The Beach Boys, 50 years on...
"Punk and classic rock cross-over, it’s like the love child of Kiss and Sid vicious."
"Despite being a horrific album, subject wise, it’s sickeningly good. It’s a charming change to listen to album that MEANS something, that cuts deep, that makes you sit up and listen."
"It’s all far too fast, frantic and repetitive, resulting in them creating a real marshmallow of a sound..."
Listening to ‘Souvenir’ is like sitting in your favourite bar with Ricky Wilson and the rest of the Leeds likely lads, reminiscing about the good times.
Newman’s sighs between singing makes ‘Bloodflood’ sound creepy and like a panic attack during an acid trip.
"How did the conversation with Ke$ha even come about?! A casual chat over a goblet of blood?"
"What sounds like The Jesus And The Mary Chain playing out of the right-hand speaker and Kraftwerk out of the left just becomes too much..."
"Delilah has a super-cool vocal, a product of London town and music industry parents and a keen ear for songwriting too..."
"Get a little closer for there is a great new British talent walking our streets..."
"The final track and also the brightest moment, with its spine chilling choral finale, it is quite simply stunning"
"By being recorded in a studio somewhere the nuanced vocals and the gutsy feeling of the whole thing is compromised."
"The combination of the hazy instrumentation over the poppy rhythms is great, and with Katherine Whitaker’s intriguing vocals topping it off they’ve certainly found their place..."
"The Cult of 2012 sound like a super band with a Cornell/Bowie hybrid front man."
"They have decided to join the ranks of musicians reforming in this the 21st century of our world; it’s pretty awful, people."
“‘Static on the Airwaves’ makes no hesitation at ripping the plaster off an ailing Britain…”
“It’s a strange old mix of songs, at times jazzy and light, at others rocky and mystical…”
“The overall feel of the album does well to recreate the feel of the film; loud, hot, sweaty and violent…”
"The instrumentation is gorgeous, and there’s even an unexpected hint of Godspeed you! Black Emperor in track 3 to tantalise your ears."
"If this album is ‘them’, they are confident, flexible, dramatic and sensitive all at the same time"
"Applecarts’, possibly one of my favourite songs ever already, is the most lovely, birdsongy, gentle and folky piece you will ever hear..." - Lizz reviews the new Albarn LP
"Mr Isaak’s balls sadly are not on fire as he plays some truly unwicked games with some of the greatest classics ever recorded in the history of popular music." - Chris Isaak misses the mark for Outline's Steve Plunkett...
"Music that wouldn’t sound out of place from downtown New York clubs to the soundtrack of a trippy Skins episode..."
"Sean Paul is at his best when he’s summoning the unstoppable rhythms of dancehall music, causing booties across the globe to give the junk inside they trunks a heft reshuffle."
"The stand out track for me would have to be the album’s second offering, ‘Bricks & Mortar’. The track really helped cement my love for this frankly fantastic record, pun very much intended."
We have something that’s quite thoughtful, ploddy and dark in paces, as well as times of manic repetitious desperation and occasional pop riffs.
You can just as easily be thrown into a hula world of calypso-type music out of nowhere, as in 'Silver Self' or into the Mexican tinged landscape you find in 'Bugs'.
This album is lo-fi, experimental, multi-layered, sparse and rich all at the same time and gets away with it in a way that not many could.
Reef present to us the 10 years that will always live on…
From his home Country via ‘St Kilda To Kings Cross’ this well heeled troubadour is bound to get a warm reception...
I would summarise it in great detail as a reggae/dub album that never really gets started.
All you have to do is look at the track listing to make your life-changing decision as to whether this constitutes pennies well spent.
Did you know that the Naughty by Nature bwoys have been going for 20 years? Holy hip hop.
The songs manage to create a welcome illusion of something larger with their harmonious layers...
She cuts the figure of an international superstar – quite literally on ‘International (Serious), a jet-setter with America in large part, picking up the bill for her air miles.
"...ballad-like power chords, hip-hop, punk and indie to name a few styles represented."
These lads are big, they’re staying big and they’re only gonna get bigger, so check them out!
It’s disjointed but brilliantly rhythmic; it’s filthy sounding but sonically beautiful...
This is what Steely Dan would sound like if they started afresh in 2012. Orchestral at times, at others sounding a bit like The Feeling...
The heavy beats, the variety of sounds and pace throughout this album are like something I haven’t heard for a long time, something innovative, brave and...dare I say it, fun and unpretentious...