When creating rock’n’roll music you have a few choices: you can have your music reflect the warts and all world you live in or you can fuck off the world you live in and create your own day-glo paradise. West Lothian quintet The Tropicanas opt for the second route, which is the reason why ‘ThoughtsContinue reading “The Tropicanas – Thoughts Inside Your Head”
Author Archives: heyrichey
Stone Deaf – What Good Is Sorry?
Swansea newcomers Stone Deaf have come stampeding out of the starting blocks since their formation less than 12 months ago, and their second single, ‘What Good Is Sorry?’, is an absolute turbo-charged, blues-rock tinged, beast of a tune, bursting with fragments of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s mean americana and Dirty Pretty Things scuzzed-up indie. DistortedContinue reading “Stone Deaf – What Good Is Sorry?”
shortstraw. – clean up
Spitting gritty rap-punk verbalisations over abrasive industrial beats, Erin West is better known as shortstraw. and her latest single ‘clean up’ is two minutes and thirty seconds of smart, self-aware and straight-talking disruptive lyricism delivered over a spectacularly scuzzy rhythm. Sharing sagacious compact urban aphorisms, like: “Counting my loose change, I watch the world goContinue reading “shortstraw. – clean up”
Carpark – Happy On Mars
When we used to wonder if what we don’t have would be better than what we do we used to pose the question: “is the grass is greener on the other side of the fence?” but Carpark have updated the conundrum for the post-Elon Musk, AI-loving, solar system colonialist era, on their latest ethereal dream-popContinue reading “Carpark – Happy On Mars”
Annie Hardy – Cross Bearer EP
Annie Hardy is not arsed. It’s time to write a new EP? Yeah, I’m just gonna channel it straight out of the ether when the studio time starts. The resultant songs forming the ‘Cross Bearer’ EP are five brittly affecting, humour-laced goth-folk tunes? *shrugs*. And this isn’t a new development, either. Her debut album ‘HeartsContinue reading “Annie Hardy – Cross Bearer EP”
SAHAJi – Future In The Sky
Japan’s love of British rock’n’roll has long been a trope, but the traffic has largely been one way, with planes and planes of young guitar slingers heading east from the UK to make it big but far fewer Japanese songsters getting to make the trip in return. Enter brothers Shotaro and Youshiro Nishida, better knownContinue reading “SAHAJi – Future In The Sky”
Real Farmer – The Straightest Line
Dutch DIY-punk noisemakers Real Farmer’s second single on Strap Originals is a gloriously ramshackle vitriolic sideswipe at the self-righteously sober. Preaching from the viewpoint of the victoriously misanthropic, ‘The Straightest Line’ uses razor sharp guitar lines, breakneck drumming and frontman Jeroen Klootsema’s Joe Strummer-like vocal bark to put forward the well considered case of theContinue reading “Real Farmer – The Straightest Line”
Foxxglove – The Chaos EP
Tales abound through folklore and mythology of the equally deadly and healing powers of the Foxglove flower, some claiming the appearance of the plant in the wild is a sign that fairies are close, others believing throwing the leaves about infants cradles will protect them from getting bewitched, the destruction of the flora considered universallyContinue reading “Foxxglove – The Chaos EP”
AIRFLO – Swansong
Drifting in with dreamy strumming and gentle vocals, we presumed at first that Bristol and Newport’s AIRFLO had gifted us a charming little acoustic number for their second single. As we sat and listened, however, it became searingly obvious that ‘Swansong‘ is a bit more of a hefty, profound beast than its tender opening chimesContinue reading “AIRFLO – Swansong”
Midding – And Then, They Sing
“Heaven is this place” croons Midding singer Joe Woodward, enigmatic and barely audible beneath layers and layers of sludgy beats, mesmerizing keyboards and possibly some guitar (we can’t hear any but he’s strumming on one in the video so we suspect it’s in the mix there somewhere), doling out celestial overtones to some already intenselyContinue reading “Midding – And Then, They Sing”
Edge of Arcady 