Back in stock: Rock (All)

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


2022's stunning album Once Twice Melody was a fine example of Beach House doing what they do best - living bang up to that name, with intimate-but epic instrumentation falling somewhere between surf-y jangle and grand shoegaze. 'Become' is definitely on a similar tip, and as such feels much like an extension of the long form.
Dig a little deeper, though, and scratches begin to show. While the full-length record represented Beach House reaching for the stars, or at least the moon, and stepping into the role of festival headliners, here the sense of pure confidence and occasion is less pronounced. That may not be a bad thing, mind, because while Once came across like a finished article, refined and prepared, things here seem somehow rawer, as though we're sitting in on a session as oppose to getting the signed off product.

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


A highly collectible splatter 12" vinyl of this Martin Hannett-produced session groundbreaking gothic/post-punk band, Joy Division. Includes the band's best known composition 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and a superb non-album B-side in 'Leaders Of Men', plus an extended mix of the A-side. Most music fans and their mothers will have had the former track firmly implanted into their grey matter by now, but it's the B-side that really gets the true-heads going, channelling a massive, cortex-cracking sound that is closer to punk than post. Boy, did Joy Division have a toothy side.

Review: Warner Music's ongoing New Order remastering and reissue project continues apace with 'Murder', featuring a quite opposite pair of singles form the cult Manchester band. Again both have been remastered from original master tapes at Abbey Road Studios. 'Murder' was released in 1984, but was recorded in winter, two years earlier, for the Power, Corruption & Lies album. It captures the darkness and unrest of the times with hellish vocal screams and huge, pounding military drums all building to a thunderous peak with a nagging lead guitar eventually making its way out of the mire like a beacon of hope. 'Thieves Like Us' (instrumental) is a more archetypal New Order track with those happy-sad guitar licks and resigned drums.

Review: Samhain's Possession EP has never before been on vinyl. It features four tracks that started as outtakes from the sessions for Final Descent, the third and final full length by these American deathrockers back in 1990. As such they are dense walls of hardcore and punk rock with sleazy guitars and gutteral vocal cries. Even before these were made, Glenn Danzig and bassist Eerie Von had already recruited guitarist John Christ and drummer Chuck Biscuits with a view to forming their ensuing outfit Danzig, but the signature Samhain remains. This one comes on limited blue vinyl.