Keane: Cause and Effect review – even a jaunty indie quartet can have a mid-life crisis
Transitioning from innocence to experience, the Somewhere Only We Know gang provide a bitter account of the end of a relationship
Hiss Golden Messenger: Terms of Surrender review – songs of despair turned to hope
MC Taylor’s 11th album was written in depression but finds notes of hope – and a musical sound that fuses old with new
Pixies: Beneath the Eyrie review – workaday once again
Revered bands re-forming for live dates is one thing. However, with a few honourable exceptions – the Go-Betweens, Sleater-Kinney , more recently the Futureheads – trying to recreate past glories in the recording studio is generally at best anticlimactic for … Continue reading
Sam Fender: Hypersonic Missiles review – perfectly imperfect rock debut
The North Shields singer-songwriter may look cookie-cutter but his gritty, gloriously anthemic songs on toxic masculinity, violence and death are anything but
Bat for Lashes: Lost Girls review – the everyday supernatural
Development hell has many circles, into one of which fell the sequel to Joel Schumacher’s classic 1987 teen-goth film The Lost Boys; despite several attempts by Schumacher and others, The Lost Girls never appeared. Enter Natasha Khan, the UK’s premier … Continue reading
End of the Road festival review – potent bacchanalia and mysticism
‘See you in the twilight zone’ says one musician; EOTR has enough weirdness, charm and shaggy charisma to weather our end-of-days era
The Futureheads: Powers review – a welcome return
A ceaselessly innovative mix of post-punk dynamics, melodic nous and intricate four-part harmonies always set the Futureheads apart from their 00s indie peers. Indeed, there’s an argument that had they come from Brooklyn instead of Sunderland they could have been … Continue reading
Ezra Furman: Twelve Nudes review – an electrifying roar of hopelessness and rage
Furman continues to renege on his retirement with a gloriously angry punk album that takes aim at his broken homeland
Edwyn Collins review – soulful inspiration still ripping it up
At times using his walking stick as a conductor’s baton, Collins may have turned 60 but he’s not letting up in this cracking show
Cate Le Bon review – a private storm of poised emotion
The Welsh musician keeps her distance but enthrals her audience with a gently staccato voice and unsettling new music
Jay Som: Anak Ko review – subtly impressive
Now on her third album as Jay Som, LA-based Melina Duterte began as a bedroom pop operative, writing and playing the entirety of her first two well-received albums. Her subtle, gauzy indie shared a love of 80s shoegaze with a … Continue reading
Tropical Fuck Storm: Braindrops review – punchy alt punks in a burning world
Australian band maps their own music from post punk, rock, funk and noise in songs about mind control and decay
Green Man festival review – mesmerising and otherworldly
Shaking off its folky roots, artists such as Four Tet, Yo La Tengo and Father John Misty transform the Black mountains into a mega-party
