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Album Reviews

P.E.: Person – “A fresh reference point for a new generation”

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Album Reviews

My Morning Jacket: The Waterfall II – “A best-of without being just that”

The Lousville collective return with their first album in five years.

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Album Reviews

Human Impact: Human Impact – “Music that tiptoes on the razor wire”

Members of Swans and Cop Shoot Cop team up to make a cauldron of white noise on their debut release.

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Album Reviews

Tim Bowness: Late Night Laments – “Music for open spaces”

The No-Man singer returns with his sixth solo album and second in as many years.

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Film

Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars movie – review

Bruce Springsteen attempts to capture his latest album Western Stars on film and we see whether it lives up to the billing.

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Opinion Television

End of an era as we say goodbye to The Affair – an afterword

With The Affair finally reaching its conclusion, we assess its importance in the current standing of modern day television.

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Album Reviews

Less Bells: Mourning Jewelry – “an album for solitude to escape everyday burdens”

The second installment from Julie Carpenter reflects on darkness of the past.

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Singles

Tropical Fuck Storm release new single “Legal Ghost” – listen here

The Aussie miscreants return with the latest single from their upcoming third album.

Singles seldom appear on my radar. Music should be consumed holistically, and when I say that I mean by waiting for a new album, as opposed listening to a strand of it prior to its release.

Like everything, though, exceptions are made and with Tropical Fuck Storm that very much applies.

Tropical Fuck Storm defy many things. They deconstruct the mould. Their boundaries a peerless, undefined.

Legal Ghost, the band’s latest single from their forthcoming third album is yet another portion of weirdo proto-rock that the band have mastered spanning over their two albums and various singles in the wake of singer/guitarist, Gareth Liddiard, and singer/bassist, Fiona Kitschin‘s former band – the glorious hellraisers, The Drones.

With Legal Ghost, a track picked from the ashes of a discarded campfire of Liddiard’s 90s project with initial Drones co-founder, Rui Pereira in Bong Odyssey, it’s Tropical Fuck Storm sounding, shall we say, content?

Not in a nostalgic way; this band is too young and too smart to fall into that poisonous trap.

Legal Ghost sounds more like a band honing in on their sweet spot.

Don’t mistake us here, it’s distinctively TFS, without question. It’s just something that you can tap your foot to instead of completely losing your mind to the band’s usual frenzied chaos. No bad thing at all.

Lyrically, once again Liddiard‘s brooding honesty is on show as he sings, “It doesn’t really matter who you sleep with now, you’re just a legal ghost/It doesn’t really matter who you talk to now, you’re just a legal ghost.”

Yes, we’re all dead on our feet…

It’s hideously cynical but that’s the world we live in and, once again, with Legal Ghost Tropical Fuck Storm tell us how it is, showcasing their unbridled talent for the truth.

Legal Ghost is out now via Joyful Noise Recordings

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Features Interviews

Land Trance Interview: “Everything we do we feel sits in the broad continuum of psychedelic music”

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Album Reviews

Steve Von Till: No Wilderness Deep Enough – “connecting the dots between existentialism and a dream state”

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Album Reviews

Protomartyr: Ultimate Success Today – “bruising post-apocalyptic portraits”

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Features

Polvo: a buyer’s guide and look into the bipolar world of the underground touchstone

We put one of Chapel Hill’s greatest exports under the microscope, assessing their era-defining body of work.

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Books Interviews

Gerard Canney talks austerity, mental health, self-publishing and writing in secrecy

Indie author, Gerard Canney, has released his debut novel, Ambition and talks about the writing process, austerity, self-publishing and much more.

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Album Reviews

Einstürzende Neubauten: ALLES IN ALLEM – “Slow-motion psychedelia”

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Album Reviews

Jehnny Beth: To Love Is To Live – “a flawless triumph”

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Album Reviews

Jim White & Marisa Anderson: The Quickening – “A new world atmosphere”

The drumming maestro and experimental guitarist team up to produce a startling set of songs.

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Album Reviews

Yves Tumor: Heaven to a Tortured Mind -“A filthy, furious noise of glammed-up soul punk

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Features Lost Albums

Labradford: a buyer’s guide to a band way ahead of their time

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Album Reviews

Baxter Dury: The Night Chancers – “His durability in song-craft will outlast his contemporaries.

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Features

Baxter Dury: a unique artist transcending mere cult status

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Album Reviews

Bambara: Stray – “Walking that tightrope between beauty and pain”

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Albums

The Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet 50 years on: the first injection of cool

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Album Reviews

Destroyer: Have We Met -“A master of independent thought”

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Interviews

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs talk Brexit and the seven deadly sins

With Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ much anticipated second album King Of Cowards boxed-off,  we chewed the fat with the Newcastle five-piece.

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Album Reviews

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead’s X: The Godless Void And Other Stories – “Aggression consumed by elusive grandeur.”

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Albums

Richard Dawson’s 2020: the makings of an unbridled masterpiece

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Opinion

The Mercury Prize 2019 reflection – poisoned chalices, industry back-slapping and Sleaford Mods

We look at the relevance of the Mercury Prize and whether winning the award is all it’s cracked up to be.

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Books

Haruki Murakami: a buyer’s guide into the Japanese author’s alternative universe

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Albums

Nine Inch Nails Ghosts V and VI review – albums that conjure apocalyptic hope

Following the latest releases of their Ghost series albums we look at Nine Inch Nails transformation from brutality to beauty.

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Features

Protomartyr: the story so far

With their new album, Ultimate Success, released tomorrow, we look at Protomartyr’s story so far before their show Manchester’s Deaf Institute in late 2017.

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Opinion

David Berman – dead aged 52: an afterword

We reflect on the illustrious career of David Berman, the poet, cartoonist and musical mastermind behind Silver Jews and Purple Mountains.

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Albums Live

Low’s Double Negative: album to tug at heartstrings

Low’s Double Negative album prompted us to embark on a very personal journey in pursuit of brilliance.

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Albums

Weyes Blood’s Titanic Rising review: “proof that the slower burners are often the best”

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Features Live

Sleaford Mods: a voice for the voiceless

As Sleaford Mods play a barnstorming gig in Lincoln, we look back at their story so far and explains why they are the most important band in Britain.

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Albums

Sonic Youth’s Goo 30th anniversary: a cross-pollination of indie and the world of pop

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Albums

Deftones’ White Pony 20th anniversary: an album that spoke to a generation

As the Sacramento band’s seminal album turns 20, we look at how Deftones shaped the landscape of youth culture.

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Albums

Under the radar albums in 2020: 31 best new records to discover

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Interviews

Daughters interview: “The lion at the bottom of the mountain is hungrier than the lion at the top”

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Features

Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me and Now Only – tackling bereavement and mental health

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Features

Lockdown luck: reuniting with my CD collection

Amid self-isolation Simon Kirk strikes gold as he shares a personal story about the importance of a collection.