Tuesday 22 September 2020

IDLES 'Ultra Mono' (ALBUM REVIEW)


When pushing something subversive, what do you do when the exact thing you're trying to subvert welcomes you in with open arms? Just as Rage Against the Machine faced accusations of selling out for selling literally anything, the establishment-baiting IDLES are now face to face with a mainstream success they never prepared for, and a system waiting expectantly for the de facto poster boys of a wave of socially aware guitar music to fail – purely, it seems, for the sake of it.

Saturday 19 September 2020

Osees 'Protean Threat' (ALBUM REVIEW)


At this point it's almost too easy for John Dwyer. The man responsible for a garage-rock outfit so psychedelic it is now on its eighth near-identical name (currently Osees, previously The Ohsees, The Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, and Oh Sees and before that Orinoka Crash Suite, OCS, Orange County Sound) seems to have broken free of anything vaguely normal and entered the state… beyond.