Archive For The “Indie” Category
There is no greater irritant than a bunch of whey faced middle class twerps attempting to play reggae and in this respect, ‘Macchu Picchu’ is atrocious as genocide. The good news is that after this most miserable of starts, the Strokes remind us that new wave did not die with Elvis Costello’s ‘Spike’, and is … Continue reading »
Simply. Brilliant. Take that Mr. Cowell… There are times when it seems its just not worth chewing through the straps and for those of us that remember Thatcherism in all it’s hideous detail, the empty council housing, the riots in Parliament Square, the pointless and tragic Falklands conflict, even Ben Elton deserves to be recognised [...]
God bless Placebo! Spiteful, excessive and narcissistic, they rock like cannibals. Nineties mutant offspring. Take a pinch of Jerry Lee Lewis, stir in the Spiders from Mars, bring to the boil with a dollop of Bauhaus. We should be proud…Happy Ne…
No question here, album of the year has to be ‘High Violet’ by The National. Absolutely stunning and it has to be said, streets ahead of the competition. This was the year The National really delivered. A league of their own. The next nine, reviewed elsewhere in these pages… 2. Tindersticks – Falling Down A [...]
The best songs sound as though they were discovered rather than contrived, and in ‘Cattle and Cane’ the Go-Between’s Grant McLennan gave us one of the truly brilliant songs of the early eighties. Quite unlike anything else from the period, this is catchy, quirky and lyrical. A wonderfully evocative snapshot; infused with melancholy, looking forward, [...]
Eighties icon in punctuation jape! Another immaculate collection from rock’s most literate songwriter. Lloyd Cole writes songs that sound so natural they might have been plucked out of the air. This collection, backed by a band featuring Fred Maher, Blair Cowan from the Commotions and Joan ‘As Police Woman’ Wasser, is the strongest in a 
The band that put the gorgeous in Goth. Astoundingly beautiful in places, this album awakened a hitherto uncaring world to the pleasures housed by the 4AD label. Featuring members of the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Colourbox and Modern English performing songs by some truly great songwriters including the then unfashionable Alex Chilton, Roy Harper 
Beer, Bourbon and cheap motels. This strange collaboration just keeps on giving. The third album from Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan is occasionally quite sublime; Blues and Murder Balladry of the highest order from an enduring partnership which suggests that Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood’s Jackson was more than just a wicked tease. Shades of 
Beneath this curmudgeonly exterior beats the heart of an unrepentant if slightly ancient, romantic, with a penchant for the kind of grandiloquent nonsense so beloved of our old friends Echo & the Bunnymen. Indeed it was only days ago, that trudging along the Brighton promenade in the relentless drizzle I was torn between roundly cursing 
