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This is an easy review to write. With Lie Out Loud London-based four-piece BLOXX have composed an album that is stuffed full of smart, insanely catchy and well crafted indie-pop goodness. And if that’s your cup of tea, and even if it isn’t, you should go and give it a listen right now.
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It’s a little bit of a paradox that Conor Oberst has arguably never been more well known than he is right now thanks to a string of solo albums that have made him, if not quite a household name then at least not far from it, but his most well-known moniker – that of Bright Eyes – haven’t released an album in almost a decade.
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If you haven’t heard of Jerry Joseph, don’t worry, I’m sure you’re not alone. He’s had the kind of life and career in music that reads like a novel. From incarceration and being sent to boarding school in New Zealand as a child, to founding non-profit the Nomad Music Organization, and touring the world as a solo artist and with his succession of bands, from 1980s rock-reggae outfit Little Women to supergroup Stockholm Syndrome, and plenty more in-between, he’s amassed an enormous back catalogue and plenty of stories along the way.
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Now into their fifth decade together, electro synth-pop duo Erasure have seen it all in their glittering career. As one of the pioneering acts of the UK electronica scene, they crossed over into enormous commercial success and became one of the biggest bands of the 1980s and 1990s. Incredibly, between 1986 and 2007, they achieved 24 consecutive Top 40 hits in the UK, and to date, they’ve sold over 25 million records.
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Tennessee-born singer, songwriter and actress Mandy Barnett has one eye firmly on the past with her latest release, A Nashville Songbook. Her eighth studio album, released through Place Music / BMG, is a collection of covers of American country classics, taking in a wide range of artists including Kris Kristofferson, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley.
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This is a truly 21st-century release, a record for our Coronavirus times. It is, rather wonderfully, a five-track collection of songs written by Snow Patrol in collaboration with their fans – referred to here as The Saturday Songwriters – with the creative process taking place through Instagram Live songwriting sessions hosted by the band’s frontman Gary Lightbody during the lockdown period.
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New York rockers The Lemon Twigs have a heck of a backstory. Fronted by brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, who appeared in Broadway shows and in a variety of TV shows and films as children, their last album, 2018’s Go To School, was a concept album about a chimpanzee raised as a human child and forced into education. Yes, really.
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Singer and guitarist Brian Sella and drummer Mathew Uychich, known collectively as American lo-fi folk-punk outfit The Front Bottoms, took a sizeable creative risk with their previous album Going Grey, which they uncharacteristically packed with synths. It was a fine album, but their seventh release, In Sickness And In Flames, finds us back in familiar territory.
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Comprised of Dale Norton (vocals), Callum Norton (drums), Jamie Darby (guitar), Thomas Ford (bass), and David Hardstone (guitar/keyboard), Broken Hands are an energetic stadium rock band hailing from Kent who have been playing together for well over a decade. Their debut album, Turbulence, was released last year and earned the outfit airplay and press coverage with the likes of Radio`1, The Independent and Clash.
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London four-piece Sea Girls have been one of the hottest upcoming names in indie circles for what feels like years now. With a string of four EPs in the last three years, a host of singles under their belt, a reputation for high energy live shows and a nomination for the BBC Sound Of 2019 poll, they’re a band with all the components in place to take the world by storm.
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The Killers conquered the world in the mid-2000s with their electro-tinged floor-filling indie rock blockbusters, and while they may never have quite hit those heady heights again, they nevertheless still fill arenas and headline festivals around the world and probably always will, and every single one of their previous five studio albums has hit number one in the UK charts.
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The Manic Street Preachers have built a career around politically vocal, guitar-driven indie rock. A solo concept album paying tribute to the life and work of Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter and communist activist Victor Jara, from the band’s lead singer James Dean Bradfield, seems a natural progression then.
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Scottish rock behemoths Biffy Clyro are pretty much a national institution these days. One of the UK’s biggest acts across any genre, their march to the mainstream has been unstoppable since 2007’s game-changing album Puzzle, which spawned the top-20 hit singles Saturday Superhouse, Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies, and Folding Stars, and reached number two in the UK albums chart. When X-Factor’s Matt Cardle reached number one with a cover of their track Many Of Horror a decade ago, their status as household names was confirmed.
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Enigmatic country music star Orville Peck is hard to unravel. From his decision to wear a tasselled mask at all times – it’s claimed he’s never shown his face in public – to his intriguing back story that takes in ballet and musical theatre, it’s hard to know where the artist ends and the man behind the mask begins. Orville Peck, itself, is a pseudonym. He is a riddle, a puzzle, a mystery.
