Since Quicksand‘s return in the late 2010’s they’ve sporadically made records that not only capture the power and passion of their initial work, but have expanded the band’s reach into new, even more exciting territory. By adding more melody and space to their sound, while occasionally easing back on the dynamic crunch of the guitars and pummeling power of the drums, they’ve opened things up and given singer Walter Schreifels a more dynamic background for his sometimes screamed, sometimes crooned vocals.
2021’s Distant Populations exhibited these changes in their early phases, 2026’s Bring on the Psychics is the full fruition of their efforts. Most of the album has the explosiveness of a pile of TNT with a lit fuse — the opening trio of songs…
Category: rock
There is nothing ordinary about Fantastic Negrito. From his given Christian name of Xavier Dphrepaulezz to his career revitalization as a roots artist combining blues, soul, funk, and rock along with album titles ‘Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?’ and ‘Please Don’t Be Dead’ (3 nabbed GRAMMY’S), Negrito avoids following any existing blueprint.
That’s especially apparent when listening to Fantastic Negrito Alive, released July 17 via Storefront Records. Compiled from a recent tour’s most earth-quivering performances, this is the epitome of how a concert album should sound. Its 13 tracks veer way off-course from their studio versions, feeding off the audience’s energy, which then ramps up his own. His eclectic nature is fully exposed for this generous hour and…
Everything I Ever Saw continues The Menzingers’ tradition of heartfelt storytelling through their signature Americana punk rock style. It’s an album built on consistency rather than reinvention, leaning heavily into the formula of impassioned vocals and steady rock riffs that has made the band so beloved.
The use of Shin Noguchi’s street photography for the artwork immediately stamps the album with a recognisable personality, the same intriguing, sombre vulnerability that is present across most of their album covers is undeniable here. In fact, it is one of their strongest artwork choices, second only to 2017’s After the Party, and it feels like an intentional reference to their most popular album. Many of the tracks follow suit,…
On June 17, 1976, the formidable Relayer lineup of YES – Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, and Patrick Moraz – performed in front of a capacity crowd at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, NJ. The quintet was captured mid-tour during a live broadcast on New York’s WNEW-FM. While the performance has remained one of the band’s most popular bootlegs for decades, this release marks its first official appearance.
The recording finds the band at a creative peak during the “Solo Albums Tour.” Following the success of Relayer (1974), the members spent 1975 recording five individual solo projects; this 1976 tour was the first time these new arrangements were integrated into the live set. The performance balances full-band epics…
There was a fusty, claustrophobic aura surrounding Cardiacs’ 1988 debut album, A Little Man And A House And The Whole World Window. Released 14 months later, On Land And In The Sea captured them basking in psychedelic sunshine. Less a transformation than a giddy blossoming, it showcased their self-created world of imagination, wonder and squint-eyed eccentricity.
Leader and chief songwriter Tim Smith may or may not have been thrilled by an increasing amount of attention from the music mainstream, momentary approval from Steve Wright on Radio 1 included, but his music spoke only of feverish, mischievous delight. The primitive, angular clatter of Cardiacs’ earliest efforts had grown into something bigger and more ambitious.
Wafer-thin mint? You might think, after the excavations of 2013’s Fisherman’s Box, that Mike Scott had trawled the ocean floor of the Fisherman’s Blues sessions. But, as expansive as it was, the box was restricted to a chronological inspection of Scott’s evolution in the years 1986-1988. Back then, thanks to an early digital process involving Betamax tape, the recording never stopped. Enough was never enough.
The shorthand version of the Fisherman’s Blues story recounts a voyage from the epic rock of Scott’s Big Music toward the sweet pipings of Irish trad. In fact, the music was more cosmopolitan than that, absorbing influences from all over. Fisherman’s Box included a disc on which the Memphis Sanctified Singers rubbed…
At 79, Lenny Kaye isn’t the oldest artist to make a debut album (that honour goes to Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen at a sprightly 100 years old) but Kaye may be the individual with the most varied musical reach to take his sweet time in producing a solo album.
By the time he took up the role for which he is best known, as Patti Smith’s guitar-wielding co-pilot, he had already dabbled in the college fraternity gig circuit (where he first covered “Gloria”), released protest song “Crazy Like a Fox” (using the alias Link Cromwell), forged a career as a music writer for august journals Rolling Stone, Jazz & Pop, Crawdaddy and Melody Maker, and was there or thereabouts when Creem editor Dave Marsh first coined the term “punk rock”.
Formed in 2001, Aberdeen’s The XCERTS never reached the heights of their fast/slow DNA brothers Biffy Clyro and Twin Atlantic, but they should have. Their new album, i think i want to go home now., shows exactly why. A punchy, euphoric blend of anger and melodic softness, it sees Murray Macleod attempting to make sense of the world after his father’s cancer diagnosis. Following the opening title track, do it to myself offers an incendiary pop-punk blast full of barbed-wire guitars and brain-rattling bass with the all-important quieter breakdown as Macleod repeatedly questions: ‘Will it always be like this?’, while another highlight comes in the form of the driving Smashing Pumpkins-style love song, sinking feeling.
There’s also the screamo of pretty ugly, but…
On Wednesday night at a sold-out Nationals Park, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band had just reached the end of “Streets of Minneapolis,” the song the Boss wrote about the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the resistance put forth by the citizens of Minneapolis and St. Paul in reaction to “Operation Metro Surge” (it was no accident that this tour opened in the Twin Cities). As recorded, it’s a fine folk ballad. But when performed live by the E Street Band, the song flips from black and white to technicolor, with Springsteen opening the song solo acoustic and the band swinging in on the chorus.
There’s a line in the last verse which is set up as potential crowd participation: “In our chants of ‘ICE out now!’ our city’s heart and soul…
Ordinarily, a Bruce Springsteen show is a ferocious, three-hour rock’n’roll display. But his performance Sunday at TD Garden was no ordinary Springsteen show. It was a ferocious, three-hour, rock’n’roll display of righteous anger, a conscious political act. Dubbed the “Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour,” Springsteen made plain what it was about in the tour’s announcement: “we will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America — American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our sacred American dream — all of which are under attack.” It is no accident that the tour kicked off in Minneapolis, the city where, a few months ago, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by ICE agents, an event that precipitated the latest…
The colorful combination of names on this collaboration is indicative of the vibrant music they create together. Americana singer/songwriter Grey DeLisle, who has been releasing rootsy country/folk/rocking albums for over 20 years, heard young soul singer Greene and was so impressed, she suggested they combine their talents. The effervescent, soulful and instantly loveable Grey & Greene, is the result.
The two initially dueted on 2025’s frisky Christmas single “I Don’t Want Nothing,” then decided to expand that to a (short) album-length project touching on retro-tinged upbeat soul, classic pop, rockabilly and even some gospel. Their secret weapon is producer/multi-instrumentalist James Intveld; a veteran of roots-oriented…
Whenever some music that has not been in the immediate focus of critics and audiences, pops up, they tend to call it ‘resurrected.’ Power pop is one of those, but it is just another genre that has been around since the 60s that has never gone away, it just isn’t given the attention and credit it deserved all along.
It seems that Little Steven Van Zandt never lost it out of his focus, as his Wicked Cool Records keep coming up with some serious power pop (extended) gems more often than not.
Count among those Haunted By American Dreams by Ryan Hamilton. It is the kind of power pop where that extended addition to the term comes in – Hamilton adds bits and pieces of the so-called heartland rock to the usual mix of…
Fabienne Delsol does modern garage psych as well as anyone; her handful of solo albums have been mysterious, magical delights full of drama and intrigue; it’s no wonder that one of her songs ended up on the soundtrack of Killing Eve. Any music coordinator looking for a song that combines the hooky pop of French ye-ye, the guitar and keys swirl of psychedelia, the stomp of Freakbeat, and the sweetness of the beat group era would do well to pick any one of her songs.
There are plenty of fine examples of Delsol at her best on her 2026 record Indigo Red. Co-produced by Ed Deegan and Delsol herself with a crack band of contributors (Thomas Gardner, Carwyn Eliis) on board, the record sounds typically good, coated in reverb and echo but still cracking…
Parts & Labor were mainstays of the American noise-rock underground which flourished during the 2000s, and even if they never received the major critical acclaim or cult following of someone like Lightning Bolt or Black Dice, they toured constantly and released a sizeable discography of powerful, risk-taking records. Most significantly, they stood apart due to the way they combined freewheeling noise, triumphant melodies, and muscular drumming in equal measures. After making a few diversions such as a fully electronic EP and an attempt to make grindcore pop songs, they released their most accessible effort, Constant Future, before calling it a day around the band’s tenth anniversary in 2012. Dan Friel released solo electronic efforts which continued…
The 1960s were exhilarating times for the music business. Independent labels across the United States were creating overnight sensations almost daily. Creative hubs like Detroit, Memphis, Chicago, and Los Angeles were shaping and defining the sounds of tomorrow—today.
Among these vibrant scenes was Baltimore, Maryland—home to Chariot Records, a label that delivered a deeply soulful strain of R&B unlike anything else in the country.
Omnivore Recordings, the award-winning reissue label, is proud to announce the acquisition of Chariot Records. Founded in the mid-1960s by four friends from Baltimore who were all working in the record business locally, the label enjoyed a brief but impactful run from 1966 to 1972…
Girl Trouble are a garage-punk band from Tacoma, Washington, who have been powering out guitar-based coolness since 1983, and if history teaches us anything, it’s that bands who have been around that long either get tired and run out of ideas or they find a good groove that they can ride almost infinitely. Girl Trouble fall into the latter category, and they continue to find joy in three chords, a cheap guitar run through a cranked-up amp, and a stomped-out 4/4 rhythm.
2026’s As Is is the first studio album from Girl Trouble since 2005’s The Illusion of Excitement, and if a two-decade-plus recording layoff might suggest they’ve gotten a bit rusty, a couple spins of the album confirm that’s hardly the case. Kurt P. Kendall’s big, beefy vocals, Kahuna’s…
…features new cuts ‘Emotionally Unavailable’ and ‘Medication’, as well as rarities ‘Dirty Looks’, ‘Sharpening Knives’ and ‘Overload’. The deluxe release is rounded out by a collection of demos and early mixes of tracks from the original album.
The story of Suede has never been one of steady linear progression, but even so, 2022’s Autofiction sent their needles zigzagging all over the charts, a tectonic reboot that shifted the direction of their already impressive comeback era.
Antidepressants plugs into similar post-punk energies – Killing Joke, The Chameleons, The Cure – but as the PiL-like title track’s untethered jolt and jeer shows, Suede’s emotional safety catches and musical circuit breakers are very much off.
Through a background chatter of mechanised…
Released in 1986, Seventh Star was the twelfth studio album recorded by Black Sabbath for Warner. The first of three collaborations between guitarist and Black Sabbath founder member, Tony Iommi and former Deep Purple and Trapeze vocalist Glenn Hughes, the album featured the MTV and radio hit “No Stranger To Love.” Pressed on black vinyl, and also available on CD, this newly remastered edition now includes the single remix version of “No Stranger To Love.”
An often misunderstood and underrated album, 1986’s Seventh Star was never intended to be a Black Sabbath release, as the band had effectively broken up following its disastrous 1984 tour in support of career low point Born Again. Instead, Seventh Star was conceived…
Thin Lizzy’s debut album is their latest to be remixed and expanded – featuring remixes, single-only and EP material, rare and unissued radio sessions and 11 unreleased outtakes.
…Coming for the 55th anniversary of the Irish band’s first album, the Thin Lizzy box follows similarly expansive sets featuring remixed and rarities-packed versions of the albums Nightlife and Fighting (released last year in the 7CD collection 74-75) as well as Jailbreak and Johnny the Fox (chronicled in the 5CD/Blu-ray anthology 1976 back in 2024). As with those sets, engineer Richard Whittaker has remixed the full album as well as subsequent EP New Day from the original tapes; the new album mix will be available in stereo alongside the original mix. Two BBC…
Flying in from unexpected angles, Jack White’s albums this decade so far have proved him to be as creatively fidgety as ever. Following his 2022-released diptych Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive – the first sonically outré futuristic rock, the latter an acoustic-leaning album that wandered through country, folk and even jazz – there came the stunning stylistic consolidation of 2024’s No Name. Rather than be tempted to retrace the template of the latter, White’s thoughts have already moved on.
A certain playfulness, however, remains in terms of White’s pre-release teasing of Frozen Charlotte. While white label copies of No Name were furtively slipped into the bags of shoppers at the Third Man Records stores in London,…