Category: rock


As the last surviving core member of krautrock outliers Can and curator of their still potent musical legacy, Irmin Schmidt has hand-selected a CD of riches and rarities from the band’s vast archives exclusively for MOJO.
In the pantheon of great musical cults, few are more potent and enduring than Can. An avant-garde groove machine. A radical rethink of what a rock band could be. A group of fiercely independent talents who could switch from expansive psychedelic jams to magically skewed pop music on a whim. Holger Czukay. Jaki Liebezeit. Michael Karoli. Irmin Schmidt. Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki.
…Replay 1968-2026 brings together riches and rarities from the band’s life and afterlife.

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Ava Mendoza is simply one of the best guitarists around today. She has played with a murderer’s row of improvisers and experimentalists over the last 20 years, across styles incorporating rock, blues, jazz, bluegrass, metal, and the avant-garde.
…Alive Alone, Alive Together collects Mendoza’s recent live recordings from four different events. Half are duets with drummer Hamid Drake from the Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerp, while the rest are solo performances from the US and Italy. Despite what might be thought of as a limited sound palette, there is little repetition throughout the album.
‘Sun Gun’ is one of the duets, with Mendoza picking distorted lines in a heavy blues style accompanied by Drake’s nonstop barrages.

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A lot has changed in the eight years since West Yorkshire rockers Marmozets went on hiatus, in 2018 cruelly vanishing from the scene just shortly after the critical acclaim of their second studio album, Knowing What You Know Now. Frontwoman Becca Bottomley became a mother and married bandmate Jack, all faced a global pandemic (remember that one?), and the world took a dramatic shift towards the right. For Becca, it birthed a generation of cowards – herself apparently included – ultimately spawning CO.WAR.DICE, a ferocious return to the forefront and the end of a self-confessed life in the shadows.
Largely picking up from where the now-four piece left off, this third record is driven by Becca’s snarling vocals and a frantic…

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Mirror Ball is a 1995 collaboration between Neil Young and members of Pearl Jam, released through Reprise Records during the height of the grunge era. Recorded largely live in the studio over a handful of sessions in Seattle, the album captures a loose, raw sound that blends Young’s songwriting with Pearl Jam’s dense guitar interplay and rhythm section.
The project grew out of Young’s friendship with the band following several live performances together in the early 1990s. Songs like “Song X,” “Downtown,” “I’m the Ocean,” and “Throw Your Hatred Down” reflect themes of conflict, idealism, and social tension, while the recordings retain an unpolished, spontaneous feel with audible studio chatter and extended jams throughout.

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Bruce Springsteen took the high road during his Sunday concert at Austin, Texas’ Moody Center, praying for President Trump in the wake of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting and exhorting fans to uphold American ideals such as honesty, compassion and humility after they went home. Then the Boss rocked the packed arena with such soul-stirring fervor that it would have been nearly impossible not to heed his call.
When Springsteen surprise-announced his current Land of Hopes and Dreams Tour in February, he made it clear he considers this trek nothing less than a battle for the soul of America. He threw himself into the charge on Sunday with the gusto that’s made him one of rock’s most gargantuan stars for the past half-century.

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After two intense albums with freewheeling drummer Malcom Catto on board, Little Barrie turn down the heat on 2026’s Gravity Freeze. The pairing with Catto seemed to bring out something extra in guitarist Barry Cadogan and bassist Lewis Wharton, pushing them to the extremes of their sound. The funk got funkier, the edges got sharper, and the needle was continually buried in the red. Now with Catto pursuing other avenues and his replacement Tony Coote in place, the band pull back from the extremes to settle into a more contemplative, restrained sound. The trio spend most of the album dug deeply into low slung grooves that strut and swagger with well-earned confidence. Coote and Wharton sound so locked together it’s like they…

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Bruce Springsteen brought his “Land of Hope and Dreams” rock and resistance tour to President Donald Trump’s backyard on April 23 with a plea to unite in “choosing hope over fear.”
In a preamble to the three-hour concert, held a day before Trump is to arrive in Palm Beach for his 26th visit this term, Springsteen asked attendees to pray for U.S. military personnel in harm’s way.
“The Boss” then launched into a scathing indictment of the president, who just this month called the Hall of Fame rocker and music legend a “total loser” and “not a talented guy.”
Springsteen blistered the second Trump administration as “corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless” as the sold-out crowd drowned him out with boisterous cheers.

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The Irish grunge-pop act, fronted by Dolores O’Riordan, broke on to the scene in October 1992 with their debut single ‘Dreams’, which peaked at No 27 in the UK chart and was swiftly followed by ‘Linger’ (No 14). The singles helped their debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? to (ahem) linger around the chart for over a year, eventually selling over half a million in the UK. Meanwhile, they became alt-rock stars in the US, with the album selling over five million. The new “33rd anniversary deluxe edition” comes in a variety of physical formats. Fans who already have the 2018 super deluxe edition of the album might be forgiven for feeling underwhelmed – that version added early demos, 1990’s Uncertain EP, B-sides and a disc full of live tracks and radio sessions.

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For his second solo album, Blue Morpho, Ed O’Brien has teamed up with several excellent collaborators, notably Paul Epworth and Dave Okumu, who take the Radiohead guitarist into the new musical vistas that the narrative around the album indicate he was seeking. Finding himself seeking a new purpose and a sense of spiritual connection at a new phase in his life, the opportunity to painstakingly create Blue Morpho during sessions in Wales seems to have come at the perfect time for him. The sense of freedom and creativity on the one hand and sheer songwriting and performance quality on the other shines through throughout the record. This is at least the equal of Radiohead’s recent output and perhaps more pertinently firmly establishes O’Brien as a solo artist in his own right.

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Last year, Third Man Records released the reissue of Detroit’s unheralded songwriting genius, Ted Lucas’ 1975 cult classic self-titled album Ted Lucas (OM), as part of an ambitious archival campaign intent on spreading the open secret of Lucas’s genius and putting an end to his unfair anonymity.
Third Man Records released Images of Life, a career-spanning, 3xLP retrospective boxset illuminating the staggering breadth and depth of Lucas’ work, out May 22nd. Disc one, Strange Mysterious Sounds (1965-1970), highlights Lucas’ flirtation with psychedelic major label clout via his bands the Spike Drivers, the Misty Wizards and the Horny Toads. Disc two, Rainy Days (1970-1974) contains the solo acoustic warmth and charm most similar to the music found on his self-titled album.

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Appearing like a flash, Jimi Hendrix burst onto the international music scene of the mid 1960’s like nothing ever seen before or since. Born in Seattle in 1942, early life experiences both in the United States Army and as a backing musician for the likes of the Isley Brothers and Little Richard on the Chitlin’ Circuit helped serve as formative groundwork for what was to come.
With the release of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s first single in December 1966, a never-ceasing whirlwind would envelop Jimi and his music until his untimely death in September of 1970. What’s still fascinating, more than five decades on, is how prolific a creator he managed to be through his not even four years in the spotlight.
Of particular interest is Jimi Hendrix’s…

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Ain’t nothin’ like it. Full blast and top down. Less than six years after changing the music landscape with its diamond-platinum-certified self-titled debut, Van Halen repeated the creative and commercial feats. Featuring groundbreaking performances, infectious chemistry, and four enormous singles, 1984 witnesses the band incorporating synthesizer elements that guitarist Eddie Van Halen had been championing — as well as seamlessly bridging pop and metal sensibilities into a cohesive melodic whole. A landmark that’s never aged a day, 1984 feels as fresh, fun, and innovative as it did in the Reagan Era.
Sourced from the original analog tapes and housed in mini-LP-style gatefold packaging, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition…

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Alice Cooper’s 1975 Album Welcome to My Nightmare Reissued as Part of the Atlantic Records 75th Anniversary Series on Hybrid Stereo SACD. Mastered Directly to DSD From the Original Master Tape by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering.
With the 1974 disintegration of the original Alice Cooper group, Alice was free to launch a solo career. He wisely decided to re-enlist the services of Bob Ezrin for his solo debut, Welcome to My Nightmare, which was a concept album tied into the story line of the highly theatrical concert tour he launched soon after the album’s release. While the music lost most of the gritty edge of the original AC lineup, Welcome to My Nightmare remains Alice’s best solo effort – while some tracks…

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He has a rock voice that’s a little sweeter than most – a Rick Springfield (“My Father’s Chair”), a little Todd Rundgren, Nils Lofgren & Kenny Loggins (“Somebody Knows”). While this showcase doesn’t have the vocal depth of a singer as commandeering as a Bruce Springsteen, Dion DiMucci, Elton John, or Billy Joel, Steve Louw (acoustic guitarist/vocals) has a fine musical underpinning that’s well played & he never fails to deliver. This isn’t criticism – any one of these artists on a good day is great on some of their songs.
Louw, who has released 11 studio albums, succeeds nicely on ballads (“Tumbling Down”), which is a little grander than Traces of the Flood. He has good tonality & sings well. Another good ballad, “Echo Dream,” has music…

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Seelie Court – the world’s premier label for rare and previously unreleased archive recordings of underground folk, rock, proto-metal, and psychedelic music presents Too Many Late Nights.
Showcasing The Great Crash’s more experimental and progressive side, these studio sessions emphasise long-form, intelligent art rock compositions, pairing shifting structures with witty, 10CC-like subject matter and a distinctly British sense of irony.
The material impressed John Peel, leading to a BBC Peel Session and placing The Great Crash among the more adventurous voices of the early-1970s UK underground. Formed around the songwriting of drummer and lyricist Piers Geddes, the group blended piano-led…

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After finding fame with the Hollies and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, expatriate Englishman turned West Coast rock icon Graham Nash made an auspicious solo debut on this 1971 disc. It’s an exemplary singer-songwriter effort, striking a vital balance between graceful introspection and political fervor — and while it’s deeply personal, it still carries the harmonies, heart and politics that made CSN(Y) so essential.
With assistance from the likes of David Crosby, Jerry Garcia, and Dave Mason, highlights include the sensitive internal explorations “I Used to Be a King” and “Man in the Mirror” and the impassioned protest anthems “Chicago” and “Military Madness.” If Déjà Vu was a wild canyon party with four competing egos, Songs for Beginners…

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