Album Reviews

Dance music is often criticised for being all the same. There’s so many artists out there trying to replicate the successes of the likes of Avicii or Calvin Harris that they forget to forge their own style, and simply follow what seems to “work”. One duo that do things differently, though, are Galantis – and on new album The Aviary they manage to bring their own signature style to a brand new set of songs. Galantis’ last album, Pharmacy, was one I loved and had — Read more →

Things are surreal at the moment.  In the last few years the world as we know it has changed entirely, and every new day brings some new surprise, most often bad. There are nice surprises though, and the return of LCD Soundsystem has been like a ray of light shining through the darkness.  It’s taken almost two years since their comeback was announced on Christmas Eve of 2015, but now “american dream” has been released and the seven-year wait for a new album is over. — Read more →

Lorde burst on to the scene three years ago with “Royals”, a self-penned pop hit that was all the more remarkable for her being just 17 when doing so.  She took on the mantle of and up and coming international pop star with ease, and Much like her first album “Pure Heroine”, her second outing “Melodrama” takes on a clear and defined theme that runs through all the tracks.  The first album was about glamourizing the life of a typical teenager, searching for the big — Read more →

Paramore are one of the bands I listened to a lot towards the end of my time at secondary school, a pretty classic case of teenage love for alternative acts that has stayed with me to this day. The band were always about frontwoman Hayley Williams, whose powerful vocals were instantly identifiable and lent a strength to what were already songs that hit hard.  But in the background there was the excellent Farro brothers, one on guitar and one on the drums, that helped make — Read more →

Donald Trump is all over pop culture like a rash at the minute, and it perhaps harkens back to the conservative years gone-by of the likes of Thatcher and Reagan where a subculture broke through into the mainstream off the back of widespread dissatisfaction with public life in general. Passion Pit’s latest effort, straddling the lines between an album and an experimental EP, takes its name from a Trump campaign rally quote, but it is decidedly apolitical in its focus.  And its perhaps that detachment — Read more →