Peter Silberman: Impermanence review – intimate and intense
(Transgressive)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: The Tourist review – teetering on the edge of hysteria
2017 is the year of renewal for former Pitchfork deities: Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, and now Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, whose 2005 debut caused major palpitations in the world of noughties blog rock. Last remaining member Alec Ounsworth’s fifth … Continue reading
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: Flying Microtonal Banana review – not as wacky as they sound
The first of five albums the Melbourne outfit are set to release in 2017 (frontman Stu Mackenzie is “no good at chilling”), Flying Microtonal Banana contains nine tracks of chugging psychedelic garage interspersed with classic riffage, including the kind of … Continue reading
Dirty Projectors: Dirty Projectors review – deliciously caustic breakup album
Few musicians have embraced the idea of a clean break more enthusiastically than Dave Longstreth, bandleader of experimental indie outfit Dirty Projectors. His group’s self-titled eighth record is a breakup album on three counts, documenting his separation from girlfriend and … Continue reading
Dirty Projectors: Dirty Projectors review – spectacular sonic fallout
David Longstreth’s breakup with former bandmate Amber Coffman is inescapable on this incendiary set
Vant: Dumb Blood review – workaday nu-grunge with toe-curling lyrics
As anyone who witnessed A Tribe Called Quest booting a border wall to bits at the Grammys will attest, this is an unusually lively time for politically minded pop music of all stripes. Of course, the downside to such engagement … Continue reading
Dutch Uncles: Big Balloon review – broke and betrayed in austerity Britain
Here’s an alternative to the aggro punk poetry of Sleaford Mods: for their fifth album, Dutch Uncles have captured the cold, industrial grind of being broke and betrayed in austerity Britain. After 2015’s O Shudder – an odyssey into awkward … Continue reading
Flo Morrissey and Matthew E White review – a one-night-stand Carpenters
Getting together to have some fun with other people’s songs, the folk-soul pairing made soft-rock magic out of silken harmonies
Froth: Outside (Briefly) review – shoegaze revivalists make fuzz with precision
As anyone familiar with the work of Cheatahs, DIIV or Nothing will know, we’re not exactly short of shoegaze revivalists these days, and the dangers of getting lost amid a sea of similarly minded artists are manifold. But with their … Continue reading
Jens Lekman: Life Will See You Now review – mordant but joyous indiepop
It’s been more than four years since the last Jens Lekman album, years in which, by his own account, he struggled to make music that seemed worthwhile. His muse was rekindled in 2015, when he decided to write a song … Continue reading
Rag’n’Bone Man: Human review – like Joe Cocker singing over Moby
Related: ‘The music industry is brutal’: Rag’n’Bone Man and RAY BLK on being 2017’s most hotly tipped This year’s Brits critics’ choice winner Rag’n’Bone Man, AKA Rory Graham, has already scored a No 2 smash with the grittily soulful Human, … Continue reading
Conor Oberst review – impassioned and entertainingly abrasive
Fired up and on form, the prolific Nebraskan delivered two hours of heart-on-sleeve vignettes – and a pop at Trump
Japandroids: Near to the Wild Heart of Life review – emo-rock for grownups
Few others do gorgeous distortion like Vancouver’s Japandroids. Previous records had a lo-fi garage edginess to them – skittish drums, lyrical yelps, cavalcades of crunch – but Near to the Wild Heart of Life, their third album, is so luxuriously … Continue reading