Album Reviews

After the dirty-old-man noise rock of Grinderman, Nick Cave delivers an egalic and meditative album that looks back to his lush love songs. The first Seeds album without co-founder Mick Harvey, Sky is full of exquisite sounds – chiming guitars, pulsing bass and brushed drums. Higgs Boson Blues is hilarious though linking Lucifer, Robert Johnson, [...]

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The Joy Formidable – Wolf’s Law THE second offering from Welsh indie rockers The Joy Formidable is well worth a listen. Wolf’s Law moves seamlessly between the grungey riffs on singles This Ladder Is Ours and Cholla and the sad, string-drenched awesomeness of The Turnaround and the title track. Tendons and Forest Serenade are stadium [...]

Frankie Said (The Very Best Of), released November 5, on Salvo/ZTT, contains the smash hits from Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Action Series, their albums, Welcome To The Pleasuredome (1984) and Liverpool (1986), and their years recording at Sarm Studios for ZTT between 1983 and 1987. Remastered from original master tapes, Frankie Said (The Very Best [...]

THE Godfathers of ambient house, The Orb, meet the inventor of dub reggae, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, in a marriage made in musical heaven. The Orb provide the astral sounds capes for Scratch to scat/sing his far out and gone philosophical musings on the likes of Ball of Fire (“I am the maddest, scooby-dooby-doo”) and Golden Clouds ( [...]

Presenting Sexmix, a brand new luxury two-disc, one-booklet, all-sex, all-mixed edition from Zang Tuum Tumb and the Salvo label. Subtitled Archive Tapes and Studio Adventures Volume 1, it begins to compile the hundreds of miles of reels of tape, remixes, editions, edits and experiments generated by Zang Tuum Tumb and the Sarm Studios engine during [...]

The 77-year-old legendary singer-songwriter follows up his triumphant comeback tour with an album that is just as good. The poetic Cohen is on firm form lyrically, especially on The Darkness – “I’ve got no future, I know my days are few, I thought the past would last me, but the darkness got that too.” The [...]

Lana Del Rey – Born To Die Video Games was the best track of last year and now comes the eagerly awaited album. The young American singer has been likened to something out of a David Lynch film and her songs have the touch of Julee Cruse who soundtracked Twin Peaks. But the 60s girl [...]

As the title suggests a special 2 disc edition of The Doors final and some say best album, recorded just before iconic singer Jim Morrison died. The album found the band ignoring all the crazy trappings of fame that had occurred in the previous four years and getting back to their bluesy roots to great [...]

Django Django – Django Django Django Django’s excellent debut album is already a contender for album of the year. The London-based band – who met at art school in Edinburgh – have produced an album of brilliant diversity, incorporating everything from African vibes and tribal drums to Beach Boys pure pop harmonies. All 13 tracks are [...]