 |
| Photo: Noel Richter |
Back in September 2023 we had the pleasure of catching Swiss-born singer and songwriter Anna Erhard live at The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds. Part of a short UK tour, on the back of single release "170". That evening's dreamy laid-back set showcased a new song "Botanical Garden" which has just been released via Radicalis Music.
 |
It’s great to see Gossip back where they belong, stage front, fanatical audience wrapped around vocalist Beth Ditto’s little finger. Wowing a clearly delighted throng at the recent 6 music festival it’s as if they’d never been away, not forgetting a barnstorming groove-laden new single ‘Real Power’ and now a brand new long player boasting the same moniker. The trio’s sixth album, released on Columbia records, their first new record in a dozen years serves as a fitting marker to the American trio’s twenty-five years together.
Continuing the near recent trend of bands releasing new music anonymously or without fanfare, experimental stateside combo Coco unveiled their titular debut long player following a bunch of early singles appearing as if by magic. Each record comprised languid, deeply infectious slices of soft rock, winning hearts and minds from many an unsuspecting listener.
Chanteuses Melanie Pain and Phoebe Killdeer, rotating vocalists within surprisingly joyful French new wave covers band Nouvelle Vague, recently joined forces, the perfect vehicle to create some self-penned pop nuggets of their own within semi-eponymous side project Kill the Pain. Tonight sees the Gallic duo opening for their former bandmates at a packed Old Woollen, the first of eight dates together on these shores, Phoebe adorned in a striking tinsel wig (presumably replete with the appropriate fire certification beneath the hot stage lighting) as she emerges from the gloom
“There’s no escape, like Alcatraz,” goes the mesmeric middle section of the opening song on the debut album from Birmingham psych pop duo Solar Eyes. And it’s certainly easy to get sucked in – before you know it you’ve passed the psych-getti Western stylings of ‘Dreaming of the Moon’ and greasy Oasis-isms of album highlight ‘She Kissed the Gun’, dayglo colours streaming past you as you go.
 |
| Photo credit: Vanessa Heins |
METZ are playing us like a fiddle, offering up a brace of new songs to give a tantalising look at where their heads are at on their forthcoming fifth album, and obviously we’ve been sucked in. ‘99’ shoves upbeat and atmospheric verses down concrete steps for a typically discordant chorus, and ‘Entwined’ takes a sharp left turn for a dreamy middle section bookended by joyful noise.
Whether they’ve wanted it or not, antagonism has dogged IDLES for most of their career. The Bristol band started off as the instigators, going after everything from the Tories to toxic masculinity, before being pushed towards the back foot at the hands of a rabid media, a strangely militant haterbase and, let’s face it, an underwhelming third album (the now all-but-disowned Ultra Mono).
With more drummers (two) than guitar strings (zero), Lip Critic are at the marauding vanguard of NYC punk, and pummeling new single 'The Heart' is thrilling and just a little bit stressful. Vocally it's straight up-and-down punk rock, but underneath the song is powered by frenetic work on two samplers - bringing Death Grips comparisons into the conversation isn't very creative but is inevitable. And one of the most pleasing aspects of it all is the pair of drummers are just doubling up the beats rather than intertwining complex rhythms, a means to a sledgehammer end which quite rightly smashes through any semblance of subtlety. A debut album awaits later this year.
Emerging from the post Covid ennui brimming with defiance, West Yorkshire DIY punk quintet Tiger Island feel like a band stuck in a malfunctioning time machine, constantly veering Goodnight Sweetheart style back and forth from the eighventies [sic].