Last I heard of Cass McCombs was ‘Crick in My Neck’. Here was the perennially enigmatic and hard-to-nail Californian throbbing away like a persistent headache or the proverbial thorn in one’s side. It was a thrashing celebration of couldn’t-give-a-fuck vocals, swooning guitars and slippery organ fondling. Classy and upbeat miserablism that gave Morrisey and Leonard Cohen a run for their money. And if all you hear is the bruised gothic melancholy of  ‘Buried Alive’ and ‘Saturday Song’ with lines like Continue Reading

Whether he’s doing crazy cat things with his wife, Laura Darlington as The Long Lost or unfurling his mighty muttonchops out from under some terrific Victoria notch-collar jacket, Daedelus is always interesting. Challenging, yes, eccentric certainly, but never dull. And that’s how it should be. As soon as a musician finds his hands wandering to the preset button his precious Bontempi keyboard, you know his creativity is as good as dead, which is a philosophy he extends to ‘Bespoke’ – Continue Reading

An American noise pop band. I know what you’re thinking: these guys are just another in a long line of acts who want to have all the impact of the Velvet Underground but have none of the tunes, so what do they do? They throw together a jumble of vaguely familiar hooks, lather it in reverb, squeeze it threw a filter or two and set it against a background of jarring feedback and interminable drones. Sprinkle it with psychedelia, leave Continue Reading

I was actually listening to Poly’s new album, ‘Generation Indigo’ when news came through that she’d lost her battle to cancer (or won her battle to go on to higher places – you decide). It wasn’t an entire surprise by any means in a life that was often ruled by surprises but it was no less galling to be honest – not when you have what amounts to her finest collection of material to date sitting there looking at you. Continue Reading

‘Machinery’ – sexy, smouldering, monster pop, that’s what it is, making you feel a little uneasy and a little horny in equal measures. Take ‘Sweatshop’ – the aural equivalent of bondage gear – dark, relentless and about as uncompromising as a hammer coming down on your John Thomas. It arrives, it enters your head and it stays there. This is the steroid-enhanced follow-up to 2009’s debut, ‘Wait For The Revolution’ and described by the band as a ‘gut-inducing slab of Continue Reading

The last time I listened to an Undertones record with any real malicious intent was when I was tearing around the estate where we lived on my Raleigh Chopper bike. ‘Here Comes Summer’ was in the charts and we had just broken up for the six-week summer holiday. I had a terrific pair of blue corduroy pants shrunk-wrapped to my legs, a blue, orange-lined Snorkel Parka gracing my back, a full packet of Spangles in my pocket and a half-bottle Continue Reading

The Wild Palms sound is reminiscent of late 80’s-early 90’s goth-tinged indie (think Echo and the Bunnymen and The Cure circa Head on the Door.) Right now, this is not a commercially lucrative furrow to plough and nor is it particularly as ‘cool’ as it once was and so an album like ‘Until Spring’ exudes a sense of what-the-hell freedom and sincerity that makes it simultaneously an act of homage and of exploration. Songs idle, twist and sprawl just this Continue Reading