Latest Reviews

American synthpop sensations Future Islands are back with their sixth studio album As Long As You Are, the follow up to 2017’s The Far Field. Still, though, the band remain perhaps most well known for their 2014 performance on the US TV show Letterman of their song Seasons, which thanks to frontman Samuel T. Herring’s utterly and completely compelling performance went viral (3.3 million YouTube plays and counting). And in a way, that makes sense. As a four-minute-something distillation of the band’s ethos, magic, quirks, power, showmanship, and, crucially, soul-stirring electro sound, there is little better.

Have you ever wondered what it felt like to have a panic attack in the most blissful way possible? Jesus Molina and his trio can easily show you with their recent track Night in Tunisia from Jesus' latest album, Departing.

Onto the list of rock supergroups that features the likes of Cream, Velvet Revolver, Asia, and Them Crooked Vultures you can now add The Jaded Hearts Club. Comprised of Miles Kane (lead vocals – Last Shadow Puppets), Nic Cester (lead vocals – Jet), Matt Bellamy (bass – Muse), Graham Coxon (guitars – Blur), Jamie Davis (Jamie Davis and Soul Gravy), and Sean Payne (drums – The Zutons), their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band inspired name comes from the fact the group were originally assembled by Davis to perform Beatles covers at his own birthday party.

Scottish indie-rock superstars Travis remain one of the biggest selling British bands of the last thirty years thanks, in large part, to their 1999 smash hit album The Man Who, which spent nine weeks at the top of the UK albums chart, sold over three million copies, and spawned the songs Why Does It Always Rain On Me?, Turn, Writing To Reach You, and Driftwood: songs that remain on jukeboxes and playlists up and down the country. More than that, they’ve passed into wider British culture, as recognisable as anything by the venerated greats of UK music.

Chicago-born, LA-based Alexander Glantz – known as Alexander 23 – is generating a heck of a lot of interest. Signed to Interscope Records, the singer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist spent the majority of 2019 on the road, including spots opening for Alec Benjamin.

With three hugely well-received LPs already under her belt (The Heart, The Body, and The Soul), excitement and anticipation are already growing for the debut album of singer-songwriter Starling, To Be Alive, though no release date has been set yet. In the meantime, the album’s lead single No Leader dropped this week and gave us all a peak at what we can expect from this rising star.

Dagny Norvoll Sandvik, known as Dagny, grew up in a musical family in Tromso, Norway. After moving to London in her early twenties, she was propelled to fame with her single Backbeat, which was used on the TV show Grey’s Anatomy and launched her on the path being one of Norway’s biggest stars, with over 450 million streams and a host of sold out tours to her name.

Irish singer-songwriter Gavin James has played shows with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and Niall Horan, and amassed over a billion streams globally. In 2013 and 2016, he won the Choice Music Prize Irish Song of the Year award, and both his debut album, 2016’s Bitter Pill and it’s follow-up Only Ticket Home, reached the top five of the Irish albums chart. Now James is back with a hotly-anticipated new six-track EP, Boxes.

The ballad is a classic Demi venture — the young singer showcases her vulnerabilities whilst making room for self-empowerment and courage.

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Jesse Jo Stark has plenty of rock and roll pedigree. She’s the daughter of Richard and Laurie Stark, the couple behind Chrome Hearts, the fashion, fragrance and jewellery label that is an L.A. institution and has dressed all manner of celebrities over the decades, from Jay-Z to Mick Jagger. If that wasn’t enough, her godmother is none other than Cher.