That Thavius Beck – he has a right mouth on him, always cussin’ and the like. And just how does he manage to squeeze all those words into such a small window of time? It’s like he’s working at 405 RPM – 405 revelations per minute. In fact there are likely to be broadband speeds in Japan unable to cope with this level of speed and bandwidth. In fact you need fibre optic ears to even begin to appreciate the Continue Reading
Rather than kickstart some rambling and disparaging assessment of the Coldplay-stroke-Snow Patrol-stroke-Stadium Rock conundrum that follows Athlete around like some deeply unpleasant odour, let’s start by saying that Black Swan’s rousing and gently chipper collection of sweeping, grandiose, widescreen space tunes must rank as one of the most honest and unpretentious releases of the year. Not for Athlete the gallant baroque of the Shadow Puppet’s ‘Age of Understatement’ or the belligerent dysphasia of the Lip’s ‘Embryonic’ – just chiming and Continue Reading
Not since DFA 1979 bludgeoned their way through, dripping in testosterone and fuelled by damaged male pride, have we really had a band prepared to ditch the acoustic guitars and piano, and play it straight. There might not be anything much sadder than a broken heart, and much like the Canadian duo before them, Japandroids are channelling the primal through a no bullshit/bed-shaped filter. Sure, it pays to quietly lament (sometimes) but they aren’t prepared to hide behind misty-eyed, insipid Continue Reading
American bands have a hard time raging. Just look at Tom Morello, on the one hand screaming into some loudspeaker at some Rights rally or other and on the other participating in some cleverly concocted corporate mission to bag the Number One and Number Two slot on behalf of Sony Epic. When people like Morello cut the words ‘4 Real’ into their arm they do it using sterilized surgical instruments and a local anaesthetic. And when US bands say ‘Kill Continue Reading
Not sure I’m really comfortable with the recurring anti-folk moniker as I fail to see how any of this either subverts or challenges the usual celebration of all that’s trivial and rubbish in life as experienced by isolated loners and folks who are pathologically verbose or bookish in some way, as this is exactly how listens. I’m also a little perturbed by Brink’s unfathomable rewriting of Dylan’s legendary ‘I Shall Be Released’ during ‘Keep Your Head High’. And not even Continue Reading
Whilst this spunky Cheshire band is not quite as difficult to pin down as some would have us believe (somewhere between McFly and any one of the US bands crashing out of Drive Thru Records over the years), there’s a breezy and eager flush of excitement about them all the same. Sure the parallels drawn between songs like, ‘When I Break A Promise It Shatters’ with its tumultuous chorus breaking hearts everywhere from Widnes to Wilmslow and anything recorded by Continue Reading
Bleak, wailing walls of guitar melodies that harrow and sink and wallow, buried deep inside groundswells of resignation and despondence – it’s not a happy world The Twilight Sad inhabit. With shades of Editors’ grey monotony, James Graham’s dour vocals steeps ‘Forget the Night Ahead’ in a heavy storm of mournfulness. It’s an album created in black and white; Graham’s sorrow and wistful reminiscence lashing against swathes of sonic melancholy in ‘Reflection In The Television’, bucking against coruscating eruptions in Continue Reading
New York-based shoegazers Asobi Seksu (Japanese for ‘casual sex’) have released a thing of tremulous beauty with their latest album recorded live at Olympic Studios, London, in November 2008. Made up of acoustic versions of songs previously released on their albums plus some covers it is a quietly striking session that shimmers and glows. If ‘empty’ was ever a compliment to be paid it’s now with this album which has emptied out so much effect and arrangement from previous releases Continue Reading
Hand-picked by Brakes partly from a hometown (Brighton, UK) show in August 2008, and partly from a May 2009 show in Cologne, Germany, this combination of tracks includes choice cuts and singles from their back catalogue – the tracklisting closely resembles a ‘best-of’ compilation, but the owners are quick to point out that this record is far more than a simple ‘hits’ collection (not least because they haven’t had any). As Crud knows only too well, ‘hits’ are necessarily the Continue Reading
Ninja Tune, one of the most influential dance labels in the UK have set up a rock subsidiary and released a pay-no-more-than-£2.99 compilation album. Intrigued? My first thought was that it would be some kind of fusion, like when Martin Gore got his guitar out for Depeche’s Personal Jesus. In fact, what we actually get is a gloriously retro-feel to the collection, as if it were a history of imagined bands from the 70’s NYC punk scene and beyond. Rock Continue Reading