Orbital: A Beginner’s Guide (ALBUM REVIEW)

I can still recall the moment Orbital first entered my life. Coming to after kipping on a friend’s floor after a night on the tiles, the room suddenly filled with the delightfully ethereal sampled vocal of Kirsty Hawkshaw, expertly fucked about with on Orbital’s slowest of slow burner introduction to ‘Halcyon + on + on’. A somewhat lengthier and bouncier mix of its original, arguably the track’s definitive version and of course, the delicious denouement of Orbital’s magnificent second album commonly known as ‘Brown’, my gateway to Phil and Paul’s unique variety of Hartnoll techno heaven.

Lazy Day 'Open the Door' (ALBUM REVIEW)

Lazy Day’s first full lengther Open the Door is the culmination of a ten year journey by Tilly Scantlebury, formerly of Brighton band Hella Better Dancer. An art historian by day, they have built on previous lo(wer)-fi releases, to curate a tightly bound and far slicker collection this time.

 

Evan Dando - (LIVE REVIEW) Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, October 21st 2024

Prior to this show, the not-entirely-positive reviews coming out of recent US tours had given me a sense of foreboding, which was not entirely justified. Strong support came from Ella Raphael; beautiful sunbeam tinged blues, reminiscent of Hope Sandoval at her hazy best; and Juanita Stein (formally of Howling Bells), with her nostalgia soaked, perfectly constructed Americana. 

 

Crows 'Reason Enough' (ALBUM REVIEW and TOUR PREVIEW)

Crows return with third album Reason Enough having taken the sandpaper to some of their sharpest edges. The London four-piece have built a formidable reputation for their leaden take on post punk, which here is occasionally tempered to produce their most accessible tunes to date, but with no compromise on the poise and attitude. 

Jon Hopkins 'RITUAL' (ALBUM REVIEW)

Very much a comedown album, each of the eight pieces fuse soothing ambient and abrasive industrial, creating a droning hypnotic otherworldly soundscape, eerily redolent of contemporary science fiction cinema.

Enumclaw 'Home in Another Life' (ALBUM REVIEW)

They couldn’t have known, could they? Enumclaw have long called themselves the “best band since Oasis”, and in the run up to the release of their second album the Gallagher brothers announced their big reunion out of the blue. A matter of hours before Home in Another Life hit the shelves, tickets for the Manchester legends’ UK tour went on sale. We’ll leave it to the conspiracy theorists from here.

HAMISH HAWK 'A Firmer Hand ' (Album Review)

Anyone naming a song ‘The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion 1973’ who then manages to make the end product an unforgettable 4-minute pop-art mini epic probably needs to be taken seriously. 

Plus One's Artist In Focus: Adult Leisure

The brilliant new single from Bristol alt-indie darlings Adult Leisure perfectly captures a top-down, wind-in-the-hair joyride which, in this case, is probably one heading north on the M5.

WHY? The Well I Fell Into (Album Review)

Experimental Cleveland quartet’s eighth album release, their first in half a decade, takes its title from a line within third track ‘Brand New’, a shimmering summery pop song comprising a splendidly cathartic yet mature take on the impact of emotional turmoil, a recurring theme throughout this 14-song offering.

ACDC Wembley Stadium, London, July 7th 2024 (LIVE REVIEW)

Yet another grizzled rock and roll band defying the tests of time on what could be their final dates, Aussie metal legends ACDC proved they can still show the youngsters how to rock. Packing in 80,000 rock fans spanning several generations on a thankfully dry summer evening, one could perhaps contend ACDC’s enduring popularity to the paucity of new rock acts coming through the ranks.

Grace Jones, Halifax Piece Hall, June 22nd 2024 (LIVE REVIEW)

Pull up to the bumper baby, it's Grace Jones

Ten years ago I experienced something of an epiphany at the opening day of Skipton’s much missed Beacons music festival. Whilst enjoying a beer in the Friday afternoon sunshine, the DJ in the bar suddenly played Grace Jones' signature track ‘Pull Up to the Bumper’, me quickly realising I’d obviously never listened to it properly and what a truly brilliant record it was. Jones’ quintessential deadpan Caribbean disco fused with New York arthouse punk funk propelled by the Sly & Robbie rhythm section to thrilling effect, arguably picking up where Jimi Hendrix ‘Crosstown Traffic’ left off.

Plus One's Artist in Focus: Hello Mary

New York-based indie-rock trio release 90's noise-inspired single 0%

Photo credit: Cooper Winterson

Hello Mary (Helena Straight, Stella Wave and Mikaela Oppenheimer) have released a new stand alone single '0%' which brings to the fore all the favourable sounds of the alternative nineties. The single is heavy with distorted guitars, crunching low end bass and desperately frustrated screams, sparring with shoegaze-dripped melody and they wrap it all up in under three minutes. 

Air 'Moon Safari - Live'. Royal Albert Hall, London, May 31st 2024

Something in the Air tonight, at The Royal Albert Hall

Sounding like the members of Electric Light Orchestra were kidnapped, thrown into the back of a Citroen 2CV van, driven (slowly) to Paris before ram raiding the local branch of Tandy, French duo AIR’s timeless debut long player ‘Moon Safari’ is still arguably THE definitive Sunday morning album, effortlessly granting the listener a forty-odd minute intergalactic interlude away from their weekly grind. 

Lip Critic ' Hex Dealer' (ALBUM REVIEW)

"...there is life beyond guitars when it comes to muscular riot-starting punk".

This review has two different readerships – those who have witnessed a Lip Critic gig and those who have not. Because the bombastic New Yorkers’ deranged, bludgeoning live performances rearrange the atoms in your auditory cortex, and you might just as well try to bottle sunlight as capture their monumental sound and presence on record.

BIG SPECIAL @Key Club, Leeds, May 8th 2024, LIVE REVIEW

West Midlands duo keep it real at Leeds' Key Club

Photo: Isaac Watson 

My only previous Key Club visit was a raucous Saturday afternoon IDLES appearance at a Live @ Leeds festival many moons ago that practically razed the place to the ground. 

 

No pressure then for West Midland duo BIG SPECIAL whose razor-sharp kitchen-sink-full-of-Special-Brew single ‘Shithouse’’ first piqued my interest. With debut long player ‘Post Industrial Hometown Blues’ gleaming on the shelves and a 30-date sell out UK tour underway, things seem to be happening for Walsall based frontman Joe Hicklin and his batshit Brummie mate from college, drummer Callum Moloney.  

John Robb - Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll? Live from The Old Woollen, Leeds, 28/4/2024

Ever wish you’d been born ten years earlier? An unusual phenomenon perhaps but while I’ve got you, please allow me a moment’s elaboration. In my case, emerging a decade sooner would have seen my formative years immersed in the nation’s Beatlemania thrall instead of the fab four as a fading memory, my early teens coinciding with glam, my late teens punk and post punk instead of hair metal…..bah! 

Fat Dog @The Fulford Arms, York, May 6th 2024 (LIVE REVIEW)

Credit: Tom White

London quintet Fat Dog have bemused and frustrated some dull press types because they can't be neatly popped into their tidy little boxes of shiny new bands. London quintet Fat Dog have outraged some fans of other bands when they supported certain acts on tour recently and basically blew their headliners off the stage. London quintet Fat Dog have been causing quite a bit of a stir it’s fair to say. Is it a serious jaunt into the world of rock and roll or are they just having a bit of a laugh (at our expense?). I don’t really know, and don’t really care. It’s an infectious racket and it needs to be heard. 

Frank Turner, @Boom Leeds, May 4th 2024 (LIVE REVIEW)

Frank Turner is fresh-faced, fully charged and (importantly to the bigger picture) climbing on to Boom’s tiny stage on time as he prepares to play his third show already today, and its only 4pm. He’s attempting a world record for playing the most gigs in different cities in 24 hours to raise support and awareness of grassroots music venues. It’s a tall order which will take him from Liverpool to Southampton in a London e-taxi, a trip of roughly 500 miles, with a final show at noon tomorrow. 

Big Special 'Postindustrial Hometown Blues' (ALBUM REVIEW)

The debut album from Birmingham duo BIG SPECIAL is ferociously ambitious, to the point that their identity is about as fixed as the British weather. This all starts to make sense when vocalist Joe Hicklin waxes lyrical about his influences, which stretch from Jimi Hendrix to bluesman Robert Johnson to country maverick William Elliott Whitmore – not to mention the novels of Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski – but bringing them all together coherently is a trick he and Callum Moloney are still in the process of mastering. Not least because somewhere in there they’ve stuck a stick of dynamite up a synthesiser and given Moloney free rein to work through some stuff on the drums.

Plus One's Artist in Focus: Anna Erhard

Anna Erhard releases new single and announces European tour

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.

Gossip 'Real Power' (ALBUM REVIEW)

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. 

Coco ‘2’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

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.  

Kill The Pain (LIVE REVIEW) The Old Woollen, Leeds, February 21st 2024

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

Solar Eyes (self-titled) (ALBUM REVIEW)

 

“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. 

Plus One's Artist in Focus: Metz

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.

IDLES ‘Tangk’ ALBUM REVIEW

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).

Plus One's Artist in Focus: Lip Critic

 

                                                                    Photo: Justin Villar

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.

Tiger Island ‘Looka Looka Looka’ EP REVIEW

 

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].