Reviews

You’ll have probably read 28 reviews already comparing London’s raw-power blues explosion Joe Gideon & The Shark to The White Stripes , and ever the pack animal, we’ll have some of that too. Hell, they’re brother and sister. They are a whole load more Detroit than they are Dalston. And their music is an enthralling meld of the theatrical and poetic, the gritty, rhythmical and impulsive. You’ll also notice, if you skim to the end of the review, that we Continue Reading

They say instant familiarity is often the sign of a good tune. But just occasionally, it’s also a sign of a good tune that’s been written before. But before we start pulling this thing apart without paying due respect to Brown’s indisputable gift with a melody (or anybody else’s melody for that matter), let’s make one thing very clear: the average music fan couldn’t give an earth, wind or fire if it has all been done before. Even if the Continue Reading

‘Jailed-rocker cleans up his act for one last crack at greatness?’ ‘Notorious smack-addict knobs the hind legs off Super Model Kate, sprays blood over walls, injects heroin into arm of unconscious fan and releases handsome new solo album?’ ‘Permanent tabloid fixture in surprisingly decent album scandal?’ Given Pete Doherty’s prevailing ‘anti-darling’ status with the not-so-great British press, it’s only fitting that Crud should frame its appreciation of the album in a manner that is most likely to appeal to the Continue Reading

Not since Bill Corgan’s ‘Today’ combined the perky mechanics of self-mutilation with a cheery pop aesthetic has the notion of suicide and alienation seemed such a gently attractive lifestyle choice. Slacker, stoner – call it what you will, it usually arrives gift wrapped in a similar kind of envelope. It might come with a beercan delivered by a nitemare hippy girl called Polly, by an entire daydream nation reeking of teen-spirit or even by a black hole sun. It might Continue Reading

A hip-hop supergroup consisting of Gift of Gab from Blackalicious, Lateef the Truth Speaker of Latyrx, and producer Headnodic of the Crown City Rockers . Not household names by any means but should you be willing to leaf through the pages of hip-hop’s complex history, these figures should jump out like the good, the gab and the ugly. Not much consolation if you don’t know your spit from your spat, your triple rhymes from your party rhymes, your freestyle from Continue Reading

Having trouble waking up of a morning? Yeah, us too. Suggested remedy: gaffer tape your headphones to your ears, playlist this album by discordant New Jersey country-punks Titus Andronicus up on your iPod, set the alarm for just before you need to be up and nestle down in the brace position. By the time ‘Fear & Loathing In Mahwah, NJ’ has erupted with a splintering “FUUUUCK YOU!” holler and is raining down like, not so much cats and dogs, but Continue Reading

‘We’ve got a handful of songs to sing you, Can’t stop my voice when it longs to sing you. New songs and blue songs. And songs to bring you – happiness. No more, no less.’ Or so sang that couple of cheesy oddballs, Maria Morgan and Keith Field to millions of preschool children who had tuned in to ‘watch with mother’ for the best part of the 1970s. Keith always had the guitar and sported dreadfully oversized wing-collars outside of Continue Reading

Are you, gentle reader, 15 or 16? Or anything under 20 really? Yes? Our advice to you; revel in it. Loll around in that transitory convergence of your youthful dynamism and gaining life experience while you still can. Crud is not that young you see. We’re not exactly drawing our pension, yet, but we’ve blown out enough birthday cake candles to be green with envy at the wisdom and richness emanating from the mouths and acoustic guitar strings of sisters Continue Reading

Without wanting to sound like a bastard, charity is a right pain in the arse, isn’t it? Well, it is. As worthy as most charitable organisations undoubtedly are, for their ethics, selflessness and redoubtable good work in difficult situations, it’s difficult to tell one over-enthusiastic student with a clipboard and brightly coloured tabard gently bullying you into direct debit payments on your lunch break from the next. And because we’re all essentially selfish swines at heart, it’s nice to get Continue Reading

‘People Like People Like You’ is the debut release from progressive Manchester five-piece, Spokes. Originally released on the band’s own Everyone label, it is now being reissued by Counter Records. Why the rustic fiddles and the vast expanse of space? Surely you don’t inherit that from knocking around Old Trafford. Well you don’t. That’s most likely picked up from the lofty rainswept crags of their old North East stomping ground. An album that in some ways takes it cue from Continue Reading