The Chameleons – “Dali’s Picture”

It’s a bit of an odd thing to end up being the source of news about one of your favourite bands that you’d rather be reading about than writing, but here we are. The Chameleons continue their interesting/frustrating habit of putting out new releases without going to too much trouble to let people know about […]

Interpol / The Black EP

When Interpol’s landmark debut album Turn On The Bright Lights turned 10 back in 2012, the band marked it with a fancy-pants deluxe edition full-court press of interviews and recollections which I helpfully collated and notated last year: But time has munched on we’ve hit another nice round anniversary for a record which has, thankfully, […]

Dry Cleaning – “Anna Calls From The Arctic”

Dry Cleaning have a pretty set formula – nonsensical, oft-hilarious observationals delivered in Florence Shaw’s deadpan sprechgesang overtop muscular rock guitar riffage – so you’d be forgiven if, when listening to this second preview of their forthcoming second album Stumpwork, you find you’ve spent the whole five minutes waiting for the muscular rock guitar riffage […]

Alvvays – “Pharmacist”

How set am I on not being overly “extra! Extra! Hot off the press!” with this here blog? Well, my favourite hometown band finally announces a new record after five years, and it takes me… almost three weeks to get around to posting it! Hey, things get busy around here. We are, of course, talking […]

Mogwai / Black Bird

I’m not huge on film soundtracks or scores, even if they’re by artists I like, as their inherent background music-ness tends to not hold my interest. A strong exception to this is Mogwai, who obviously know a thing or two about making atmospheric instrumental music bracing and exciting. So when the band releases a soundtrack, […]