On a recent single from their latest album, Bristol indie fuzzers Langkamer sing pensively about a storm in a coffee cup. But as they kicked off the second leg of their UK tour on home soil it was more of a storm in the Jam Jar, one of the city’s hidden gem venues which proved the perfect place for the four-piece to smash a bottle of champagne against new album No.
On a chilly Saturday night at the Grove, Newcastle, Divorce walk out onstage beneath a hand-painted blue banner, a bright, home-made backdrop that perfectly frames their lively, DIY world. The band are touring their debut album, Drive to Goldenhammer, an ode to the band’s home of Nottingham and an escape into the refuge of creation. They open with Karen, a lullaby-esque entry into the world of Goldenhammer, and barrel straight into the anthemic Jet Show without taking a breath. Next is Gears, an older single and the set’s first example of the two vocalists’ perfectly blended harmonies, erupting into a frustrated chorus.
Inside Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club, the post-gig after party (1) is in full swing. The floor’s been swept of its discarded beer cups, the residue still sticky on the boot soles. The tunes are uplifting but not quite matching a euphoric aura that hangs in the air - because we’re only midway between back-to-back sold out sets from Minehead’s finest (and only?) - Getdown Services.
Luvcat’s new LP is a Bond–girl–meets–haunted–cabaret spectacle, shot through with the motif of a recurring circus refrain...
Where this melody stands out most is in the fourth track, ‘Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel’, a vaudeville-esque ballad that’s chock-full of manic, jazzy, waltzing orchestration. The track before it, ‘Matador’, introduces the theme on a pared-back acoustic guitar, starting as a playful, jangly tune that hints at the eeriness to come, almost as if the song were playing from a haunted music box. ‘Matador’, as well as the title track ‘Vicious Delicious’, are reminiscent of Panic! At The Disco’s debut album, with their twisted takes on dark romance, performance, and mystique making the listening experience feel more like stumbling onto a shadowy conspiracy.
Listening to Will Paquin’s debut album, ‘Hahaha’, feels like both a reflection and a rebirth, an energetic, genre-bending journey through memory, heartbreak, and the messy joy of moving forward. Across eleven tracks, Paquin balances raw emotion with jangly riffs, buoyant melodies, and a new, grungey garage-rock sound.
“Are you ready to collide?” echoed around Queen Square in Bristol twice, and twice 15,000 bodies answered the barked question in the emphatic affirmative. IDLES were back in town, making their only UK gigs of the year into full-scale block parties across the first Friday and Saturday in August for an exquisite homecoming.
They say it takes a lifetime to write your first album, then six months to write your second. Presumably, the latter only happens if the former generates enough of a splash, certainly the case for ‘Post Industrial Hometown Blues’, last year’s fine ode to not-so-quiet desperation, the debut release from West Midlands troubadours Big Special.
I am fairly sure you cannot improve on perfection. In Orbital’s case, reissuing their spellbinding ‘Brown’ album (London Records) was always going to be warmly greeted, but what else did the brothers Hartnoll have in their locker? In stark contrast to Kraftwerk’s recent unmolested 50th anniversary reissue of ‘Autobahn’, the duo managed to curate a thirty-twotrack 4 CD boxed techno odyssey.
Unruly West Midlands duo Big Special return to Leeds just over 12 months after tearing Key Club a new one, courtesy of a thunderous set, expertly capturing the raw anger and quiet desperation of debut long player ‘Post Industrial Hometown Blues’.
Zzzahara is American singer-songwriter Zahara Jaime; part Filipino, part Mexican, all California; or more specifically, Los Angeles. Waves of sun and grit spill out of this, their third album; a sound so uniquely Angeleno you can almost hear the traffic. Defiantly formed in the ashes of an ill-fated relationship, the emotion is thick and palpable. It’s a cliché to talk about sun-drenched guitar melodies, but the dreamy, beachy sound is undeniable. There are hints of Girls in there, of early Grimes, of Sky Ferreira's better produced moments.
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.
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.
