Latest Reviews

Just as the world was still wrapping their heads around the genius of their Silk Sonic’s first single, “Leave the Door Open”, the duo released “Skate”, another absolute masterpiece through and through.

Even if you haven’t heard of Scunthorpe-born singer-songwriter Stephen Fretwell, you will almost certainly have heard his music. That’s because his song Run – taken from his 2004 album Magpie – is the theme tune to the TV smash hit show Gavin & Stacey, and was apparently chosen by the show’s creator and star James Corden as he’s a big fan of Fretwell’s music.

When Willy Mason crashed into the early noughties indie scene as a nineteen-year-old with his rallying cry Oxygen, he was hailed as a Bob Dylan for the post-grunge generation, a folk singer-songwriter who had a political message for millenials everywhere. For a couple of years, around the release of his debut album Where The Humans Eat, it felt like Mason was a bonafide global superstar in the making. 

Here’s something that, if you grew up watching The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air and listening to DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s Summertime, is going to make you feel old: Willow Smith, Will Smith’s youngest child, is twenty years old. TWENTY. Seriously, where does the time go?

Irish four-piece The Academic dropped their debut album Tales From The Backseat in 2018 to positive reviews, it’s blend of youthful exuberance and noughties-inspired indie, as well as the band’s reputation for exhilarating live shows, winning them fans both in the UK and at home in Ireland, where it hit number one in the Irish Album Charts. They built on that momentum last year with Acting My Age, a six-track EP recorded with Nick Hodgson of the Kaiser Chiefs that spawned the single of the same title, a mainstay of their live sets.

One Week was the ludicrously catchy track littered with pop culture references that first turned on a whole host of listeners around my age to the Barenaked Ladies in the late 1990s. It remains the band’s calling card and biggest hit, and still serves as the best introduction to their work for anyone who has not yet (somehow) heard them. Though, thanks to the sheer runaway success of the TV show The Big Bang Theory, for which the band created the distinctive theme song, that title is arguably under threat. 

A lot of people claim punk, metal, and rock artists make the best ballads. YUNGBLUD’s new single, Mars, is a testament to that.

Known for his vintage, soulful sound, Leon Bridges steps a foot into a more modern sound with his newest single, Why Don’t You Touch Me.

Before you hear this track for the first time, you read the title and you know this is going to be something epic! Then the track starts with an almost cinematic crescendo, with harps, horns & strings all building anticipation and in the last second of the intro you have no idea what’s about to hit you. 

It’s the icing on the cake, it’s the cherry on top, the very highlight of summer, yes the summer fling is an old classic that never gets old, and I’m glad Nina has captured this vibe in her latest effort “ Summer Fling “.