Front Line Assembly’s lengthy career has seen them take a number of turns, adapting their own sound and co-opting others as members of the band changed, with varying degrees of success. Their initial industrial sounds evolved enormously as technology progressed, took in all manner of metal influences in the nineties – arguably resulting in their […]
As I’ve noted before, being back in London over the past three years and more has meant that I’ve been able to see, at last, a number of bands I never thought I’d have the chance to see. Needless to say, MBV are one of those bands, having somehow missed the various shows in recent […]
Yeah, so it’s a while into 2013 now, but frankly there were quite a few things I managed not to mention in the various roundups that were great during 2012, and indeed some, or most of these went unmentioned by me last year. So, here are ten that I really need to do justice to…
Ears Always Open. It’s a mantra I’ve kinda tried to stick to when it comes to music, as frankly band recommendations and new things to listen to come to me from all angles sometimes, and also from the most unexpected corners. As in this case. Having returned to Iceland ten years after I first visited, […]
Another month, ten more new songs you should hear. New bands, old bands, returning bands. You can hear eight of the ten songs on the playlists below, but a little frustratingly not all of them appear on one playlist.
You know, I’ve not done a post like this in a while, and frankly I’m in the right mood for it now. It all started with a conversation at work, where I was somewhat castigated for daring to not like Pink Floyd. As if we can’t all have different opinions.
Recent KMFDM albums have followed something of a pattern, and not just in their release dates – i.e. in the Spring, every other year, for ten years now. All these years of "conceptual continuity" have resulted somewhat in a band resting on their laurels a bit, and most criminally re-using the same old ideas time […]
Crikey. Over two years already since the last, breathless Deftones show at Brixton, and here we were again, the Deftones with another exceptional new album to showcase. Unusually for a midweek Brixton show, though, I'd ensured that we got there relatively early, as I wanted to see the first support act, Three Trapped Tigers. Apparently […]
Concluding three gigs within a week of up-and-coming acts, all three of which I’ve been following for a while now, was Bitter Ruin’s return to London for their first show in the city in 2013. 2012 was a good year for the duo, with a new EP (The Rocket Sessions, released late in the year), […]
A new venue on me, this one – I’m not sure if it had previously been under another name? – and heading up York Way for the first time in a while brought home just how quickly the King’s Cross area is changing as regeneration takes hold. What was a grotty, forbidding area with little […]
After a fairly lengthy break from gig-going after a very busy 2012 – aside from the special occasion of Kraftwerk in Germany last month, this show marked my return to attending London gigs, and indeed it is the first of a number in the next few months.
Back for a new year, here are my tracks of the past month.
This month – January 2013 – marks an important transport anniversary, the 150th anniversary of the first London Underground line, therefore the 150th anniversary of the first underground system in the world. It is kinda hard to imagine what an earth London would be like without it’s dense and complex transport system, and so to […]
There are your regular gigs, and then there are gigs that feel like something a little more special. Gigs that are worth going out of your way for.
This year has been a bit of a crazy year for gig-going, even by my standards. I saw 140 different bands, only 10 of them more than once, at 53 shows, three of which were multi-day festivals. At 36 different venues, in three different countries this time (UK, well, England, Belgium and Czech Republic).
My second visit to Antwerp for BIMFest – I first went last year, which was reviewed here – was once again enormous fun, featuring a city I’m now familiar with, friends old and new (and the usual crazy connections close to home), and of course a whole load of music, of which only a few […]
As I noted last week, 2012 really was a good year for music, as far as I was concerned, including a number of new discoveries.
After quite a few more gigs by reunited bands this year, I’m still in two minds as to whether they are a good thing or not. In some cases, they have undoubtedly resulted in bands getting the dues they should have had in the first place, others have revitalised careers, and frankly some others have […]
Yet again, this list was a tough one. 2012 actually ended up being an impressive year for new music, as far as I was concerned, it just didn’t all come from the corners that I was expecting.
The end of November looms, so it is time once again to review 2012 in music.
