Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Being a 'supergroup' - as Boygenius trio Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus are commonly described - has its pitfalls, one of which is finding time to record and promote your music. It was for this reason that it took the threesome almost five years to record their debut album, The Record, which was released to critical acclaim (the NME called it an 'instant indie classic') earlier this year. The fact that 'The Rest', an EP of unheard songs (literally - no previews were available online prior to release), has followed so quickly suggests that it was recorded at the same time. Either way, it was produced by the band alongside a team of six producers) and delivers more memorable songs in their now familiar American indie-rock style. A treat for fans, all told.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged & surface marks but otherwise in excellent condition***


Tomasz Bednarczyk makes a long-awaited return to 12k after his 2009 debut Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow (12k1055, 2009) and a couple of follow-up releases on Australia's Room40. On Windy Weather Always Makes Me Think Of You Bednarczyk has collected sounds via a smartphone dictaphone and Sony field recorder over the past 10 years with a goal to transform all gathered recordings into new, multilayered harmonies. Field recordings come from voyages around the globe and originally consisted of melodies interwoven by multilayered sounds of the environment. After the gathering and layering of sounds the process was to deconstruct theminto single sounds and samples. This has served as a basis for creating the entire concept of the album; to establish completely new harmonies using solely those short fragments.

Review: Tomasz Bednarczyk makes a long-awaited return to 12k after his 2009 debut Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow (12k1055, 2009) and a couple of follow-up releases on Australia's Room40. On Windy Weather Always Makes Me Think Of You Bednarczyk has collected sounds via a smartphone dictaphone and Sony field recorder over the past 10 years with a goal to transform all gathered recordings into new, multilayered harmonies. Field recordings come from voyages around the globe and originally consisted of melodies interwoven by multilayered sounds of the environment. After the gathering and layering of sounds the process was to deconstruct theminto single sounds and samples. This has served as a basis for creating the entire concept of the album; to establish completely new harmonies using solely those short fragments.

Review: Two years on from the release of their fantastic debut album, Wolo So, Balimaya Project returns with more inspired fusions of polyrhythms, percussion, heady horns, "virtuosic kora styles", contemporary jazz and traditional Mande music. It's a uniquely sweet, deep and gently sun-soaked sound - all emotive vocals, tapped out tribal rhythms, frazzled solos, dreamy acoustic guitars, glistening highlife-influenced electric guitars and sultry, soulful intent. The London-based collective has long been hard-to-pigeonhole, and it's this impeccably realised but sonically adventurous approach - along with the quality of their musicianship - that's been the key to their success. When The Dust Settles will only enhance their rising reputation - it really is that good!

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: He may be a shoegaze and dream-pop legend, but sometime Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell has spent much of the last few years making ultra-immersive, out-there ambient soundscapes that are as mind-soothing as they are enveloping and, at times, overwhelming. Tidal Love Numbers, his latest album, once again puts his gorgeous, layered guitar playing front and centre, with collaborators Masal (a duo from Essex) providing complimentary harp, synth and drum sounds. They call the resultant four tracks "ambient, astral jazz". That's a fairly apt description, with the four stretched-out tracks sitting somewhere between Bell's own ambient work, the ambient-Americana of Jonny Nash, and the open-minded experiments of 21st century harpists such as Zeena Parkins.

Review: NYC quartet Body Meta is an interesting proposition. The Work is Slow, their debut album, is tricky to pigeonhole, with the band drawing on their disparate pasts as musicians within the experimental, post-rock, jazz-rock and fusion scenes to deliver winding, unfurling instrumentals that flit between fuzzy, freewheeling intensity and glistening, slow-burn beauty. There's much to enjoy amongst the six tracks on show, from the discordant alt-rock experimentation of 'Horse Flower Storm/Fabuloso', and the squally riffs/mind-altering heaviness of 'Bullitt', to the jazz-flecked, groove-laden psychedelia of 'Rice Tea' and the sun-bright loveliness of 'Ribbon'.

Review: Norwegian ambient veteran Biosphere has enjoyed something of a renaissance of late, thanks in no small part to a series of essential reissues of his 1990s work. His latest release, "The Senja Recordings", is not a reissue, though, but rather his most significant and extensive new album in years. Icy, windswept and atmospheric, it was apparently recorded during extended stays on a Norwegian island over the course of four years. There's plenty of sparse, dark ambient material, of course, but also plenty of distorted but quietly melodic compositions that mirror the loneliness of his remote surroundings. He brings us closer than ever to those surroundings via extensive use of field recordings made during his time on the island, something that only enhances the listening experience.

Review: While Jim Jupp's work as the Belbury Poly has always touched on pagan imagery, clandestine atmospherics and vintage electronics - with a dash of pastoral instrumentation thrown in from time to time - it's fair to say that he's never released an album quite like The Path, his seventh full-length excursion. Recorded with the help of a band of musicians - bass, guitar, flute, clarinet and piano all feature alongside his familiar analogue and modular synth sounds - and a narrator (poet and spoken word artist Justin Hopper), the album manages to be atmospheric and alluring whilst also being loose and groovy - all re-imagined folk-rock, eyes-closed psychedelia, breezy jazz and library music chic. It will surprise some fans, for sure, but it's a genuinely fantastic album and a huge step forward from a producer who's not content to just plough the same musical furrow.

Review: A favourite of John Peel's - they ended recording no less than five sessions for his revered show - the Hebden Bridge-formed band saw success in the 1980s with a heady mix of rhythmically-propelled post-punk and Hartley's distinctively wired vocals. Before splitting in 1986 they released two albums and numerous EPs, but until now they've been on vinyl only - this definitive box set (or Bog Set as they have it) sees five different CDs of both original masters and rarities, plus an exclusive booklet of background info.

Review: After a recent string of EPs and mini LPs, it's a pleasure to hear Biosphere tantalizing drones and ambient loops across a full-length. The Hilvarenbeek Recordings are a perfect encapsulation of the man's sound and vision, forever iterating his subtle sounds to paint rich and vivid portrays of the world and of his surroundings. The new album, one of his best to date, comes to life thanks to the amalgamation of field recordings, raw talent, and a pensive outlook on the world. A constant thirst for applying sound to vision, and vision to sound. Wonderful, as always.

Review: On his return to China in 2019 after a period away, Brock van Wey noticed a "strange, sound emitting item" on the table. It was a handmade 'steel tongue drum', a unique percussion instrument associated with spirituality and meditation in Asian culture. A few days later, van Wey recorded an extended jam of himself playing it, and later overdubbed electronic sounds, melodies, chords and textures. The result is The Depth of Rain, the long-serving ambient and drone artist's second Bvdub album of 2024. Where some of van Wey's ambient sets can tend towards the intense and claustrophobic, The Depth of Rain is a genuinely melodious, evocative and spring-like affair that ebbs and flows wonderfully throughout, providing entertainment and sonic bliss in equal measure.

Review: The story goes that, back when he was a core member of Kraftwerk, Karl Bartos helped create the band's own theme for Fritz Lang's often-soundtracked Metropolis. Bartos has an enduring fascination with the more daring artwork of the early 20th Century, and so he took on the challenge of creating a new score for Robert Weine's landmark silent movie The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. Using an assortment of synths in his Hamburg studio, Bartos creates a symphonious soundtrack which shows his passion for the subject matter in stark detail. A must-check for fans of Bartos and the wider Kraftwerk phenomenon, as well as fans of Weine's pioneering psychological thriller.

Review: Musician and writer Karl Bartos has long been admirer of Weimar-era culture. During his time in Kraftwerk, he helped create the stunning track 'Metropolis', directly inspired by a band viewing of the classic 1927 Fritz Lang film of the same name. The original orchestral music composed for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Giuseppe Becce had long been lost and in 2005, after watching the film, Bartos imagined what it would be like to create an entirely new one in the 21st Century in his home studios in Hamburg. Now with crystal clear images, digitally restored by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Foundation, the film is visually the best quality it has ever been and now, with Bartos' soundtrack, there is impressive sound to go with the haunting vision. Narrative film music and sound design collide in Robert Wiene's classic 1920 psychological thriller, this latest auditory complement of which is now issued on a large 37-track CD and 48-page booklet.

Review: For all of the "it's like 1995 all over again" analysis that greeted the surprise return of Britpop stars Blur, it would count for nothing if the music they were making was a hollow pastiche of the past. Fortunately, The Ballad of Darren, the band's first new album since 2015, is a giddy blast from the past - and reportedly one recorded in a much more cooperative and good-humoured atmosphere than expected. Fans will immediately feel at home, with tracks such as 'St Charles Square' and 'The Narcissist' offering that now familiar mix of weary vocals, squally guitars, low-slung bass and shuffling drums. Whether or not it's a "return to form" is debatable, but it's certainly a refreshing blast from the past for those came of age in the 1990s (and those inspired by Britpop's messy, lager-fuelled energy).

Review: The jazz and broken beat revival continues apace as we race through 2019, so original pioneers of the sound are rightly coming back into focus. Enter the Brand New Heavies, one of the key acts of the mid-eighties who sound as good on this brand new album as ever. It's littered with funk-licked pop, crystalline acid jazz and singalong songs that range from tender ballads to soaring soul. Angie Stone, Beverley Knight and other vocalists lend their tones along the way, but importantly TBNH is not a revival or self-satisfied celebration. Instead, it feels like a forward-looking and accomplished album that takes the band in subtle new directions.

Review: Second time around for the Bees' terrific debut album, Sunshine Hit Me, which wowed critics and buyers alike on its initial release way back in 2001. The epitome of a surprise hit with admirably DIY roots - the duo behind it, Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, famously recorded it in a limited home studio built in the back garden of a residential house on the Isle of Wight - the album has lost none of its allure all these years on. Woozy, summery and lo-fi, with hazy horns and glassy-eyed vocals rising above backing tracks that variously doff a cap to soul, rocksteady, ska, 1960s dream pop, psychedelia and a wealth of subtle global musical influences, Sunshine Hit Me is a warming, smile-inducing treat. This edition also boasts a sextet of bonus cuts, which seem to be a mixture of B-sides and tracks plucked from the pair's archives.

Review: The superb Greyscale project from the Lithuanian label continues with another gorgeous album, Strange Fog. It's a split release that finds Genning on the first six tunes and BOTN on the last five. These are evocative and picturesque ambient pieces that invite you deep into wide open spaces and have you gazing at the sonic scenery. Things start lo-fi and rather foggy but delicate melodies bright light and hope as the album plays out and you are cast ever more adrift from the real world and all the nagging anxieties that come with it.

Review: It wasn't so long ago we were writing about the joys of BVDUB's Fumika Fades, a new double pack in February that sunk us deep into moving ambient soundscapes. Now the Bay Area dub techno titan Brock van Wey is back once again with yet another album - he dropped plenty of them last year too so is clearly in a mad creative patch. Slowly Shifting Lakes comes in multiple formats, this one being a double CD. The ambient here is coarse and textured, fizzing synths stretching out over skittish rhythmic frameworks before sinking into calmer waters on cuts like the escapist 'Searching For Glowing Shores.' Another triumphant album for sure.

Review: Originally released in 2005, Silenced captures the essence of The Black Dog's enigmatic allure, transporting listeners to otherworldly realms with its lush, tuneful compositions and angular genius. Each track on the album is a testament to the group's unparalleled ability to surprise and entrance, evoking a sense of both unease and beauty. For fans of The Black Dog, Silenced serves as a welcome treat, while also serving as an entry point for those new to the group's mesmerising soundscapes. Definitelt one of their best full length albums yet to date.

Review: Since debuting in 2006, Italian singer Mario Biondi has skipped between styles and sub-genres, variously turning his hand to carnival-ready Latin jazz, soul-jazz, easy listening, Europop, Christmas music and bossanova. On Romantic, his latest full-length excursion, he keeps his options open too, offering up a range of loved-up songs (in both English and Italian) that variously doff a cap to Nat King Cole, big band jazz, jazz-funk, Barry White (the Love Unlimited Orchestra style 'Romantic Song'), string-laden tear-jerkers ('Loneliness'), funked-up disco-jazz ('What's Your Name'), Rhodes-heavy soul (a gospel-influenced cover of Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' that's worth the admission price on its own) and breezy Latin beats ('Papa Loves Mambo').

Review: Bad Boy Troy is the musical moniker of one Troy Tipton, whose ambition to make rollicking guitar music extends back to the age of six, at which point he began to take after famous guitarists such as Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Paul Rogers. A lifelong stint of touring with the likes of Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, Whitesnake and Ozark Mountain Daredevils has led up to this moment, at which the headstock heartthrob now releases this globetrotting new album on CD. Huge guitar sludge-waves are heard in full swing on cover versions like 'Another Brick In The Wall' (Pink Floyd) and 'Bad Ass Boy', as the seasoned axe daredevil swears his dread oath to never sleeping, always shredding.

Review: Beatles fans have been waiting for this one for a while and now it is finally here. It was the legendary Liverpool band's seventh album and it came in August 1966. As ever it was an experimental and cutting-edge work of pop rock, indie and psychedelic sounds that was a critical and commercial success. Some of the awards it won include Grammy Award for Best Album Cover as well as being admitted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The album features classic singles 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'Yellow Submarine' which sound as fresh and new today as ever.

Review: A couple of years ago French crate digger Charles Bals invited us to "Club Meduse", an imaginary Riviera club where the music was always obscure, European and decidedly mid-80s. Here he opens the doors once more, delivering an open-air friendly soundtrack heavy on rare private press gems, overlooked beauties and the kind of cuts that most would consider Balearic (even if they may have been more popular in Italy and France). Highlights are plentiful, from the eccentric instrumental of Voyage De Charme's fretless bass-powered "Hotel Des Savanes" and the soft-focus, flamenco-tinged bliss of Claude Miss' "Paco Ye Adama", to the sun-kissed jazz-funk/synth-pop fusion of Marc Et Frank's "Cap'tain Coke" and the reggae-zouk quirkiness of Les 36 15's "Zoulous! (Remix)".

Review: Beyonce joins Drake in the house-via-Baltimore club 'renaissance', which has seen to a good deal of major hip-hop & R&B artists working in the styles over the course of entire albums and mixtapes. This being the queen of pop's first album in over six years, some naysayers say songs like 'Break My Soul' (filled with 90s organ and downtempo kicks and snares a-la Robin S) and 'Energy' (packed with batida stylings) are paint-by-numbers, but we beg to differ; for Beyonce, it's a polyglot of reinventory music.

Review: The highly anticipated follow-up to 2019's old school Q-Tip executively produced Uknowhatimsayin? and the 2023 Scaring The Hoes collab tape with alternative hip-hop savant JPEGMAFIA, Quaranta (Spanish for 40) shall serve as the next solo full-length from the hero that is Danny Brown. A "spiritual bookend" to Brown's 2011 breakthrough success XXX, which correlated with the MC hitting his 30th birthday, this latest batch features both a dynamic collection of producers such as Skywlk, The Alchemist and Quelle Chris, while also boasting features from some of the most underrated voices in the game like Bruiser Wolf, and MIKE. Conceptually, Brown appears poised to take us on a lyrical and sonic sojourn across his expansive success ever since he knocked the scene's door down decades ago.

Review: During recent interviews, James Blake framed Playing Robots Into Heaven, his sixth album, as a kind of return to his club roots - an idea borne out by his decision to structure the album as a kind of imaginary "night out raving". Of course, this is Blake we're talking about, and while the album does lean heavily on the post-dubstep sound that made him famous (which itself drew as much from experimental electronica and outsider pop as dubstep, house or techno), it's not like he's suddenly turned into Ben UFO, Scuba or Mala. It's a highly enjoyable album, though, and one that combines his most familiar and cherished elements - heavily treated, emotive vocals, piano motifs, woozy electronics and ghostly chords - with grooves rooted in techno, house and UK bass. If you're a fan, you'll love it.

Review: Busy Signal has been blowing up the dancehall scene for a hot minute. He has the ability to cook up real crossover hits as heard on opener "Stay So" (which clocked up an incredible 32 million hits online) and "One Way" (with 17 million). With "Parts Of The Puzzle", the long time star wanted to show off his range, which he duly does across 10 crisp and contemporary cuts. The production is reflective and shiny, with a range of rhythms that take in classic reggae ""Girl Like You"", funk ("Balloon") and deep dancehall ("Bring Back The Vibes (feat. Josey Wales)". It all adds up to a comprehensive, forward looking record from one of the game's best.

Review: Blink 182 were one of the biggest bands of their era - the chart bothering pop-rock act that had their most famous hit used in the legendary American Pie movie and cement their status as teen faves forever. As much as their old albums remain favourites with fans, One More Time is a brand new work from the reunited outfit and one made by the band's classic lineup of Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and Travis Barker. Arriving after a battle with lymphoma and a plane crash for their colective ranks, those issues are what brought the band back together and are addressed across this great return to form

Review: Originally recorded and released in 1993, On The Move was the last studio album James Brown collaborator Bobby Byrd recorded during his lifetime. While it may have been recorded after Byrd's 1970s heyday, musically it offers full-throttle funk - albeit with slicker and more expansive musical arrangements - of the kind that he and Brown used to deliver in their sleep. It's a great set all told, with this (delayed) 30th anniversary edition also including instrumental versions of all eight original tracks. It also boasts a couple of rare non-album tracks recorded at the time: the slow-motion, horns-and-guitar solo laden 'Sunshine' and the effortlessly funky, low-down and addictive 'Don't Throw Your Love in the Garbage Can'.

Review: William Basinski and Janek Schaefer make for a long distance collaboration on this much anticipated new album. It has taken the best part of eight years from conception to final execution but that more than proves worth the wait. Time and duration are recurring themes in their work and during the pandemic yeas in particular those were very much skewed and warped for us all. ". . . on reflection" casts itself free from temporal restraints with delicate piano passages, flickering melodies and drawn out drones that really sink you in deep.

Review: During The Black Keys surprise revival of recent years, much of their music has been produced by Dangermouse. While he played no role on the duo's new album, Ohio Players - their 12th in total - his influence remains in the inventiveness of the production. The pair's new-found love of collaboration remains too, with Beck credited as co-writer on roughly half of the album's tracks. His influence is obvious in the funkiness and fuzz-fuelled psychedelia of 'This Is Nowhere' and 'Don't Let Me Go', as well as the quirky, horn-sporting cheeriness of 'Beautiful People (Stay High)' and the low-slung, effortlessly funky indie-rap hedonism of 'Paper Crown' (where he appears on vocals alongside Juicy J. The band's wholehearted love of hip-hop is also explored on the excellent Lil Noid collaboration 'Candy & Her Friends'.

Review: As Biosphere, Norwegian producer Geir Jenssen pretty much defined a whole genre of ambient music across several seminal albums. In 2011, his N Plants outing was another critically acclaimed one that took inspiration from the Japanese post-war economic miracle. Every track on the album is named after a Japanese nuclear plant and features a warm, diffuse glow that never leaves you. Rhythms are suggested by the rippling of synths or tumbling of chords as distant hues, soft glow keys and fuzzy vinyl crackle all bring each track to life in a way that makes it as good in the foreground as the background.

Review: Following a string of singles on Timmion and its lesser-celebrated Stylart Records offshoot, Jonny Benavidez offers up his debut album, My Echo, Shadow & Me. In keeping with Timmion's successful formula, Benavidez is accompanied by the label's sensational (and undeniably authentic-sounding) house band, Cold Diamond & Mink, for a stroll through alternatively loved-up, heartbroken and irresistibly funky soul songs inspired by records from the 1960s. It's a winning formula all told, made even more special and rewarding not by Cold Diamond & Mink's backing and production - which is as good as ever - but the sensationally soulful and sensitive nature of Benavidez's voice.

Review: Born in Cannes in 1943, Michele Bokanowski has become a towering figure in the world of composing electroacoustic music. The Frenchwoman lives in Paris and this new and comprehensive four-CD collection brings together all the concert music she ever played. It is an ambitious release but a vital one that spans 1974 to 2020. Michele mainly composes for concert and for cinema but has also done so for TV, dance and theatre. She brings her own sense of mysterious atmosphere and poetic concrete sounds - which result from her studying music concrete - all with an artful cinematic editing job to finish it off.

Review: 'Moonage Daydream' is the latest addition to the Bowie franchise; an epic film of never-seen-before Bowie footage, recolourised and repackaged to form an experimental cinematic odyssey for today's generation of art rock lovers. The soundtrack sees an insta-release to complement the launch of Parlophone's new digital streaming service; it's got an exclusive early version of 'Hunky Dory' in there, as well as a live version of 'Rock n' Roll With Me'. A kaleidoscopic LP from the master of reinvention, posthumously reinventing himself once more.

Review: After what seems like an eternity, Warp has finally decided to give Broadcast's Microtonics series a full release. Initially made available only to fans at gigs, the two-volume series saw the band experimenting not with their krautrock-influenced brand of trippy electronic pop, but rather the kind of music concrete and synthesizer experiments that were once the preserve of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Peter Zinovieff and the various modular synthesis fetishists that came in their wake. For that reason, it's not Broadcast at their most accessible, but if you're into vintage synth sounds and admirable experimental electronica, Microtonics makes for hugely enjoyable listening.

Review: A live double album 2xCD + DVD combo from our sugar-coated punk heroes Buzzcocks, recorded at London's iconic Shepherds Bush Empire in 2003 whilst promoting their self-titled comeback album. Boasting new cuts from said LP such as 'Jerk', 'Wake Up Call', and, 'Driving You Insane', peppered amongst essential classics like 'I Don't Mind', 'Fast Cars', 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have)?' and 'I Don't Know What to Do with My Life', this iteration of the group featured Tony Barber on bass and Philip Barker on drums, accompanying the late great Pete Shelley and the now-bandleader Steve Diggle. 32 doses of saccharine hooks, fuzzy guitars and powerpop punk beauty transmitted from over two decades ago directly to your ear canals.

Review: Big Strick's latest full-length offering on his own 7 Days Entertainment label is a family affair, mixing tracks from the veteran Detroit producer with similarly deep and woozy jams from his 16 year-old son Tre Strickland, AKA Generation Next. The father-and-son team's approach to house - wringing atmospheric soul from bubbling rhythms, warm chords and blazed melodies - is surprisingly similar, as shown by the two deep, jazz-flecked collaborations showcased here. Elsewhere, both impress with their individual contributions, with Strickland Junior's slap bass-infused deep head-nodder "Flynn's" and sweet, winding "Mo Money" standing out.

Review: Social Registry brings you Blood On The Wall's new album 'Liferz'. Having gone from hometown heroes to national fan favourites and critical darlings, the band has earned its reputation as top of the rock heap.
Putting out raucously fun records, this is a portrait of a band at the top of their game - somehow they have managed to get even more awesome.

Review: It's been a solid five years since the epic sounds of America's best plugged-in rock duo last electrified our ears. And be it a reference to the Rolling Stones or even Scorsese, the album turns it up from the start with "Shine A Little Light". Big time rhodes and bluesy folk mentalities are then wrapped up in a low-slung ballad that is "Walk Across The Water". Some fans may still be yearning for the raw energy that catapulted the duo into the limelight with Magic Potion, however high voltage sounds can still be found on tracks like "Under The Gun" and "Lo/Hi" - with gospel elements in this case edging to the fore. Overall there's a slight dance element protruding from this LP in comparison to previous records, begging the question: Can you dig it!