Latest Reviews

Jennifer Lopez’s new single ‘In The Morning’ makes use of a familiar chord to take us through a touch-starved, ecstasy-filled ride through the artist’s deepest desires. The piece will immediately remind you of the early 2000s. The sharp acoustic guitar chords, the hypnotizing percussion arrangement, and J-Lo’s affective vocals come together to set up a moody, romantic atmosphere that’s brimming with a vulnerable sensuality. A sensuality that J-Lo has cultivated and mastered to perfection over the years. What really bolsters the composition is the central melody — it’s passionate, it’s infectious, and it perfectly encapsulates J-Lo’s strengths. She doesn’t dabble in vocal runs or wild soaring notes; however, she is adept at infusing each and every word with her sass, with her feminine energy, with the glamour and glitz that have made her a household name. 

Will Joseph Cook – the mutli-instrumentalist who earned legions of fans for his debut LP Sweet Dreamer back in 2017 – has long specialised in crafting dreamy, carefree summer-fuelled indie pop numbers. He started writing his own songs when he was in his early teens, with Sweet Dreamer being completed before he hit the age of twenty. Now firmly in his twenties and with his new album Something To Feel Good About, has the now all grown up Cook turned his back on his youthful optimistic self? Not a bit of it.

Lockdown has now become some much a part of our lives that it’s not just inspiring new music, it’s outright facilitating it. Take Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong; way back in March the punk-pop crooner, backed by his sons, jumped online to share his cover of the Tommy James and the Shondells track (made famous by Tiffany) I Think We’re Alone Now. He promised he’d carry on dropping a new cover song every week, dubbing the series ‘No Fun Mondays’.

The post-Busted careers of the trio that formed one of the early noughties biggest acts couldn’t have been much more different. After the runaway success that was the outfit’s first two albums (their self-titled debut in 2002 and A Present For Everyone the following year), the band parted ways at the peak of their powers in 2005 after Charlie Simpson quit the band to focus on his other outfit, the rock band Fightstar. That left Matt Willis to pursue a solo career, while James Bourne reemerged with the very Busted-like Son Of Dork. None of them achieved anything like the kind of success they had together, and in 2015 they reformed, recording two more albums together since.

Sam Fender is a man of many talents. After being spotted performing in a pub in his home town in the northeast when he was just a teenager, he went on to appear in ITV drama series Vera, and in the CBBC show Wolfblood. Music was his passion though and after signing a record contract he dropped his debut EP Dead Boys in 2018 and followed it up last year with his first full-length album Hypersonic Missiles, which received some excellent reviews. Along the way, he was named as one of BBC’s Sounds of 2018, and picked up the Critics’ Choice Award at the 2019 Brit Awards.

As prolific as they are entertaining, Cats In Space have won over plenty of earthlings with their 70s-inspired, riff-heavy classic rock sound since forming back in 2015. Now comprised of Greg Hart (guitars / vocals/ keyboards), Dean Howard (guitars / vocals), Steevi Bacon (drums / vocals), Jeff Brown (bass / vocals), Andy Stewart (piano / synths) and Damien Edwards (lead vocals) after some pretty significant lineup changes recently, the six-piece from Horsham still have a particularly strong reputation for putting on a hell of a live show, and have played alongside rock royalty such as Deep Purple, Status Quo and Bonnie Tyler.

You might not yet have heard of Australian singer-songwriter Kian Maxwell Bytyci Brownfield – known professionally just as Kian – unless your Down Under, where the teenager has already built a loyal following after dropping a string of alt-pop sensations over the last couple of years. Chief among them was Waiting, a delightfully low key and spacey indie-pop song that has amassed well over sixty million streams in Spotify, bagged an ARIA Awards nomination for Song of the Year and secured twentieth place in Triple J Hottest 100 for 2018.

Katie Melua’s latest single ‘Joy’ is a tender ode to the people that make each and every day worth living. The British singer-songwriter has spent over seventeen years building a decorated, beloved career, and her latest feature contains as much heart and complexity as her first pieces.

For anyone else that grew up in the noughties, a warning: this next sentence will make you feel really old. American rockers We Are Scientists have been around now for TWENTY years. OK, they’ve been through plenty of lineup changes and even experimented with lots of different genres over that time, but the band that gave us the fun and frolics of 2006’s breakthrough hit album With Love and Squalor are now entering their third decade together.

There’s no way around it, 2020 has been a bit of a stinker, so it’s no surprise to see Christmas celebrations underway spectacularly early this year. It seems we’re all just looking for a little way to forget all the pain and suffering this year has brought, and that’s absolutely understandable. In any normal year, a Christmas release in mid-November might cause a few grumbles among certain people, but given the storm of unpleasantness that 2020 has been, I think we can all just welcome it with open arms.