Latest Reviews

Hailing from the Armagh-Monaghan border, Dani Larkin is an emerging singer-songwriter and folk musician with a reputation as one of Ireland’s brightest new folk talents. Taking inspiration from the folktales she was raised with and fusing elements of traditional melodies and rhythms from around the world in a seamless and timeless tradition, she was awarded the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival Artist in Residence in 2019.

With the sudden rise of pop punk, it’s no wonder artists finally embrace their inner emo in the midst of this resurgence. The Eulogy of You and Me is just about as pop-punk as it gets, with a more modern edge, but using all the same tropes and sounds that make the genre so beloved.

More than twenty years on from the release of White Ladder, David Gray’s fourth studio album which spawned the hit singles Babylon, Please Forgive Me, Sail Away, and This Year’s Love, songs that made their creator a superstar, it remains one of the biggest UK albums of the 21st century. Incredibly, it stayed in the UK top 100 for close to three years, has sold in excess of seven million copies, and is the UK’s 26th best-selling album of all time. 

Fresh from being unmasked as the Robin on Saturday night TV sensation The Masked Singer, Aston Merrygold has dropped his new solo single Overboard, a smooth and sultry R&B meets pop affair with a little bit of a seafaring feel, and not just when it comes to the name of the track. 

Musicians making the transition to the big screen has always been a tricky path to walk. For every Lady Gaga dazzling in A Star Is Born, there’s a Vanilla Ice doing… well, whatever it was that he did in Cool As Ice (which if you haven’t seen, you’re in for a treat). 

R&B as a whole has been ever so lenient on hip-hop, and that’s not a bad thing. There’s something about the mystifying and accessibility found within it that blends ever-so beautifully with the genre that gave birth to so many, hip-hop included. Relapse, the newest song by singer Gallant is a contradiction to that, by bringing in the beauty of mid-90s R&B blended with the soul of modern neo-soul all together in a crystal-clear composition.

Manchester goth pop outfit Pale Waves formed in 2014 and were signed by Dirty Hit in 2017, releasing their debut single There’s A Honey to critical acclaim. The following year they placed fifth in the BBC Sound of 2018 poll, and claimed the NME Under the Radar Award at the NME Awards. Their debut album My Mind Makes Noises charted in the UK Albums Chart top ten, and everything seemed to be falling into place for the band. 

It's very rare for metalcore acts from the golden age of the genre to stay bound within their boxes. Groups either stray off in completely different directions, or suffer a bit more tragic fate. Architects have managed to both progress their sound over the years, while keeping the energy and aggression they exuded when they first start thrashing in the mid 2000s. Their newest single, Meteor, is very much proof of that.

After years spent carving out a name for themselves in the underground dance scene, Northern Irish electronic duo Bicep came crashing into the mainstream with their 2017 self-titled debut album, an unexpected top 20 hit in the UK albums chart. It was a long way to come from their origins with the FeelMyBicep blog which was a staple of the house scene in the late 2000s, but it was no less than the pair deserved.

Hailing from a small village in Somerset, Finn Askew is an eclectic and experimental young songwriter and performer. Having discovered his love for music as a youngster when he stumbled upon his parent’s CD collection, which included some giants such as Nirvana and The Smiths, Askew started writing and recording his own songs, fusing influences that span pop, rock, R&B, hip-hop, and indie.