Monday 23 June 2014

Fucked Up - Leeds Belgrave Music Hall


Spearheaded by a man with a vague whiff of a broadsheet journalist about him, Copenhagen’s Lower paint a resolutely bleak canvas that effortlessly marries post-punk and 80s hardcore. There’s plenty to engage with in Lower’s Joy Division-aping grey landscape and Adrian Toubro’s impassioned, often spoken word delivery, but I’m left with the feeling that until they arm themselves with a handful of ‘tunes’ they’ll struggle to capture imaginations in the way that Leeds’ very own Eagulls have done over the past 12 months, performing a very similar style of music.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Straight Arrows 'Rising'



Blank Realm, Royal Headache, Beaches; Aussie psyche influenced guitar certainly seems to be having a moment right now. Into the kaleidoscope swirl is Rising, the second offering from Straight Arrows, the Owen Penglis helmed project from Sydney. Originally concieved as a mechanism for the erstwhile producer to yell about break ups and band politics, their debut It’s Happening was a warmly received, if not exactly groundbreaking nostalgia tinged fuzz fest. What we get here is more of the same, but slightly thicker sounding, like they’ve given their sound time to grow into itself 

Wednesday 11 June 2014

Joe Innes & The Cavalcade 'Brian, I'm A Genius Too' EP


If Joe Innes and The Cavalcade don’t define oddball then I don’t know what does.
The vibrant Joe Innes from London is joined by his equally eclectic indie-folk band The Cavalcade, put together by Joe himself back in 2011, to produce the group’s new EP Brian, I’m a Genius Too. Odd, yet touched by a stroke of genius, the new record is their best yet. It features some of London’s finest musicians including the Worry Dolls, Effra and Patch and the Giant, and was recorded live at London’s Soup Studios; it is a decidedly British affair.

Tuesday 10 June 2014

Sean Grant And The Wolfgang 'We The Working Class' EP


Sean Grant and the WolfGang have come roaring through the folk rock scene like a well-Febrezed hurricane with their debut release ‘We The Working Class’, a four-track EP which blows away the cobwebs that have been accumulating ever since Mumford & Sons launched a thousand imitators, a good portion of whom tried to channel some angst and jump from NME to Kerrang. Sorry pal, strumming your Martin until the strings break while howling about your ex isn’t going to cut it anymore. Enter Sean Grant and the WolfGang, whose folk credentials remain impeccably intact while they administer a shot in the arm to the flagging genre…