Hypnotic and propulsive, ‘Show Me’ is the latest single from Brooklyn punks Slut Magic and oozes all the effortless cool you might expect from such a band. Self-described as a “ransom note as music”, it’s both sultry and sleazy, though it’s you-show-me-yours-I’ll-show-you-mine message might not be what you think.
This review was originally written for When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
Though 2020 has affected everyone differently, one wouldn’t have though nostalgia would have been a feeling conjured by a global pandemic. Still it was one felt by New York’s Maisie May, who when quarantining upstate in her childhood home, the nostalgic feelings this in turn evoked manifesting in her latest single ‘Lost My Love’.
This review is originally written for When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
Referring to your tracks as ‘love letters’ might well appear twee to the uninitiated, but Norway’s Celiin couldn’t be less twee if she tried. Since emerging in 2019 with her debut single ‘Leonardo’, and the first of her First of the Love Letters Trilogy, Celiin has made a name for herself crafting exquisitely understated alt-pop offerings that bridge the gap between romance and depression. The latest of which, ‘Marylin’ not only concludes the trilogy, but also finds Celiin at her darkest and most primal.
This review was originally written for When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
While it might not often be possible to convey a narrative without lyrics, it is possible to convey feelings and emotion, something that Stefano Fasce manages to do effortlessly on ‘Human’, the lead single from his forthcoming album Solitary Places. A fitting title for a single inspired “by the experience of being in a remote place and gaining a new, hopeful perspective on our reality”.
This review was originally written for When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
As a music critic, being able to distance oneself from the music your reviewing is a valuable trait to learn. Though perhaps seemingly counterproductive (after all what’s music if it doesn’t invoke an emotional response) it allows writers to form balanced opinions and maintain a sense of professionalism that hyperbole for entertainment’s sake might otherwise not. There are times however, when the emotional response is too much to ignore, and any sense of professionalism falls by the wayside.
This review was origanally written When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
Seeking to explore the strange space between nature and technology, Canadian songstress YAWN has recently been turning heads on both sides of the Atlantic. Her latest single ‘Wasting Time’ looks set to continue the trend, while succeeding in striking a balance between the organic and the contrived beautifully.
This review was originally written for When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
Style over substance has been something long synonymous with Manchester’s music scene. I should know, I live here. While this may well earn me a certain degree of criticism, it doesn’t change the fact that for every band or artist with heart and integrity, there’s another 4 harbouring dreams of swaggering their way to Gallagherdom.
This review was originally written for When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
Frantic, frenetic and ferocious, Liverpool five-piece Yammerer are impossible to pigeon-hole, let alone cage. Lazy comparisons might see the quintet compared to the likes of The Fall, or perhaps even Idles, though while there are similarities, especially as far as the former are concerned, there’s a sense of something unhinged at the core of Yammerer that not even Mark E Smith could channel, no matter how many tantrums he threw.
This review was originally written for When the Horn Blows. Click here to read in full.
It feels like a lifetime ago that October Drift released their debut album Forever Whatever. Realistically it was only 10 short months ago, and though a lot has happened in that time, it’s a record I’ve found myself going back to countless times, for countless reasons.
This review was originally written for RGM. Click here to read in full.
While it goes without saying that the UK’s lockdown changed the lives of millions of people, and indeed continues to do so, for musicians and those in bands it’s meant a whole rethink to their operations. After all, how does a band write, record, even practice properly without being in the same room as one another?
This review was originally written for RGM. Click here to read in full.
Dark, and harbouring more than a sense of danger, ‘Hot Money’ is the first song to be taken from Children of the State’s excellently titled forthcoming EP Tragic Carpet and the Magical Wasp Gang from Notre Dame, and indeed the first to be released since the band’s move to Manchester. And one can’t help but feel the pervading influence of the city’s bleak industrial history past at play within the track’s inherent claustrophobia.
This review was originally for RGM. Click here to read in full.
