ALBUMs
- Album Reviews
How old is ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, ‘Animals’? …well, you can hear faint remnants of Pink Floyd all over this album mixed with simple, effective and at times complex electronic music. This is a fabulous album to be played at volume!
F*ck Buttons (or FB now?) are chart bound with this record, which makes it the first ATP record album to actually hit the charts (a great reason to get out there and buy it before Sunday!).
FB are Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung who come from Bristol (where there must be definitely something in the water, electronic music wise) and this is their first release as FB since 2009’s ‘Tarot Sport’, this time however, the recording is self-produced at their own Space Mountain studio
Danny Boyle used their music in the Olympics opening ceremony in
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Pete
1. Brainfreeze
2. Year Of The Dog
3. The Red Wing
4. Sentients
5. Prince's Prize
6. Stalker
7. Hidden XS
- Album Reviews
This is a one of those, put the roof down on the car, roll up your sleeves, foot on the gas and get some miles under those tyres, type of record. A rock 'n' roll line can be drawn from The Stones, via Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles in the influence stakes on this very listenable album.
Bobby Keys, the legend that is, the Rolling Stones Sax Man of choice and
Based in
He continues, "The album is self-titled because of all the records we've ever made, we think this is the one that represents our live show and musical allegiances the most," "This is the record where what we heard in our heads made a perfect transition onto record, and self-titling it seemed like the most simple, effective way to represent what we had created."
- Album Reviews
Dear Uncle Pete,
This is by far the most fantastic set of songs you have ever asked me to review.
This band clearly rehearses in the nastiest, dirtiest old rock pub you know and love it for its grizzled ambiance. As a live album it is brilliant, I thought if Joe Bonamassa collaborated with The Cult it would sound as great as this.
Raw,edgy and beautifully performed. This is a band with unexpected festival surprise (if they are playing any) of the year tag waiting for them.
A free album is a rare gift today, but one that makes me cry Hell yeah, out loud to each track this a must for any RockCluberati. I played the album front to back, back to front and then in a freestyle shuffle mode and it sounded tight fun loud and bloody good fun every way up.
All the live tracks are pub thumping good, with Heavy Horses my particular fave. I would jump at the chance to see them in the People's Republic of Essex or Londonshire, any time soon.
Not just Fallen Trees, they are Redwoods of distinction. The album in question is available as a FREE download from Bandcamp
Rockadoodledoo
Iain @docswallow
Fallen Trees are from
Paul Littlewood
Dave Timmons
Glenn Moss
Graham Sutherland
- Album Reviews
Matt Boulter plays in a band called The Lucky Strikes, he plays guitar with the Simone Felice Group on regular occasions as well as having a solo career as 'Whispering Pines'. His latest solo venture come under the title of M.G. Boulter and a true Americana album recorded, not in the Catskills Mountains or Laurel Canyon but, in Broom Cupboard Studios in Rayleigh in Essex.
The band behind the album, The Water or the Wave, includes Pick Withers of Dire Straits fame on drums, Lucky Strikes compatriots, Paul Ambrose and Jim Wilson and from London Bluegrass band, Troubadour Rose came Bryony Afferson and Lizzy O'Connor. all this added up to a beautiful warmth of sound on the record (yes, the album is available on 180g vinyl).
Eleven original compositions crammed into just under thirty-seven minutes means that you definitely have an appetite for more at the end of the album.
Matthew has a voice built for Americana, particularly wistful on ‘Once I Was’ and dance floor Americana on Confetti Hearts This album drifts by effortlessly with a tapping of the foot and a glass of whiskey in hand. It should charm the socks of any listener.
I wouldn't say one song stands out above another; there is a genuinely sweet consistency throughout. Perhaps a fifty-minute album next time?
Matt has an album launch at the Slaughtered Lamb in London on 24th The Album: The Water or the Wave is available from Harbour Song Records on 8th July in CD 180g vinyl & Download
Pete
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We asked Matthew some questions about the record and other stuff HERE
- Album Reviews
Review by Kevin Hand, June 2013
I like this album, the latest by prolific solo electronic Edinburgh artist Richard Haswell. It’s extremely well produced, by the man himself, with references to post-Dark Side Pink Floyd. At times his voice sounds uncannily like Gilmour. But it’s more imaginative than that –first track Jarvik-13 is a driving anthem with treated guitars that sound like bagpipes. The Distance Between You and I feels like dark dancefloor Depeche Mode. And his admitted influences sound like a dream playlist – see below. Much is moving and mellow, especially the closer The Thinner the Ice.
I wanted to hear more – which should not be hard, as Richard has recorded over 20 albums! Recorded, produced and self-promoted, single-handedly. I was fascinated by this alternative way of music-making, and Richard was very open to my questioning:
KH: How easy it is it to self-produce your own material to this quality?
RH: If I was being honest the self-production process is a difficult and painstaking one. I don't have the best of equipment or software but having recorded on a 4-track tape recorder for years there are many advantages with computer software. Sometimes though a song will drive you to your absolute limit, as with Jarvik-13 (I almost lost the will to live mixing that! :). You are trying to get as close to the sound you have in your head and it often requires a lot of sifting and many different mixes before you get near that.
KH: Is it a personal choice, or would you prefer to be working with a label?
RH: Sometimes I feel I would like the support of a label, as to promote your own album requires a lot of work and it probably doesn't reach as wide an audience. Also the live aspect suffers - if I had a manager / label I would probably play live more but having to organise it myself it often gets put on the back burner. However I do love the artistic freedom I have to follow my own path
- Album Reviews
The Decemberists John Moen is releasing his second solo album under the moniker ‘Perhapst” via Portland, Oregon’s Jealous Butcher Records on 25 June.
The album is called ‘Revise Your Maps’ and is a record packed with bright, breezy reflective and harmonious, indie gems.
John Moen is the drummer and harmony right-hand man for the Decemberists, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, and Robert Pollard's Boston Spaceships. He also played with, Elliott Smith as well as being the former front man of Portland's legendary band Maroons.
- Album Reviews
If this band get into the realms of a Lacuna Coil or Fall Out Boy or even the heady heights of the Arena bands then, this debut EP will be much sought after in years to come, If they don’t make it that far up the food chain then, it will be a CD lovingly cherished by the bands’ fanbase.
The EP sounds like a debut. A hungry raw performance, blasting out of the speakers. Musically a very sound band, perhaps more strength in the vocals would not go amiss but, that will come with time and for a debut EP the talents of the band are well showcased.
1. Eat Up The Sun
2. Reg Flag
3. Erzulie
4. Bondye
5. Aida Wedo
6. Mawu
7. Zaka
You can catch Vodum live with all the smoke and chaos that comes with their live show at the Dalston Victoria this Friday (7th June)
- Album Reviews
Eyes & No Eyes release their debut 7" 'If No One Else Saw It'/ 'Flying Machine' on 24th June via Willkommen Records.
A side 'If No One Else Saw It' is a really delightful song, much in the songwriting style of The Leisure Society and with the same vibrancy. The guitar lines veer towards a Boxer Rebellion / Antlers combined outfit.
B Side 'Flying Machine' has a wider landscape, reverb guitar and a cello base. This really is a single to get excited about.
The band met at art school in Brighton and have spent the last year recording their debut album and racking up tours and shows around the UK and Europe with the likes of Do Make Say Think, Gravenhurst, Damo Suzuki and Sons of Noel and Adrian.
The four members of the band play guitar, bass, drums and cello – with some extra analog synths and electronics added by the band and collaborator / co-conspirator Woodpecker Wooliams.
So the album is something to look forward, in the meantime the single will be with us even sooner.
The band will play two London shows at the Corsica Studios on 19th June and the Shacklewell Arms on 3rd July.
Pete
Band Blog spot
- Album Reviews
‘Where do The National go from here?’ is what echoed after the release of their previous studio album ‘High Violet’ in 2010. Arena tours? With their expansive back catalogue and their new mainstream success now behind them, possibly. Cult heroes? With their huge fan base of everyone from hipsters in skinny jeans to Dad Rock lovers rediscovery their groove, probably.
They are in fact somewhere in between the two. Arena shows dotted across an expansive 2013 tour The National have been growing from strength to strength ever since Boxer was released. It was critically acclaimed, and by some listed as the best album of the decade, and similar pressure grew around the band before the release of High Violet, which arrived with more of the same, where nothing disappointed.
Trouble Will Find Me is the band’s sixth studio album, and one that far from disappoints. Released at a time where marketing campaigns reign supreme (I’m looking at you Daft Punk), to try and capture mainstream success. The band could have found this a struggle. However, this record is everything you want and more, from anthems like Sea of Love to classic National songs such as Demons and I Need My Girl. It provides a full cultural experience.
Yes there is never one album where every song is incredible; there is always a filler. Even a filler on a National record is still slicker than your average.
Where the charts are dominated by pop acts loved by one half, and then complained about by the other half, Trouble Will Find Me is a refreshing change for the latter. The National have returned with another classic record and proves that they are here to stay.
10/11
@thejoeeley
- Album Reviews
Farao is a young Norwegian based in
Ghosting Season are two dark Manc lads who also use the wonderful name ‘worriedaboutsatan’. Their remix sorts out the drums, but makes Skin sound like Everything but the Girl; it will probably do well on the cooler dance floors, but takes away some of Farao’s originality.
Kevin Hand
Farao will be performing her first
Check out the new remix of Farao's debut single 'Skin' by Ghosting Season for yourself HERE
- Album Reviews
Seven piece Swansea/Bristol outfit 'The Phantom Light', have released a five song EP called ‘Sky Lanterns’. Named after a 1935 film called The Phantom Light set on the desolate coast of Wales, the band’s music on this EP could really reflect that sometimes bleak but wonderful landscape.
Like Newcastle’s Lanterns on the Lake, the title song and EP opener, ‘Sky Lanterns’ starts gently then builds throughout into a final ‘wall of guitars’ crescendo and quite honestly, the whole adventure of these lengthy songs is like a widescreen movie between your ears.
The Phantom Light are Anthony Jones (vocals), Aisha Chaouche (backing vocals), Shaun Moseley (keyboards/synth), Jason Jones (guitars/synths), Simon Jones (guitars), Ed Purcell (bass), Matt James (drums).
Pete
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photo of the band taken by John Wellings
The EP is available as a download and will also be available as a very limited edition CD which can be purchased on Bandcamp There is also a music video from the EP and the Band Website
- Album Reviews
The Hot Lights have a vibrant guitar led sound evoking the world of Big Star, Teenage Fanclub and The Posies.
The band actually hail from Cambridge but it’s an American heritage that predominates the five songs on this debut EP. Every upbeat song is a toe-tapper with the sweet ballad of ‘Mistakes’ snuck into the middle of the ep. Fingers crossed this will end up a nice companion to a long hot summer!
Take a listen to the EP yourself HERE
Pete
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