Wildbirds And Peacedrums – Rivers

If you take a little look at the bio of Wildbirds and Peacedrums on Spotify you will see that they are described as ‘almost unclassifiable’. Rather than being a cop-out of an attempt to compartmentalize, perhaps this is a fair description. If we were forced, I guess we would say blues as an over-arching style. Nonetheless, Wildbirds and Peacedrums’ latest, Rivers, is a compilation of two previously vinyl-only EPs – Retina and Iris - and both could conceivably come from different bands. This becomes all the more impressive when one remembers that this band is in fact a duo. Swedish vocalist Mariam Wallentin and drummer Andreas Weliin each have their own variable styles and these come together in an interesting number of combinations in Rivers and result in an enjoyable collection. … Continue Reading

Secret Cities – Pink Graffiti

Secret Cities - Pink Graffiti

The story of Secret Cities – formerly The White Foliage – needs to be understood to appreciate the complex character of Marie. J. Parker and Charlie Gokay’s second album, Pink Graffiti. The North Dakotans met at band camp in 2001 and from there began to exchange cassette tapes across the state to further their shared love of psychedelia. Each would then add to the other’s work using a 4-track, layering on top of each other to produce the multi-faceted sound that is found in Pink Graffiti. The cassette tape mentality is at the core of this record. … Continue Reading

The Divine Comedy – Bang Goes The Knighthood

The Divine Comedy - Bang Goes The Knighthood

Neil Hannon goes back to his Divine Comedy roots in Bang Goes the Knighthood for a punchy, if at times incoherent, tenth studio album.

As the photo on the front featuring Hannon in a bathtub with a bowler hat, a pipe, and a dog with a bejeweled collar suggests, the theme of the album is the tumultuous lives of the rich and famous. Hannon’s typically satiric and consistently amusing style achieves this brilliantly throughout. The opening track, ‘Down in the Street Below’, soars and then settles down to a simple piano and bass line which sees the fantastic line, “Your armchair is round and your glass is square, the clientele straight out of this month’s Vanity Fair”, invoking images of a trendy bar full of money-laden socialites high on…well, the high life. … Continue Reading

Band Of Horses – Infinite Arms

Band Of Horses - Infinite Arms

Band Of Horses, the Low Country outfit from Seattle are back for a third L.P, Infinite Arms, which sees them make the move from Sub Pop to Columbia with changes that will annoy some but do not severely affect the overall quality.

The shift to a larger, fuller sound, to reflect the new fans that the boys have picked up over the course of two albums, is shown immediately in ‘Factory’. Starting with an emphatic slap of the drums akin to ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, soaring violins allow for an intro before Ben Bridwell announces that “the elevator in the hotel lobby has a lazy door”. If you were going to compare ‘Factory’ as a ‘door’ to Infinite Arms, you certainly could not call it lazy. Beyond the melodic opening verse lies a catchy chorus backed up well by the rest of the band’s vocals. … Continue Reading

Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (And Around In Your Heart And On Through Your Blood)

Six-piece Canadian indie rockers Hey Rosetta! return with a second offering attempting to be as epic as the album title. Into Your Lungs has been well received in its homeland; winning Album of the Year at the inaugural Verge Music Awards, being nominated for 2008 Atlantis Music Prize, and shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Awards. … Continue Reading

Hefner – We Love The City (Reissue)

Hefner

Nine years after its original release and after a good ol’ lawsuit which saw Darren Hayman win back the rights to all his songs from Hefner’s label, Too Pure, We Love The City gets a reissue complete with an extra CD crammed full of demos and b-sides.

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Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Beware

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware

Will Oldham continues his yearly schedule of releasing a record with Beware, an album that sees him further away than ever from the sombre brilliance of I See a Darkness into something which is frankly, a bit of a joke. … Continue Reading

The Decemberists – Always The Bridesmaid

The Decemberists

I gotta admit before we begin that I am pretty much a Decemberists obsessive. I can recite all of their songs and cried a little bit inside when I went to go see them on their last tour in the UK only to get to the venue to find it cancelled due to the band getting food poisoning. So I guess I shouldn’t be able to give an entirely objective opinion on them; but I’m a professional so I will… ahem.

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The Sea and Cake – Car Alarm

The Sea and Cake are a band that seem to release a lot of albums. This is their eighth and follows a year and a half from their previous effort, Everybody. It’s remarkable then that a band who releases on such a regular basis manages to remain so consistent and this is thankfully still the case with the latest album from the band from Chicago, Car Alarm. … Continue Reading

Okkervil River – The Stand Ins

The boys from Austin, Texas return with the follow up to last year’s The Stage Names with the second part of an originally planned double album in The Stand Ins; this immediately becoming apparent when the two albums are placed next to each other and the artwork merging to form one quite cool complete picture.