Photo Credit: Nate Lemuel of Darklisted Photography The political is the personal is the musical for Katherine Paul who has long made her Native American ancestry central to her artistry – so much so that it’s evident in her music before one even presses play, with album titles like At The Party With My Brown Friends and The… Read more
Photo Credit: Michael Bailey Gates When Sam Smith first rose onto the music scene in 2013, they were marketed as yet another inoffensive, vocally impressive, soulful crooner – the sort that Britain has long excelled at generating. Smith, who then went by he/him pronouns, was seen as a sort of male equivalent to Adele –… Read more
Photo Credit: Tommaso Ottomano It can sometimes feel like whoever asked for the return of rock music to the mainstream, made their wish on a monkey’s paw. Rock music had its comeback, but its standard-bearers [?] ended up being the chronically unlikeable Machine Gun Kelly and TikTok phenomenon Gayle – whose breakout hit “ABCDEFU” wasn’t… Read more
Photo Credit: Bryan Kirks Quantity doesn’t equal quality is undoubtedly an adage born out by the ongoing pop/rock-punk revival – we’re getting more releases from the genre than at any time since its mid-2000s peak, yet whereas the genre’s standard bearers were once My Chemical Romance and Avril Lavigne, it’s now Machine Gun Kelly and… Read more
Photo Credit: Zackery Michael On their seventh studio album The Car, the Arctic Monkeys continue the musical road trip that they set out on with their previous release, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018). The Sheffield, England quartet which became known (and renowned) for their brand of fast, kinetic, mile-a-minute Britpop delivered with a punk… Read more
Photo Credit: Kristín Braga Wright Though you wouldn’t necessarily know it from listening to country radio, women have spent the last few years carrying the genre on their backs. While Sam Hunt has been delivering toxically masculine lyrics over awkward genre fusions and Walker Hayes has been making bro-country Applebees jingles, Margo Price has been… Read more
Photo Credit: Michael Schmelling The best song on Amanda Shires’ eighth solo album, “Everything Has It’s Time” is a kaleidoscopic collection of memories jarringly placed alongside dispatches from the present day. The song captures love in a state of irreversible disrepair and in doing so heart-wrenchingly captures all that has been. “There was a time… Read more
Photo Credit: Eleanor Petry Taking its title from a popular alcoholic beverage of her youth, Molly Rankin and her band members reach new heights on their delayed third album. “’cause we’re always…,” Molly Rankin assures halfway through a sentence on the second track of Alvvays’ new record, almost as if she felt a reminder could… Read more
Photo Credit: Bayley Hanes Inspired by recent events – the Trump Presidency, Brexit, the pandemic, the climate crisis – many a rock band has tried to put to words the frightening reality of living in the modern world. Black Midi gave into chaos on the madness-inducing, disillusionment anthem “Welcome To Hell,” while Viagra Boys so… Read more
Photo Credit: Kent Tarver It worked for Ed Sheeran, it worked for Shawn Mendes, and it worked for Tom Odell. Dean Lewis’ Australian heritage sets him apart from the rest, but apart from this not much else sets him apart from his peers. What does the late ‘80s Mercedes-Benz on the front cover represent? Hour-long,… Read more