Chris Priestley – Tales From Godzone (Songs of NZ’s Distant Past)
Chris Priestley and his Unsung Heroes Troupe uncover songs and stories from New Zealand’s distant past.
Gramsci – The Hinterlands: 13th Floor Album Review
Gramsci takes us to The Hinterlands on this follow-up to last year’s beguiling Inheritance.
Lee Martin – Gypsy Soul (AAA): Album Review
Lee Martin makes her debut as a Kiwi artist with Gypsy Soul, a unique blend of her South African, American and Kiwi influences.
Don McGlashan – Bright November Morning: Album Review
Don McGlashan finally gets his Bright November Morning, but a few months later than planned. Fortunately, good things are worth waiting for.
BROODS – Space Island: 13th Floor Album Review
BROODS cruise through their Space Island album on their familiar Indie Pop vehicle but the landscapes they navigate are invested in strong emotions of heartbreak and loss.
alt-J – The Dream: 13th Floor Album Review
alt-J create a perfect dream world on fourth album The Dream. Strange associations and allusions. Multiple narrative perspectives and constantly shifting and morphing landscapes. As English as Alice in Wonderland but simultaneously wandering through the psyche of spiritually bankrupt California.
The Delines – The Sea Drift: Album Review
The Delines third album is equal parts short films, short stories and Suburban Country Music. Sundance, SXSW Austin music festival and John Steinbeck in four minute vignettes. Read Rev Orange Peel’s review.
Spoon – Lucifer On The Sofa: Album Review
Spoon are the perfect band for musical obsessives and close to the thirty-year mark comes their tenth studio album Lucifer On The Sofa. Being regarded as a critic’s band can be a curse but back the perpetually morphing outfit come. Here, there and everywhere.
Mitski – Laurel Hell: Album Review
Mitski is a relatively new and exciting Pop artist running hot as an ingenue singer-songwriter, and she blooms with darker material on Laurel Hell.
The Temptations – Temptations 60: Album Review
The Temptations are the foundation group from which Soul music was defined. Of course, there are others, but for laying down the blueprint and then to be at the forefront of innovation over a long haul, they are the Emperors of Soul.
Forenzics – Shades And Echoes (Warner Bros)
Forenzics is Tim Finn and Eddie Rayner who, along with a few friends, have sieved through classic Split Enz tunes and created 14 new tracks that are incredibly fresh and vibrant sounding.
Greensky Bluegrass – Stress Dreams: Album Review
Greensky Bluegrass are Bluegrass practitioners in a parallel world from which they seem to have become a Grateful Dead hybrid. The core trio, Paul Hoffman mandolin, Dave Bruzza guitar and Michael Bont banjo came together in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2000. Essentially an American string band, they honed their craft through countless open mike sessions. At […]
Eels – Extreme Witchcraft (EWorks/PIAS): Album Review
Eels practice Extreme Witchcraft on this, their 14th studio album. For this one Mr. E is back working with his Souljacker co-producer John Parish.
North Mississippi Allstars – Set Sail: Album Review
North Mississippi Allstars – Set Sail This album appealed to me from the get-go having lived in the Mississippi hill country when I was 17. It’s a rolling landscape of pine trees, occasional cotton fields, muddy slow-moving rivers and tangles of kudzu vines. And a fraught history. The North Mississippi Allstars invoke this country in […]
Grace Cummings – Storm Queen: Album Review
Grace Cummings is a Folk singer from Melbourne, and with her sophomore album Storm Queen she will slay you with her vocal power. Freakish deep tones of Helen Shapiro combined with the angry passion of Odetta. She has a softer side and can rise up into high soprano in a flash. Joni Mitchell’s presence of […]
Sit Down In Front – Fuelling My Rage: EP Review
Sit Down In Front are an energetic young Punk band from Gisborne, New Zealand who play Old Skool Punk with a souped-up reconditioned motor. They sound great as they hit top gear in a heartbeat and slam their way through their third long playing release in just as many years.
Butter Wouldn’t Melt – 1931: Album Review
Butter Wouldn’t Melt are folk duo Andrea Reid (dulcimer, whistles, vocals) and Nick Burfield (guitar and vocals). Their name is intriguing. It’s an old English saying that lives on in the American South: “butter wouldn’t even melt in their mouth”, referring to someone who is not quite as they appear.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters – A Boy Named If (Capitol)
Elvis Costello & The Imposters pump it up on this, the be-speckled-one’s 32nd studio album.
The Dream Syndicate – What Can I Say? No Regrets…Out Of The Grey + Live, Demos & Outtakes (Fire)
The Dream Syndicate add some muscle to their 1986 album, Out Of The Grey, making this 3-disc set a startling improvement to an album never really got its due.
Jamestown Revival – Young Man: Album Review
Jamestown Revival carry the traditions of Americana as the cultural crusade of their time and present Young Man as both a meditative album and an uplifting one. These are hard times, but there are always good times despite the mood and the bad moon rising.