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Review
Andy Barlow and Lou Rhodes have made little secret of how completing their seventh album nearly roasted Lamb alive. Quite apart from the regular stresses of their complex working relationship,…
Review: The Cranberries – In The End
It’s impossible to listen to The Cranberries’ final album and not feel a little uncomfortable. Dolores O’Riordan was never famed for her lyrics, but when she begins with the…
Review: Suzi Quatro – No Control
Since quoting people out of context is all the rage, let’s take a line from Suzi Quatro’s 17th album and wilfully misinterpret it. “I’m a rolling stone,” she claims on…
Review: Edwyn Collins – Badbea
If you’ve seen 2014’s deeply moving documentary, The Possibilities Are Endless, you’ll understand the struggles Edwyn Collins faced following his two 2005 cerebral haemorrhages. If you’ve looked at his discography,…
Reissue: Ian Brown – Unfinished Monkey Business
It’s possible rock history has witnessed a more precipitous decline than the drop-off in quality between The Stone Roses’ zeitgeist-setting self-titled 1989 debut and their dreadful 1994 follow-up, Second Coming.…
Reissue: Buzzcocks – A Different Kind Of Tension/Singles Going Steady
Buzzcocks’ simplicity was their genius that became their straitjacket. By their third album, 1979’s A Different Kind Of Tension, Pete Shelley was chafing against the restrictions of the punk-pop formula…
Reissue: Ian Dury & The Blockheads – Do It Yourself
As punk rock morphed into post-punk and new wave at the end of the 1970s, disco remained the shaping force of the Top 40. It was to attract some highly…
Reissue: Abba – Voulez-Vous
ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus is not just the co-songwriter of some of the most impeccable, glorious songs in pop history, he’s also always had a very astute sense of how they’ve…
Review: Philip Bailey – Love Will Find A Way
If you heard Billy Jack without knowing it was the first single off Philip Bailey’s comeback, you might think it was a lost Curtis Mayfield recording. Bailey gets his Gentle…
Review: Emeli Sandé – Real Life
“Last night,” Emeli Sandé sings, borne aloft as her third album reaches its finale, “I had a dream that I could fly”. She’s not the first to do so, to…