Face The Truth, Don’t Believe The Truth? What is it with bands and their less than courteous request to consider some clear and inalienable certainty at the moment? First Oasis, now Stephen Malkmus. Next thing we know we’ll have both Whigfield and the Cheeky Girls instruct us to ‘Regard With No Small Degree of Mortal Dread The Unbearable Lightness of Being’. In a cheeky styleé of course, and with enough bottom cleavage to conceal the entire population of a small Continue Reading

There was that police chap recently, who avoided a whopping speeding fine for doing about two-thirds the speed of sound through a built up area after dark in an unmarked car. Citing, in his defense, that he was merely familiarizing himself with the inbuilt hyper warp drive or something, he claimed he was, ergo, acting responsibly. And maybe he was. If that’s the case then maybe we can assume that Corin Tucker is doing a similar thing on behalf of Continue Reading

They’re wide open for pot shots. Indie band squatting off-piste on infamously innovative electro label. Indie band as topical and new-wave as the next. Indie band that sound like another indie band that already exists just down the road. So are Maximo Park just The Futureheads, on the wrong label, without the definitive head-shaking harmonies and money spinning cover version, and only the A184 separating them? Well, absolutely not. And then yes, a bit. There’s no ignoring the similarities that Continue Reading

If I told you Matisyahu was a man courting the strict straddling beard of a member of the Amish community and dressed in the ascetic black suit of a Hasidic Jew regaling us with lolloping reggae narratives in a faintly unlikely Jamaican accent you’d laugh. But the sad truth of the matter is, Matisyahu is all this and more. A 25-year-old follower of the Lubavitch sect, Matisyahu (who grew up Matthew Miller) nurtures his adolescent love of Bob Marley with Continue Reading

Five musicians from five very different musical backgrounds all moving in five very different directions but all having one thing in common: they’re all in for the same big disappointment. Benzo’s debut album perfectly crystallizes the problem encountered by too many bands at the moment: consummate and stylish delivery with a poverty of compositional talent. The sound is grand, elaborate and twinkling with all the protracted angst and intensity of British progressives like Muse, Doves and Radiohead whilst still nervously Continue Reading

Musically competent and literally oozing with a generous helping of smooth, delicious soul jam, the West London-based musician/producer Mark de Clive-Lowe returns with his latest full length release, ‘Tide’s Rising’ which continues his exploration of jazz-infused modern soul with a dozen or so tracks that should grease up your mojo as much as your media-player in time for the those similarly spicy rays of ultra-violet this summer. On top of the propulsive syncopation of the bass there’s percussion aplenty – Continue Reading

There have been plenty of examples over the years. To present three at random; Scandinavian epics Leaves’ debut, the 60ft Dolls’ posthumous sophomore album, and most notably the much maligned Terris – 2000’s great white hypes – who had a ferocious kicking heart wrestling with scattergun beats downsized to a badly laminated replica by the time it was immortalized as a long-player. The Duke Spirit can never become a laughing stock in the same way, too certain an impression is Continue Reading

Rod Siddall? Stuart Arfield? Anybody? Steve Fellows? Comsat Angels, I hear you reply. So what? So it just shows how arbitrary success sometimes is for folks in Sheffield’s Broomhill. Record Collector was not only an eclectic little goldmine for all those students flogging CDs for the price of a night out down the Broomhill Tavern it was the seeding ground for Gomez – catalysts for what now must rate as one the big musicial retrograde steps of the last twenty Continue Reading

What’s the point? Most pop, indie, dance music, whatever, doesn’t really have a point, it exists in the there and then, leaves maybe a drizzle of residue and life continues unhindered all around it. Pointless. Some people, like you or me probably, are affected and even defined by it, but in the scheme of things it doesn’t physically influence stuff, allow anything much to happen or change the course of history – with probably the notable exception of David Hasselhoff Continue Reading