Compiling Tyler’s first four albums from 1977-81, Lost In France and It’s A Heartache are the big tunes on a thoroughly-researched 4CD-set. Tyler had been singing in clubs for seven…
Review: Thom Yorke – Anima
“Goddamned machinery,” Thom Yorke fulminates on The Axe, after nearly two minutes of synths so dizzying they’re almost nauseating, “Why don’t you speak to me? One day I’m gonna take…
Review: Andrew Poppy – Hoarse Songs
It’s perhaps unfair after all these years to continue to associate composer Andrew Poppy with ZTT, a label with whom he only worked in the mid-80s. Somehow, however, that air…
Review: Gary Daly – Gone From Here
The China Crisis singer’s solo debut is an unexpected, understated gem that also serves to remind us how neglected his band’s been in some quarters… It’s the quiet ones you’ve…
Review: UNKLE – The Road Part II: Lost Highway
Mo’Wax founder James Lavelle’s back again with a cameo-laden sequel to 2017’s similarly cameo-laden fifth studio album, except this time it’s double the length, leading one to wonder, since it’s…
Reissue Review: Various Artists – Birth Of A Nation – Inevitable Records: An Independent Liverpool 1979-1986
It never attracted the acclaim or profile of a Factory or Postcard, but Inevitable Records was a valuable conduit for Liverpool indie music in the late 1970s and early 1980s.…
Reissue Review: Various Artists – Now That’s What I Call Music II
Now That’s What I Call Music I was reissued with much fanfare late last year to coincide with Now 100, but the second album in the series arguably deserves more…
Reissue Review: R.E.M. The Best Of R.E.M. – In Time 1988–2003
The finest that Athens, Georgia, has to offer deserve a definitive career-spanning Best Of. Sadly, this isn’t it… R.E.M.’s precipitous late-1980s ascent into the rock stratosphere was a charming, off-kilter…
Reissue Review: Spear of Destiny – The Albums 1983-85
William Blake famously observed that the fool who persists in his folly shall become wise. Pouting peroxide post-punk Kirk Brandon represented a pretty stiff challenge to that weighty maxim. Brandon’s…
Review Round-Up: New Releases & Reissues – Issue 53
New Albums Collard – Unholy While Collard isn’t the new Prince, Prince would have likely applauded him. The 24-year-old’s debut is laced with strikingly atmospheric soul and hip-hop, with the…