Joe's Big Toe

Kispál és a Borz, fre­quently referred to as just Kispál (pro­nounced kish­pal) were Hungary’s largest altern­at­ive rock band, foun­ded just before the fall of com­mun­ism in Hun­gary in the country’s fifth largest city, Pécs (pro­nounced paytch), which rep­res­ents a hot­bed of cul­tural and artistic activ­ity within Hun­gary. Their per­form­ance on Day –1 at Szi­get is per­haps even more hotly anti­cip­ated within Hun­gary than the rest of the fest­ival, not least because the band are split­ting up, and this is to be their final con­cert.
Over the course of the day, people …

There are two Deport­ivos. The first, Déport­ivo, is an alt. rock band from Yve­lines, France. The other is an indie-pop five piece from West Lon­don, and this second group have attrac­ted a fair bit of industry atten­tion recently (they’ve been fea­tured on BBC Intro­du­cing; this single was mixed by Yoad Nevo, who’s worked with Sug­ababes, Girls Aloud, and Jem). The band’s EP, Girl Next Door, is made up of three tracks: Girl Next Door, a remix of Girl Next Door, and Cold in the Middle.
As the first track starts, there’s …

Richard Haswell has pre­vi­ously been known as “Rhu­barb” and “G for Gnome”. For his latest album, how­ever, he has ditched the monik­ers and is using his real name. This move reflects the over­all feel of the album. It is accom­plished and grown-up, and his twenty self-released album exper­i­ence shines through.
The album starts slowly. The first track, Mag­netic North, is sparse and quiet, and it feels a bit like you’re sit­ting in his liv­ing room, listen­ing to him play­ing his new song — there’s a sense of trep­id­a­tion, as though he’s …

Dreams Of Death and the Death Of Dreams is Obsess­ive Compulsive’s debut album, released on their own label, Voci­fer­ous Records, yes­ter­day. Over the course of the past few years, the band have released two EPs, and built up a strong, nation­wide fan base through tour­ing. They describe them­selves as dark punk/metal/alternative. Their metal influ­ences are pretty obvi­ous in the intro to Man vs. Machine, but then a Coheed & Cam­bria style bass­line throws it all out of the win­dow. The chorus is even more con­fus­ing — it draws inspir­a­tion from …

“This Addic­tion” is the first album that Alkaline Trio have released since they par­ted ways with Epic Records in 2009. Now estab­lished on their own label; Heart and Skull, its clear the band have made a few changes to their sound as well…
Now before we go any fur­ther I have to explain that I approached the idea of review­ing this album the way a stray dog might approach someone offer­ing it food: I wasn’t sure if I could trust it. There was a time when I had plonked myself firmly onto …

“Timothy Hurford has lived an extraordin­ary life”, begins The Transpersonal’s press pack. His addic­tion to hal­lu­cino­gens and the occult gave way to music, and The Transper­son­als were born. The Transper­son­als have been slowly but surely work­ing their way towards suc­cess, play­ing at SXSW and Gla­ston­bury, mak­ing single of the week on Radio Two, and a year and a half down the line, the band are pre­par­ing to release another EP and an album “fol­low­ing closely behind” on Guer­illa Music.
Although the press pack laid out in black and white Timothy’s struggle with …

As I walk into the venue, there’s no imme­di­ate visual clue as to what kind of con­cert we’re about to exper­i­ence. There’s a guy in a Van­dals t-shirt, one in a Less Than Jake hoodie, a few guys in track­suits, some girls with black lip­stick — there was even a chap in suit. The first time I heard (hed) P.E., there was no such ambi­gu­ity. I was sit­ting in a friend’s liv­ing room, drink­ing Sainsbury’s rip-off ver­sion of WKD (Red Rus­sian, any­one?) listen­ing to a “metal” com­pil­a­tion CD my mate …

Two Tongues is a col­lab­or­a­tion between Max Bemis of ‘Say Any­thing’ and Chris Con­ley of ‘Saves the Day’. Being a huge fan of both the bands I was very excited about the release of these thir­teen tracks; and I am not dis­ap­poin­ted.
Bemis and Con­ley share writ­ing, vocal and gui­tar duties. Bemis brings his trade­mark venom­ous vocal styl­ing to the mix but it is Con­ley who truly shines; with a sound remin­is­cent of ‘In Rev­erie’.
Bemis describes the album as an ‘expres­sion of the Yin and the Yang; how two “opposite” …

Motion City Soundtrack’s new­est offer­ing ‘My Dino­saur Life’ is an album I want to be derog­at­ory about. I want to say that it is just a rehash of albums past, the same tired old offer­ing etc., etc. I want to say all of these things but I just can’t. Like every Motion City album since ‘I Am The Movie’, the first listen doesn’t wow you, but gradu­ally those twelve songs worm their way into your sub-conscious and you find your­self hum­ming them in the car/bath/toilet.
This is another fine offering …

You­MeAt­Six have divided the music crit­ics with their latest offer­ing, Hold Me Down, since it came out on Janu­ary 11^th. And to be fair, I can see why. The main cri­ti­cism that has been lev­elled at the band are that the record is unori­ginal, and that there’s noth­ing on the album that hasn’t been done before (New Found Glory, Tak­ing Back Sunday, and Hoo­bastank are three names knock­ing about on the Wiki­pe­dia page). But then, in the words of Jeremy Clark­son, isn’t that like cri­ti­cising a man for look­ing too …