered by the sentiment and those of us who consider it all mere semantics. So whilst Speedy Ortiz frontwoman and guitarist, Sadie Dupuis drove round Connecticut last summer, guitar flung across […]
Joanna Gruesome – Peanut Butter (Fortuna POP!)
By Stephanie Phillips Despite what many a cantankerous punk will tell you it really doesn’t take too much to start a DIY band. It’s easy enough to find like minded, rough and ready members with a similar disliking for authority; it’s easy to put a middle finger up to the concept of the music business […]
The Nightingales – Mind Over Matter (Louder Than War)
“For goodness sake, there’s been a chunk of time”, calls out Nightingales maestro Robert Lloyd seconds into the jittering opener of the same name. But in reality, there really hasn’t been at all. 2012 saw the Midlands troupe document a stream of live greats into Cooking Vinyl released No Love Lost, whilst 2014’s For Fuck’s […]