Latest Reviews

North-east native Sam Fender is a young man with the world at his feet. From being named one of the BBC’s Sounds of 2018 to winning the Critics Choice Award at the 2019 Brit Awards, he and his debut album Hypersonic Missiles have been hoovering up accolades like they were as scarce as petrol. And with good reason too, Hypersonic Missiles was a gem, a record that, despite its youthful stance, in many ways bellied the tender years of its creator, a smart and accomplished collection that couldn’t obviously be bettered.

Having scored the biggest hit of his career to date alongside Nonô with 12 million+ streams for ‘Sorry’, TCTS again teams up with the Brazilian vocal sensation for their brand new ‘Off My Mind’. The track represents his first release under a new deal with Insanity Records. 

One of the greatest bass players in modern times has returned with a new single coming from her Grammy-winning magnum opus, 12 Little Spells, titled Formwela 10 which showcases once again the rawness of her ideas, and the beauty of her talent.

Coming out strong with a slightly-more-accessible second single, Invisible Monster, from their upcoming fourteenth album A View from Atop of the World, Dream Theater prove that thirty years of legacy have done nothing but refine their chops and their songwriting skills.

Dublin indie grunge trio HAVVK attracted attention with their self titled EP in 2016, and it’s follow up She Knows in 2017, before their debut album Cause & Effect, a stunning record that explored some big themes, brought their music to a wider audience. New album Levelling landed this week and, I’m delighted to report, keeps the fury and frenzy alive, while being just as lyrically intriguing as its predecessor.

Comprised of guitarist Alan Sparhawk and drummer Mimi Parker, indie rock minimalists Low have been enchanting fans with their vocal interplay and drop dead gorgeous musical arrangements since the early 1990s. Up until relatively recently though, their formula remained largely unchanged, until their 2015 album Ones And Sixes signalled a significant change in direction as they incorporated new sounds and began working with producer BJ Burton. 

Australian singer, songwriter and record producer Matthew Victor Kopp, otherwise known as Running Touch, first rose to prominence as the guitarist for, and founding member of, nu metal band Ocean Grove in his homeland roughly a decade ago. However, Kopp struck out on his own in the mid noughties, releasing a string of singles and an EP, A Body Slow, in the years that followed.

Andrew Fetterly Wilkes-Krier, better known as Andrew W.K., was one of the big breakthroughs of the early noughties alternative revival. His single Party Hard was a mainstay of rock club nights up and down the country, while the album that spawned it earned rave reviews and featured in many critics ‘album of the year’ rundowns, and gained a solid following, partly fuelled by the (at the time) controversy over the cover image of the blood-stained star himself.

As one of the defining musicians of the 1990s Britpop era, Graham Coxon had absolutely nothing to prove. However, that hasn’t stopped the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from producing a huge range of solo material away from the band with whom he made his name. And that material has been as varied as it has been rewarding, from the folky garage rock of The Sky Is Too High and the indie classic Happiness In Magazines, to the predominantly acoustic The Spinning Top and beyond.

The British heavy metal titans, godfathers of power metal, and one of the strongest forces in rock are back with their first new single since their latest album, 2015’s Book Of Souls, titled Stratego, from their upcoming album Senjutsu.