Sure, one could argue that being a household name within the music industry in any way should disqualify you from complaining. Still, there are plenty of groups out there that deserve way more appreciation than they get. Here is a list of ten groups – new and old – that we think should be talked… Read more
To have something important to say and to know how to say it – that’s the art of succeeding with your debut album. Some debut albums have such an important message that they change the world forever. Some of them are just incredibly well executed, burning with the energy of a new artist who finally… Read more
Photo Credit: Pip Upon hearing the song “Lies,” some listeners might at first think that their ears are lying to them, and that they’re not in fact listening to the opening cut from Pale Waves’ third album Unwanted, but rather to veteran pop punk princess Avril Lavigne. Indeed the similarity – of both the musical… Read more
Photo Credit: Getty/Roskilde Press The post-festival discussions about the 50th edition of Scandinavia’s biggest festival have mainly dealt with the Strokes’ reportedly awful performance. I, who ended up at the festival thanks to a fortunate coincidence, had to travel back home before the Strokes, and instead of going on about Julien Casablanca’s awkward dialogues for… Read more
Photo Credit: Erika Kamano Filipino-British singer-songwriter Beatrice Lauss, known professionally as Beabadoobee, is one of the most promising musical talents of the 2020s. Or was, at least. Her new album Beatopia, while hardly merit-less, lacks the focus, immediacy, and overall enjoyability of her last full-length release, Fake It Flowers (which this writer named as the… Read more
Photo Credit: Sophie Hur Los Angeles-to-Brooklyn transplants Momma are the latest in a string of bands to embrace the sound of the early and mid-Nineties alternative rock and re-shape it for the 2020s. They’ve already forged a close alliance with Wet Leg, a UK band that has been deservedly hyped and is unmistakably similar in… Read more
Photo Credit: Sophie Hur “I didn’t want to make something super depressing without any sense of magic,” said Sophie Allison (a.k.a Soccer Mommy) when asked about the creation of her third studio album Sometimes, Forever. The push-and-pull between lightness and heaviness is something the Nashville singer-songwriter has wrestled without across her career. While her breakthrough… Read more
Photo Credit: Tom Oxley I rarely had so little to say about an album as Oxford band Foals’ seventh album Life Is Yours, so let’s hear what the band has to say about it. “We wanted to write music that would be a forcefield against the darkness, rather than try to proselytize people,” singer Yannis… Read more
Photo Credit: Grant Spanier Having debuted in 2015, it’s just a bit odd that New York City synth-rock outfit’s new album Night Drive is only their second full-length release, so perhaps not surprisingly the band is still relying largely on what they’ve already become known for. Despite its title, the opening cut “The Dark” brings to light… Read more
Photo Credit: Chuck Berry via Universal Attractions (artist management) “Hail, hail rock and roll // Deliver me from the days of old.” – Charles Edward Anderson Berry Rock and roll always had a problem orienting itself from the beginning. It is the musical product of a dozen styles of American music blended through time and… Read more