Review: Leaf Hound have been a staple of the heavy rock scene for decades, but this offering feels like a rebirth. A band often heralded as the pioneers of metal, their journey started in the early 70s, but it's their ability to keep evolving that stands out here. More than 50 years since their debut, the London-based band is back with their first studio album in over 15 years. And while many might think you can't teach an old dog new tricks, Leaf Hound have a few surprises left. The opening track, 'Burn The House Down,' feels like the start of a fire that only gets hotter as the album progresses. The kind of heavy, groovy riff that gives you a sense of nostalgia for the glory days of stoner rock, it's clear that the band still has that bite. As you hit the upbeat 'Yippee Ki Yay' and the harder-hitting 'Bold 'n' Easy,' it's impossible to ignore the fire in their belly. Sure, the lineup has changed over the years, but with Peter French still at the helm, the powerful vocals that originally defined Leaf Hound continue to ring out loud and clear. By the time you get to tracks like 'Thought Police' and 'Watching Life's Wheels,' the album begins to speak to the turbulent times we live in. There's no pretension here - just hard-hitting rock for hard-hitting times. Closing with the anthemic 'High Danger,' it's evident that Leaf Hound still have a lot to say and are far from fading away into obscurity.
Review: Cindy Lee's Diamond Jubilee invites listeners to experience an exquisite journey through sound and emotion. Hailed as a major contender for the 2024 Polaris Music Prize, this album offers a fascinating tapestry of ethereal melodies and haunting reflections. Crafted over countless hours in studios stretching from Toronto to Montreal, Patrick Flegel channels a unique blend of nostalgia and longing. With infectious hooks wrapped around evocative arrangements, Diamond Jubilee is a striking embodiment of innovation in experimental pop, solidifying Cindy Lee's position as an important figure in contemporary music.
Review: Genre-defying trio Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto - their bassist Lewis Wharton is the third one, if you're wondering - have created an album brimming with explosive energy and diverse influences fusing rock 'n roll, deep funk, jazz, and fuzzy atmospherics. Barrie Cadogan (guitar/vocals) has played with everyone from The The to Primal Scream, but this LP moves well away from indie templates, employing a freeform approach, experimenting with tempos, volumes and textures. Tracks like 'Spektator' and 'Sick 8' showcase their ability to build subtle momentum and then let it slip back, allowing space for intricate instrumentation and lots of vivid expression.
Review: British outfit Little Barrie - guitarist Barrie Cadogan and bassist Lewis Wharton - team up with Malcolm Catto, known for his experimental edge as producer and drummer with Heliocentrics, on this raw-edged collaboration. Cadogan and Wharton, whose distinctive sound helped define the opening notes of Vince Gilligan's own-right spinoff Better Call Saul, bring their tightly wound energy into Catto's sonically unpredictable world. What emerges is a tense, scorched blend of overdriven guitar stabs, thicketed percussion, and eerie atmospheres that play like a weather report from a collapsing city. Catto's rhythmic instincts create a fractured foundation where Little Barrie's gritty melodies can unravel or coil without warning. Far from polished or predictable, the record thrives on friction and volatility, capturing three musicians testing the limits of structure and sound.
Review: Los Jaivas' Alturas de Macchu Picchu arrives newly remastered and reissued by state51 on heavyweight wax, and it remains a landmark of South American music. Its blurring of psychedelic rock, Andean folk and Pablo Neruda's poetic power makes the album, which was recorded in exile during Chile's Pinochet era, an evocation of both the spirit and struggle of Latin America. Tracks like 'La Poderosa Muerte' and 'Sube a Nacer Conmigo Hermano' swirl with emotion and complexity to deliver a cinematic spiritual experience. Inspired by Incan ruins and resistance, Alturas is more than music-it's a cultural beacon that invites you into a timeless soundscape.
Review: Charif Megarbane, the Beirut-based multi-instrumentalist and composer, stretches his sonic vocabulary on this sprawling new full-length, a genre-hopping journey that draws as much from the Lebanese coast as it does from the wider diaspora. Where his earlier work painted intimate portraits of local life, this one looks outwarditoward cultural entanglement, exile, and exchange. 'Hanadi' kicks things off with a sax-led, Somali-inspired groove, while 'Dreams of an Insomniac' drifts through hazy keys and fluttering violin. 'Al Dollarji' recalls his signature Mediterranean funk, full of ornate strings, but 'Al Bahriye' disrupts the flow with hip-hop motifs and vocal samples. Collaborations feel purposeful: 'Helia', with Swedish composer Sven Wunder and the Stockholm Studio Orchestra, layers lush cinematic strings into Megarbane's idiosyncratic palette. Even miniature pieces like 'Sfiha' or 'Preamble to the Conclusion' feel essential, punctuating the record's narrative of displacement with clarity and warmth. It's a collection that resists linearity, folding nostalgia and innovation into a rich, borderless soundian informal transmission between traditions, cities and moods.
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