Album Reviews

Echodrone – Bon Voyage (Self-Release)
Bon Voyage, is the latest effort from San Francisco based shoegazers Echodrone, and the follow up to 2009's full length The Sun Rose In A Different Place. The recent EP extends the themes birthed in their previous record, with vocals taking centre stage and a clearer focus on guitar lines as they entwine around tidal bass. Their clean-cut shoegaze sound morphs into something a lot more psychedelic in Bon Voyage, with breathy dream-pop elements like gossamer vocals and celestial synths floating in.
Posted on Jul 27th, 2012
Angus Stone - Broken Brights
Recorded across the globe from the Swiss Alps, to the Australian coastline, to the Indian countryside, Broken Brights is Angus Stone’s first solo outing since 2009’s Smoking Gun under his Lady of the Sunshine moniker. He has said it’s his most personal work to date and the album drips with musical influences ranging from 70s rock to spaghetti western soundtracks.
Posted on Jul 23rd, 2012
The Flaming Lips - The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends (Bella Union)
The Flaming Lips have always obediently followed Jim Morrison’s instruction to 'break on through to the other side'. That is, if we presume that by 'other side' Jim meant to consistently produce outrageous psychedelia over a thirty-year career. On these terms they have succeeded admirably, from their origins in punky garage rock chaos, through the four cd (to be played simultaneously) lysergic brain ache of Zaireeka to their commercial zenith as purveyors of lush symphonic pop. Recent years have seen them step back from the more commercial sounds of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots with 2009's elongated noise jam Embryonic, their deranged cover version of The Dark Side of the Moon and an EP encased in a plastic skull. Their new release certainly continues this fine tradition of weirdness.
Posted on Jul 19th, 2012
kNIFE & fORK – The Higher You Get, The Rarer The Vegetation (The Bureau)
Multi-instrumentalist Eric Drew Feldman, known best for his work with Captain Beefheart, PJ Harvey and Frank Black, along with Laurie Hall of Ovarian Trolley fame again join forces for the second release under their kNIFE & fORK moniker. Receiving gushes of praise from Rolling Stone and PJ Harvey herself, the duo bring about a kind of familiar psych-rock music strained through the abstract sieve of 20th Century art-music composers to craft a haunting medley of punkadelica and flippant experimentations. The Higher You Get, The Rarer The Vegetation takes it's name from a Salvador Dalí quote – and when your mere title is taken from one of the biggest names in surrealism, you know the album is going to be... something else.
Posted on Jul 19th, 2012
Eagulls - Eagulls EP (Sexbeat)
Prog-punk merchants Eagulls are all ready to drop their new self-titled EP, after a slew of European tours with distinguished acts such as Iceage, Ceremony and Pulled Apart By Horses. Written between manic nights in the heartland of our beloved continent, the homegrown Leeds boys have honed their native rawness and abrasive, but somehow melodic, sound against the backdrop of tour vans and distant lands. Eagulls spent 2011 shooting out splits and singles and downloads and EPs all over the shop, achieving critical acclaim and bringing their indie-hardcore to the masses. These five lads have come a long way in their short time together, and this EP is what they have to show for it.
Posted on Jul 12th, 2012
run, WALK! - ☤
Bass and drums? This is really just bass and drums? It’s a dream that music like this is being created. It feels like being fired out of The Cave in a cannon by a cross between the Ghost of Plato and the Ghost of Christmas Future. While this feels like just the beginning, it is, alas, the end. ☤ , released through Holy Roar is the debut and only LP that will be unleashed upon the world from run, WALK! a drone-pop duo who will be playing their final show as a band at 2000 Trees Festival this coming Friday 13th of July (funnily enough, on the Cave Stage).
Posted on Jul 9th, 2012
XXL (Xiu Xiu/Larsen) – Düde (Tin Angel)
Xiu Xiu, the avant-garde noiseniks from San Jose, have teamed up with Italian rockers Larsen for another LP in their tried-and-tested method of ‘real-time’- improvising, arranging and recording the entirety of the new album within ten days down in Torino, Italy. It’s worth noting that this is the first XXL album featuring Angela Seo instead of Carolee McElroy, who departed the Xiu Xiu to join Cold Cave way back in 2009. Following on from ?Spicchiology?, which saw XXL mesh together as a band to be taken seriously, rather than a mere side project, Düde points the collective in a firm direction, honing their sound and forming the foundations of a prolonged bond between the two.
Posted on Jul 8th, 2012
Hatful Of Rain - Way Up On The Hill (Union Music Store)
Sussex-based roots outfit Hatful Of Rain came together at a 2010 South Coast folk festival when mandolin-player Fred Gregory (also with Porchlight Smoker) hooked up with vocalist Chloe Overton and banjo/bass-player Phil Jones, with the line-up completed at the first rehearsal by the appearance of Jones' mate James Shenton – a violinist whose fiddling credits range from the London Symphony Orchestra to the Balanescu Quartet.
Posted on Jul 5th, 2012
Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer - The Tweed Album
Mr B is back, detailing life on the Chap-Hop throne with The Tweed Album. His familiar styling of genteel rhymes and infectious beats have now affected a fresher approach to his tunes, stepping back from the sampled Hip-Hop tracks that made his name. Rife with beats, music hall musings, carnival-esque refrains and the trusty ukulele each track serves as a vignette into the alternate universe of The Gentleman Rhymer.
Posted on Jul 2nd, 2012
Justin Townes Earle - Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now (Bloodshot)
A relative newcomer to the storied line of whiskey-sodden frontmen who sound like they’d be more at home at the bar than on any sort of recorded music, Justin Townes Earle is one of the more hotly tipped talents to emerge from one of the true homes of Americana: Nashville, Tennessee.
Posted on Jul 2nd, 2012
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