Muse – The 2nd Law {rating} Buy: The 2nd Law When announcing his band’s sixth studio album on Twitter in June, Muse’s Matt Bellamy explained the title with this enticing and typically cryptic open-ended statement: “All natural and technological processes proceed in such a way that the availability of the remaining energy decreases. In all…
Neil Young – Le Noise Neil Young has always been a restless musician – his prolific song-writing and adventurous out-law spirit has led him down many different musical paths throughout his career, as well as seeing him leave a lot of musical partners by the wayside. This single-minded, often reckless approach to making music is…
After 15 years at the top, the Manchester legends release their swan-song – a 27-song tour through their biggest hits. But is it really needed? It’s been almost a year since the UK’s biggest band finally imploded on that fateful night in Paris. Since then, thoughts have naturally turned to the Gallagher brothers’ first output…
The story of how electronic legend Aphex Twin’s ‘long-lost’ 1994 album Caustic Window has found its way onto YouTube is either a cautionary modern tale about the craziness of the online world we now live in, or an exciting development in ‘crowd-funded’ music. If it wasn’t for Kickstarter, Caustic Window would only have been available…
G.O.O.D. Music – Cruel Summer {rating} Buy: G.O.O.D. Music – Cruel Summer On paper it sounds like a good idea – the self-styled ‘Prince’ of hip-hop shaking off the seriousness of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and getting the cream of his G.O.O.D. Music label together for a more spontaneous sounding album aimed squarely at…
The Killers – Battle Born {rating} Buy: Battle Born There’s lots of words that spring to mind when listening to Battle Born – lazy, unimaginative, boring, cynical, patronising, cliche…. but one comes to mind more than any other – ’why’. As in: why the fuck are The Killers still making such uninspired, Springsteen-aping, ‘stadium-ready’ albums?…
Hurts – Happiness Mancunian electro-duo Hurts (singer Theo Hutchcraft and knob-twiddler Adam Anderson) have been dividing opinion ever since they released debut single ‘Better Than Love’ earlier this year. Some see their heavily polished and highly stylised 80’s synth-pop as too cold and clinical and a demonstration of everything that went wrong with 80’s music…
Kasabian – Velociraptor! [rating:4.5/5] It must be a bit frustrating for Kasabian that, even after the success of their inventively psychedelic third album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, they are still branded in some quarters as unoriginal lad-rockers in thrall to the likes of Oasis and Primal Scream. While this may be an unfair judgement,…
The xx – Coexist {rating} Buy: Coexist After lead single ’Angels’ dropped a few months ago, it was clear that The xx’s second album was not going to deviate too much from their stunning 2009 debut. The fragile, emotional and oh-so-human voices, framed by Jamie Smith’s brooding and atmospheric production, was what made their debut…
Hot new psych-rockers TOY are streaming their self-titled debut album online a full week before it’s official release. Listen to it below and let me know what you think in the comments at the bottom… Ahead of the albums release, TOY have today released the awesome ‘Lose My Way’ as a single. The band are also…
