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...
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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...
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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...
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The most disappointing thing about the new Arcade Fire album is that it is not 1972 and I am no longer a spotty loon pant clad urchin, for this release has been accompanied by as much tremulous anticipation as any release by say King Crimson or god love ‘em, Family. Happily, it is a...
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Absolutely sublime recreation of late eighties indie pop. Peter Hook’s patented basslines, the Cocteau Twins gorgeous sheen, Johnny Marr’s cascading guitars, the Chameleon’s romantic melancholy, Felt’s sublime majesty. I’m transported back to the Panic Station, Dingwall’s monday nights…this is ecstatically brilliant and big thanks to Paul Ilechko for the tip!
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Take one part Vampire Weekend, one part Jonathan Richman and stir vigorously. Throw in a smidgen of Dick Dale and a respectful nod in the direction of the Cure and you might well think that you have a recipe for aural purgatory. For reasons I cannot fathom, this record fails to irritate, indeed it...
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An absolutely furious recording. Drumming of splendid brutality embellished with cascading guitars and vocal harmonies that surely originate from a demented barbershop in hell’s deepest circle. In truth this record adds a degree of sophistication to the lupine oevre and in so doing subtracts nothing from the gleefully deranged experience that listening to Wolf...
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