Reviews

This category contains 94 posts

Late Night Fiction — Exits, Pursued By A Bear

Late Night Fiction’s press release describe them as a “melodic post-hardcore quar­tet” — and it’s sur­pris­ingly accur­ate. The Hull band have chalked up a num­ber of sup­port spots, includ­ing for groups like Twin Atlantic, cur­rently in rota­tion on Radio One with their single Free. EPBAB is taken from the EP “Medium” which ought to be […]

Shoshin — City of Patience

City of Patience is the debut album from Shoshin, an inde­pend­ent band hail­ing from North West Eng­land. I’m strug­gling to work out what to say about the album — it’s noth­ing like what I was expect­ing. Read­ing up on the band, it becomes appar­ent that their ethos is very much in line with the punk […]

Tellison 15/10/11

Walk­ing into the venue, I did a double-take. The Har­ley is known for being the home of stu­dent hip­ster music, and I sup­pose Tel­lison are small enough to draw that crowd — but the music does not fit com­fort­ably in my mind in the same space as Grizzly Bear and the like. The band take to […]

The Dark Retreat — The Devil In Me (Butterfly Kiss)

About four years ago, we ran a piece on a five-piece called Bi-Polar Baby. The band have since broken up, which was a shame, because they showed an awful lot of poten­tial, and we were very much look­ing for­ward to see­ing how their next effort would be an improve­ment on the last. How­ever, had Bi-Polar Baby […]

New Found Glory — Radiosurgery

New Found Glory occupy a place in my heart that doesn’t quite fit with his­tory. I see them as the last of the great nineties pop-punk bands, along­side Green Day, blink-182 and the Off­spring — but this is wrong. They were, in fact, one of the first of the next wave, the Drive-Thru bands. As […]

Alkaline Trio — Damnesia

A little over a year ago, we covered This Addic­tion. The record marked a bit of a return to Alkaline Trio’s punk roots. It’s inter­est­ing then, that the follow-up should be such a risky move. Dam­ne­sia has only two ori­ginal tracks on it (the rather weak Olde Eng­lish 800, and the decent I Remem­ber a […]

blink-182 — Up All Night

In 2005, I thought I’d missed the boat. As blink announced their indef­in­ite hiatus, I cried into my Weetabix, being one of the few who hadn’t seen them live. So, in 2009, when they announced that they were get­ting back together, I was over the moon. Of course, I expec­ted a bit of a wait […]

Rise Against — Endgame

Recently, I’ve become some­what dis­il­lu­sioned music­ally. I’ve strayed away from my favour­ite bands, or listened to their old albums on repeat. I’m fully aware of how Pitch­fork this sounds, but most of the stuff that’s come out in the past year or two has just been of a much lower qual­ity than before. Less innovative, […]

The Pretty Reckless — Light Me Up

At first glance you can eas­ily mis­judge this band, lead singer Taylor Mom­sen looks like an L.A hybrid of Court­ney Love and Cherie Cur­rie. Although Mom­sen seems to try too hard to be rock and roll, think­ing mounds of black eye­liner, con­fess­ing her love for knives and swear­ing before every word is edgy, she will […]

Fenix TX — 26th October 2010

Walk­ing into the venue tonight is some­thing of a dis­ap­point­ment. Fenix TX were one of a hand­ful of groups that shaped my music taste as it is today, and it’s sad to see them unable to draw enough of a crowd to put them in the 800 capa­city main room. I stand quietly at the […]

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