Interpol, Duran Duran, Blondie, The Cure? That’s right. The Killers are all these. Sounds unlikely? Not really, Stellastarr* managed this same weird kind of alchemy with their own debut as recently as 2003. And it may come as no surprise to learn that these Vegas boys are supporting the Stellas on their own tour starting at the end of February. Shouty, robust and sizzling with the same kind of retro hi-hats that make The Rapture so appealing, ‘Somebody Told Me’ Continue Reading

Banjo, fiddle, accordion, guitar. You guessed it, you’re listening to the new release from ex-Grant-Lee Buffalo frontman, Grant-Lee Phillips, the follow-up to 2001’s equally ratable solo album, ‘Mobilize’. A bit of a slow-burner, but I bet that if you decided to put this on your stereo in place of your standard issue for a-quiet-night in Norah Jones LP, you certainly wouldn’t be retching with the same slippery ease by the end of the evening. If it was a film, this Continue Reading

You have to wonder about this major label attachment the Von Bondies are wearing these days. What exactly is hooking up to the hulking machinery of the Warner empire going to achieve, for either party? Their debut album, ‘Lack Of Communication’, was a ragged and lively example of Detroit’s rock n roll pulse still beating a strong jittery beat in the modern world. It provided a pretty worthy underground subtext to some of the bigger mainstream noises being made by Continue Reading

There may be cause to lament the passing of the Electelane of old, the minimal instrumental 60s-psychedelia grrrl post-rock force of their driving debut ‘Rock It To The Moon’. That Electrelane it seems is dead. But then you’d suppose once you’ve made it to the moon, there’s little point just turning around and going home for the anti-climax, is there. What they’ve used it for is a new plateau to launch themselves from, and launch they have. In several directions. Continue Reading

Heaven knows what the Sunday Times was listening to, let alone thinking when they wrote that The Feature’s Matt Pelham was a ‘vocal hybrid of Pete Shelley, Jilted John and Jarvis Cocker’. They certainly weren’t listening to this record, that’s for sure. So let’s make amends. What you have here, ladies and gentlemen, is in fact more in the way of the lightly frazzled rock we’ve come to expect from the psychedelic overtures of The Flaming Lips, The Polyphonic Spree, Continue Reading

They might overplay the turn of the century plantation costume drama, complete with corsets and explorations of sanitized slave cabins but eleven years old Rasputina haven’t half breathed new life into gothic-rock. True, they might wield cellos rather than guitars but beneath the petticoats and behind the velvet curtains there beats a dark ,dark heart of purist sulphur. Formed in 1991 by Melora Creager (cellist for hire to Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, Porno For Pyros, Belle & Sebastian, Bob Mould and Continue Reading

‘Gunnamatta’ is a long surf beach on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria that can get pretty ‘wild and rippy’ on occasions. There are sharks there too, apparently. I say this not because it’s the title of the opening track on the album – although it is – I say it because it’s a perfect indication of the unspoiled languor of the album. Too laid back for some, I imagine. But if you wriggle yourself free of all that sweaty, punky Continue Reading

Chic urban disco lizards? Hip Parisian dancefloor chill-out cats? Aloof and debonair lords of the electro manor? Perhaps. On a good day, when nobody’s asking too many questions. Wolves in sheep fur coats when they do. But after ’10,000 Hz Legend’ nobody could be heard denying they were a prog band with a makeover who just got it right. Their debut ‘Moon Safari’ itself was quintessentially no more than a jazz-funk lounge odyssey, but dressed up like it was going Continue Reading

If every band had the same sparkling effervescence and energy as Stereolab, the world would be a much better place. It may not lead to the public execution of Tony Blair and his muppet government, but it would at least make it more hospitable. For a day at least, we could all swarm about in the same wildly merry cosmic glow as the late Mary Hansen and her chums, spaced-out on the very glad tidings of life and the universe. Continue Reading

Skimming the curd and waste from the milk of desperation and domestic violence may not be everybody’s idea of a good time, but for the perennially Bristol-based Experimental Pop Band, scouring the bus shelters, service stations, arcades, council houses and dredging the rivers for all the miraculously ordinary things that happen in life has become something a cause célèbre. Originally on City Slang records through which they released the albums ‘Homesick’ and ‘Tracksuit Trilogy’ the band are now in the Continue Reading