#411: Introducing...Nite Fields

Introducing...Nite Fields

This feature was originally written for Shout4Music. Click here to read in full.

#410: Grave Diggers Union - Don't Be Fooled By The Sun (EP Review)

Grave Diggers Union

Don't Be Fooled By The Sun

January 11, 2015 (Brock 'n' Broll)

7/10

Music is cyclical. As anyone with a passing interest in the subject knows, the timeless adage pop will eat itself has proven itself right time and time again, with genres and their conventions being rehashed and recycled almost endlessly. What's not always as obvious, is that whilst music is always revisited, it's almost always a product of the surroundings in which it was conceived as well. One only needs to look at the vacuous machine that is mainstream commercial pop in order to understand the context in which it's made. But what happens when bands are influenced, not by the perpetual ca-ching of album sales and sponsorship deals, but by a Tory government and the ever more apparent idea the Britain just aint that great anymore? Bands like Grave Diggers Union happen.

This review was orignally written for Little Indie Blogs. Click here to read in full.

#409: Introducing...Will Mussett

With singer-songwriters seemingly ten-a-penny these days, its often difficult to wade through the mediocrity in order to find something that truly stands out; wearing your heart on your sleeve is all well and good, but if said sleeve is beige, bland, and like so many of the genre’s artists, living in the past, then your music is going to follow suit. Fortunately for the 21 year old, Brighton-based Will Mussett, he manages to avoid the fate of many of his contemporaries, and even influences, by taking the genre’s more traditional aesthetics and softly coaxing them in to the present.

This feature was orignally written for Louder Than War. Click here to read in full.

#408: Introducing...Sea Change

January might well traditionally be a time for shaking off your winter blues, but I'm willing to cling on to mine just a little longer if it means we'll have a month filled with releases like this. Ellen A. W. Sunde, otherwise known as Sea Change has seen her popularity steadily mount over the last 12 months, playing festivals across her native Norway, and further afield including last year's Great Escape in Brighton. With a penchant for icy, minimalist electronica and fragile vocals, much of her output is built around the scandi-pop aesthetics one might expect. That said, however, the insidious '80s influence that flows throughout is impossible to deny, and as such each individual track is as hauntingly stark and as unquestionably beautiful as her native country; the textured electronics and the glacial, understated basslines throughout the verses are expertly juxtaposed against harmonious uplifting choruses that drip with pop sensibility. It's dazzling stuff.

This feature was originally written for Shout4Music. Click here to read in full.