Review: "I'd prefer it to be called just a country album," said TORRES of her collaboration with Baker, nearly a decade in the making, "but I'm proud to have made a 'queer country' album." TORRES had the initial idea to turn to the genre, inviting Baker to collaborate not only because of her shared southern roots but also because she'd also had a similarly religious upbringing that ultimately saw sexual orientation judged and condemned. The result is some deeply autobiographic songwriting on tracks like 'Tuesday', about a traditional family's rage at discovering their daughter was gay, the lilting 'Sylvia' and 'Sugar In The Tank', with pedal steel meeting acoustic guitar strum and very intimate sounding vocals. Bound to cause controversy in certain areas of the US, but it's got the quality and distinctive flavour to stand its ground.
Review: This is the seventh album by chamber pop titans Beirut. The group, who are led by Zach Condon, have created their largest album to-date and it's among their most profoundly beautiful. The music originated in 2023 when a contemporary circus director, based in Sweden, who was creating a show based on an adaptation of a novel by German author Judith Schalansky about loss and impermanence asked Condon to write music. And who better than Beirut to score that theme. Condon's vocals are starkly beautiful with the tenderness of early choir music. The track 'Caspian Tiger' is among the most cinematic of the tracks on here with resplendent Renaissance influences and direct lyrics that are tear jerking and feel genuinely moved by the extinction of the great mammal, but could so easily be about a close friend lost.
Review: Who can argue with them for wanting to repress this beauty? It's quite simply one of the best pop albums of all time. Tracy Chapman's voice is inimitable and she is, frankly, a genius. The timeless yet nostalgic 'Fast Car' is the unmistakable standout here - be teleported back to late-80s Britain (when it was a ubiquitous presence in public spaces) but know that if an emerging artist wrote that today it would still be a number one. Strictly speaking this is a 37th anniversary reissue - but who's counting? The label, with Chapman herself involved, have gone to meticulous steps to ensure it's an audiophile delight: Heavyweight vinyl and sourced from the analog master. The trusty Bernie Grundman, who is one of the best mastering engineers in the world, was the honoured hire in bringing this work of art back to life.
Review: Charles Rowell stops off for another release under his Crush Of Souls moniker, hammering yet another gothic sonic nail in the coffin. Recorded at the aptly named Catacomb Soul studios, where he had recently finished recording the antecedent release '(A)Void Love', Rowell's latest LP is dedicated to the French capital city Paris, but we've a sense that *his* Paris isn't *our* Paris. There are of course catacombs in Paris, subjacent to the metropolis' surface romances. With the LP's title punning on French words for "lizard" and "desire", a lustily unnerving synthpop record unfolds, and this is one mood requiring only the slightest touch of grimness to evoke: such as pitchy, drawled vocals on the otherwise glittery and well-rounded 'Cult Of Two', and eighteenth note tenebrae on 'No Soul', serving to bury an otherwise melodic tune in hollow chaos.
Review: Another BBC Sessions edition compiles nearly two decades of live-in-studio performances from Echo & The Bunnymen, tracing the band’s rise from wiry post-punk outsiders to accomplished songwriters. John Peel and Janice Long oversaw the sessions with eagle's eyes, as production polish from classics such as ‘The Killing Moon’, ‘Rescue’ and ‘Lips Like Sugar' reveal the band’s skeletal brilliance and moody immediacy. Something of a guide to the band’s career arc as a whole, we hear the way paved for a more expansive, melancholic texture in the later years, despite an ever morphotic, modulable lineup. The Cult Legends reissue set offers longtime fans and newer listeners a chance to hear the Bunnymen with studio intimacy and live spontaneity; less theatrical than their stage shows, but just as haunting.
Review: Following on from 2023's acclaimed debut full-length All Gas No Brakes, Bristolian noise-punks Heavy Lungs return with the definition of an antithetical sophomore LP with Caviar. Clocking in at under 30 minutes (significantly less than their initial outing) and recorded live in dingy church rehearsal spaces to capture the unhinged intensity of their live performances, this is the sound of a band vehemently disinterested with mainstream appeal, exposure or playing the game by any terms apart from their own. While vocalist Danny Nedelko would be the named subject of one of the biggest singles from fellow Bristol natives Idles' 2018 breakout second album Joy As An Act Of Resistance, where his peers have expanded their sound and embraced myriads of melody, Heavy Lungs are poignantly going the opposite route, full speed towards oblivion with only chaos and anarchy on their collective minds.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services.