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…
The Vaccines: Come Of Age album review {rating} Buy: Come Of Age More than any other current band, The Vaccines understand the current music industry landscape perfectly. There are no ‘big bands’ anymore, and there probably never will be again. The days of people camping outside record shops for the latest Oasis album are well…
Spiritualized – ’Sweet Heart, Sweet Light [rating:4/5] Buy Sweet Heart Sweet Light For me, there are just two types of responses people have after listening to Spiritualized – there are those that love them, and then there are those that just haven’t listened properly. Ever since 1997’s seminal Ladies And Gentlemen… We Are Floating In…
Babyshambles – Sequel To The Prequel {rating} Download: Sequel to the Prequel It’s impossible to talk about a new Babyshambles album without focusing on the headline-making, drug-taking antics of one Peter Doherty. But all that kind of talk is so mid-Noughties, and if anyone deserves credit for getting Sequel To The Prequel made it’s bassist…
