Juno Recommends Rock / Indie / Folk / Metal / Punk / 50s / 60s: August 2023

Review: I Inside the Old Year Dying is PJ Harvey's tenth studio long player but a first in some seven years. The last, The Hope Six Demolition Project, was a UK number one on the album charts and this one was again recorded with long-time creative collaborators John Parish and Flood. It is a vast sonic universe that is located "in a space between life's opposites, and between recent history and the ancient past." There is plenty of biblical imagery, Shakespearean references and lots of profound songwriting, as you would expect.

Review: It's funny to think about the Blur v Oasis contest that defined British music in the mid-1990s. Then bright young things looking to shake things up after years of electronic rave dominance, the fact so much emphasis was placed on these two bands makes for an incomplete story of those times, while their individual output was not quite polar but certainly harder to compare than headlines suggested. Skip forward a few decades and differences are now pronounced. The Gallagher Brothers have pursued relatively familiar sounds in the 21st Century. Blur, or at least Damon Albarn, created a 3D animated virtual band while overseeing the first few editions of the globally acclaimed Manchester International Festival. Now, 33 years after the debut single, Blur return with studio LP number nine, and it's a stunner. Not so much growing old gracefully as tackling challenges that come with it, it's though proving, poignant and grittily woozy.

Review: In November 1987, when this radio broadcast from Brussels was originally captured, The Cure were riding high, having been transformed from major cult to all out massive band by their 'best of' collection Standing On A Beach and then delivered their most extensive, ambitious and accessible album to date, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. This 13 track collection sees the boys from Crawley delivering exquisite pop highlights from that album - see the delicate 'Catch', the synthed up 'Hot Hot Hot' and 'Just Like Heaven' - alongside darker moments from earlierr in their career like the haunting 'Shiver & Shake' and melancholic 83 synth workout 'The Walk'.

Review: Numero Group have embarked on a reissues bundle of slowcore pioneer band Codeine's first and last albums, as well as an intermediary EP. 'Frigid Stars' is the former, and made for a remarkable debut album, epitomizing the late-80s-to-early-90s sound that still continues to influence trailblazers in the genre to this day, from Deathcrash to Bardo Pond. Codeine laid it bare before its name was coined: proto-slowcore is heavy, but not aggressive; quiet, but not silent; its vocals are hushed but present, perhaps reflecting the mood of doom that had set upon the local music scene in New York, where the band originate from. Thematically, the LP deals with angsty themes from loss to despair, with choice cuts like 'When I See The Sun' lumbering through ultra-reverb, gothic melodic lulls and guitarry plods to the death.

Review: Greta Van Fleet were either born too late or at exactly the right time. It all depends on how you feel about Led Zeppelin-esque hard progressive rock music, which is a relatively fitting description for the band although not necessarily bang on. Straight out of Frankenmuth, Michigan, the four piece formed of brothers Jake and Josh (twins no less) and Sam Kiszka, and Danny Wagner, know how to wail, riff, and drive tracks forward, and seem disinterested in falling for, or fawning over, the latest best things since sliced bread. Instead, they create these huge rock 'n' roll symphonies that seem made for stadium-sized crowds. Take 'Meeting the Master', for example - any bigger and it would take over the world itself. Even in less grandiose moments, 'Farewell For Now', it's hard to deny the rousing qualities at play. Overall, then, Greta Van Fleet may be exactly what we all needed, without realising it.

Review: Siouxsie Sioux is easily one of the most iconic musical artists of the 20th Century. By the time Mantaray arrived, circa 2007, she'd been in the game for more than 30 years, a career that erupted as the first sparks began to ignite the fires of punk, and one that still continues to this day. Like many with such longevity, her various projects, from The Banshees to The Creatures, grew increasingly artistic over the years. In many ways, this - her first solo album under Siouxsie, or Siouxsie Sioux - represented a move back towards more mainstream fare, albeit that's comparatively speaking and important to make clear we mean mainstream for Sioux. Nevertheless, as was acknowledged at the time, this is closer to pop than anything else, but still comes with the trappings of alternative, from dark twisted balladry to uptempo wildness.

Review: Exit North is a four-piece made up of Ulf Jansson, Charles Storm, Steve Jansen and Thomas Feiner, exploring classically-charged post-rock and taut songwriting wrapped around brooding soundscapes. After their debut back in 2018 the band are finally back for a follow-up. Recorded in Gothenburg and featuring an expansive cast of contributors, Anyway Still is a rich, engrossing listening experience full of poise and patience to match the grandiose musicality. In their considered approach, the pauses and rests are as vital as the notes played, all led by Feiner's cracked, compelling singing.

Review: Released in 1994 on the ever-incredible Creation Records, Ride's Carnival of Light was the band's third full length, and didn't so much mark a shift but a progression in the journey of the critically acclaimed outfit, who still retain the shoegaze and noise pop elements we all fell head over heels for, but look to draw on more traditional British sounds, too. The result is something that might be described as a laddish, plugged-in take on folk, at times at least. Sadly, this wasn't quite what critics said about it, and after successive slamming in the press the band began to look unfavourably at the release, too, with frontman and guitarist Andy Bell even going so far as to describe it as "carnival of shite". More recently, he managed to make peace with it, and revisiting the songs now reveals myriad classics waiting to be rediscovered and appreciated out of the context and weight of expectations they were born into at the time.

Review: Tarantula is one of those bittersweet moments in the history of UK rock & roll. On the one hand, it's a fantastic album that showcases the natural talent and innovative approach to song craft that Ride had first grabbed attention with. On the other, it marked the beginning of the end for the group, or more accurately, the first chapter following the end - finally getting a release after the outfit had called time and gone their separate ways. Still, in so far as swan songs go, there are plenty to celebrate here. Tarantula is a purist's rock & roll extravaganza at times, with its gritty riffs and forward momentum, tracks like 'Burnin'' perhaps best typify this, or those looking for a taste of the genre's 1960s origin story might look to 'Deep Inside My Pocket'. But then it's all much more complex than that, too, with the reflective indie balladry of 'Castle On The Hill', noise pop on 'Gonna Be Alright', and hypnotising layers on 'Ride The Wind'.

Review: A classic album in the category of slowcore - which emerged in the late 80s and early 90s as a reaction to the fast and noisy music of punk and hardcore - Codeine's The White Birch is the band's final project. Whereas their first project was a proto-slowcore album to say the least, this finale came at a time in which the genre had fully formed and found its corner. The band by now were building on the bare bones of the sound, adding more melodic variation and extra-ambitious arrangements to an already refined vision. The up-close-and-personal feel of cuts like 'Smoking Room' in particular make us feel like we're right there in the recording studio with Codeine, as if to convey the true rawness of the emotions they'd always tried to convey, but could only accrue the resources and expertise to do during their last hurrah. Fans will be pleased to hear Numero Group are locking in a full reissue bundle of their first and last albums, of which this version of 'The White Birch' is a part.

Review: Did Steely Dan go Bisto on us and save the best for last? Maybe, just maybe. While Pretzel Logic didn't mark the end of all things The Dan, it was the final album to feature the full lineup - Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, Denny Dias, Jim Hodder, and Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter (prior to the latter joining The Doobie Brothers). It was also the last to be released while the group were actively touring, and as such can be seen as something of a swan song. Perhaps Magnus Opus is a more appropriate turn of phrase. Critically acclaimed at the time, the record sees the jazz rockers opt to tone down the instrumentals that had cost them radio play with preceding LP, Countdown to Ecstasy, and instead focus on shorter, more direct and certainly catchier tunes. That's not to mean throwaway, mind, with praise lauded on the release at the time, when it was reissued in the late 1980s and remastered a decade or so later. Back again, it still has the same impact.

Review: Having been active at the intersections of jazz, avant garde rock, noise, and freeform for three decades now, New York State-based drummer Chris Corsano could be described as enigmatic. The list of partners and collaborators is long and distinguished - Bjork, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Nels Cline, to name a few - and wildly varied. His ability to play, conceive and compose cannot be overstated, turning chaos into rhythmic beauty and cacophonies into grooves. Bill Orcutt, 13 years Corsano's senior, is a similar musician. Guitarist, rather than percussionist, he took inspiration from Muddy Waters' performance in The Last Waltz and then mastered the art of free improvisation within punk and blues, embracing distortion, rough riffs, and challenging noises to create (dis)harmonies and emotion in the most abrasive places. Put them together on stage at Duke University and magic happens. Or it did in April 2022, when this was recorded. A landmark of intensity.

Review: Huw Marc Bennett takes direct inspiration from the music of Wales on his new album 'Days Like Now'. It leans heavily on acoustic for and melody as a result of being written during the pandemic on a stripped down setup of just bass and acoustic guitars. As such it has a quiet vibe, an intimacy, a late night and low-lit feel throughout that makes it all there alluring and personal. The drums that feature are lo-fi and fuzzy round the edges, the bring a happy energy to the tunes without dominating and Welsh language fans will be glad to see all the titles are native, too.

Review: Named after an episode of The Goons and following in the wake of fellow Strourbridge bands The Wonderstuff and Pop Will Eat Itself, Ned's Atomic Dustbin were as famous for their 'one side shaved' haircut as their music, although their two bass player line up gave them a unique sound of sorts. 'Are You Normal?' was the second of their three studio albums, and catches the band breaking away from their trademark 'grebo' grooving to exoeirment with electronics and sampling.

Review: We have been quietly wondering when the dance music backlash will begin and popular trends will turn back to guitar music, and maybe a reissue of this classic album from The Strokes will provide the catalyst. It was one of three early albums from the band that made for an unreal run of records and it still sounds mega all these years later. The critically acclaimed, gold-certified First Impressions Of Earth was first released back in 2005 and debuted right in the top spot of the UK album charts. It packs a punch with hit singles like hit singles 'Juicebox,' 'Heart in a Cage' and 'You Only Live Once' all proving plenty of singalong joys.

Review: Legendary rockers Led Zeppelin played a tour during spring of 1969 that took them on a whirlwind through Scandinavia and included stops in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Their sets were recorded for live to air broadcasts and the best tunes from those two gigs are now collected together by Stylus for this limited edition 12" on white wax. The Zep' were always stunning their audiences with their storming versions of their well known album tracks but on this tour they hadn't yet dropped their debut album. That didn't stop the crowd going wild at the soon to be hits, all lovingly digitally remastered for this collection.