After releasing debut single ‘Norwegian Wood’ in 2023, Picture Parlour were met with an immediate cascade of praise – one which even included an endorsement from Courtney Love. Two years later, their rise has been steadier than that flash-in-the-pan start suggested it would be, and the wait has paid off. Here, the band sound like they’ve been ripped straight from the ‘70s – indeed, one needs look no further than their Pink Floyd-inspired album cover or guitarist Ella Risi’s swaggering, Zeppelin-esque riffs (see: ‘Cielo Drive’) to be transported back in time.
Throughout The Parlour, raw, uncut electric guitar drives Katherine Parlour’s blazing vocals, with pure rock’n’roll spirit carrying them through – think Amy Winehouse fronting T. Rex. But while…
Category: rock
Bête Noire was the follow up to 1985’s Boys and Girls and was co-produced with Patrick Leonard (who had worked with Madonna on her True Blue album and would later co-produce 1989’s Like A Prayer). Johnny Marr was amongst the contributors to Bête Noire, whose singles were ‘The Right Stuff’, ‘Kiss and Tell’ and ‘Limbo’. Only ‘The Right Stuff’ troubled the UK top 40, peaking at No 37.
For the 2025 reissue Bête Noire is released as a 2CD deluxe edition and on purple vinyl. The second disc of the 2CD set offers remixes and edits from the original singles. This appears to be mostly comprehensive, with the exception of a small number of ‘Limbo’ versions, and extra points go to BMG for putting together a ‘listenable’ running order (not grouping remixes of the same…
Throughout his idiosyncratic career, it has been impossible to figure out where Mike Patton will turn next, but even his most diehard fans would have been hard-pressed to believe the announcement of a new group with folk chart-toppers The Avett Brothers was true, yet that is exactly what happened. The newly christened AVTT/PTTN worked together on a self-titled album that touches on buzzing rock, dusty Americana, and theatrically polished, over-the-top set pieces.
Scott Avett started working on demos and sent them to Patton with no set project idea, but then things clicked as Patton responded with twists and turns on the original folk numbers. Patton has stated that he may have worked too long on past projects, and that this opportunity…
Some time after Crowded House frontman Neil Finn indicated potential work being done with the catalogue of Split Enz – the cult-hero pop band co-founded by his older brother Tim – fans finally have some development on that front, with the first in a planned series of archival sets covering the group’s early, avant-garde years.
Enzyclopedia Volumes One and Two will focus on the group’s early years, coalescing around the material leading up to 1975 debut Mental Notes, which celebrates a half-century this year. The 5CD set feature remasters of Mental Notes and its sort-of follow-up Second Thoughts, a rework of the Mental material with Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera in the producer’s chair. Second Thoughts will also be newly remixed for the set…
…contains a new remaster of the original album plus eight original demos, two new mixes, various B-sides and rarities, and a previously unreleased concert recorded at SHIBUYA-AX in Tokyo in March 2001.
Green Day’s sixth album, 2000’s Warning, arrived nearly three years after the band’s multi-platinum Nimrod. It built on the expansive sound of Nimrod by incorporating even more varied textures drawing on pop and folk styles. Now, 25 years later, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool are revisiting Warning in a new Super Deluxe Edition.
With longtime producer Rob Cavallo moving up to the executive producer’s position, Green Day self-produced Warning – their first self-produced major label effort. (R.E.M. producer…
…The box include an expanded version of the album (remastered from 1/4″ production master tapes by Chris Athens and including one B-side and two newly-mixed outtakes) alongside the “lost” album Tallest plus a set of unreleased studio and live sessions.
The Crowes – then consisting of Chris Robinson on vocals/harmonica/guitar, Rich Robinson and Marc Ford on guitar, Johnny Colt on bass, Eddie Harsch on keyboards and Steve Gorman on drums – were flying high from the start of their major-label career on Rick Rubin’s Def American (shortened to American Recordings the year Amorica was released). Shake Your Money Maker yielded pop crossover hits in “She Talks to Angels” and a rousing take on Otis Redding’s…
…features a brand new mix by Steven Wilson, alongside a six track disc of previously unreleased recordings, including the Jagger/Richards composition “I Love Ladies“, plus a take on Shirley & Company’s “Shame, Shame, Shame”. Also included are four Stones instrumental jams from the 1975 sessions featuring the guest guitarists. The set also includes a full live concert recording from the band’s celebrated six night residency at London’s Earls Court Exhibition Centre in May 1976, where they were joined onstage by Ian Stewart, Billy Preston and Ollie Brown.
…Black and Blue marked the Stones’ rebirth in the wake of Mick Taylor’s departure from the band. As a result, Keith Richards took on the lion’s share of the guitar work while the group…
…features the 15-track album remixed by its original producer David Barbe and remastered by Greg Calbi. The new collection includes the previously unreleased double album Heathens Live at Flicker Bar, Athens, GA – June 20, 2002.
For a musician, the trouble with making your best album is you have to figure out a way to top it next time out, and that isn’t always easy. On their first three albums, the Drive-By Truckers were a better-than-average band from the harder-and-faster end of the alt-country spectrum who blended Replacements-esque snot and slop with a Lynyrd Skynyrd-influenced shot of twangy hard rock. But it was when the Truckers confronted the ghost of Skynyrd as well as the often confusing legacy of both Southern rock and what…
The Warm Up Tour was the name given to Peter Gabriel’s run of live dates in June, July and August 2007. In advance of the tour, Peter said:
“When I decided to get a band together it was for the 25th anniversary of our WOMAD festival on the last weekend of July. I then decided to do some other dates around it but don’t have a new album to play yet. So, I thought I would ask the fans through the full moon club on my website to put in requests for songs that I had not been playing recently. It is that list that you sent in that has determined what you are now about to hear. Some of these have not been played for many years and we are intending to brush off the rust.” – pg
The penultimate show of the run was at the aforementioned WOMAD Festival…
The world may be ending, but singer-songwriter Jim Keller is pretty OK with the whole thing; that’s if the title track from his 7th album, End of the World, is anything to go by anyway. “No more fighting, no more pain,” he sings in a tone that can only be described as joyous, against a backdrop that features everything from pedal steel to marimba. “No more calling everybody names / Nothing but red skies day after day / Nobody talking when they got nothin’ to say.” Which, like the album, sounds pretty good indeed.
Optimism in the face of hardship is something of a theme throughout the record, and that’s demonstrated no where better than on the infectiously uplifting ‘Love One Another’ as Keller insists that, no matter the trials…
…include previously unreleased recordings, B- sides, and exclusive live sessions. The new Stargazer Editions add 3 new songs (“Cancerian,” “Anything at All,” “Eye to the Telescope”) which were first attempted during the original sessions and have been completed for this release.
Perhaps it’s inevitable that K.T. Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope will draw initial comparisons to Dido, since they’re both female adult alternative singer/songwriters who bear a certain similarity in their vocal timbres. But as Tunstall’s debut starts to unfold, those superficial connections fall away, as she reveals herself to be a soulful vocalist, a restless musician, and a serious songwriter. At times, she may be on the verge of being a little too serious, as her songs are…
When it comes to Kadavar, two things are certain. Firstly, nothing is certain, and secondly, whatever they come up with results from an impressive creative flow.
It took Kadavar five years to release a new album, “I Just Want to Be a Sound”, which hit the shelves in spring this year. The wait for the next record is substantially shorter, as Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin is released six months after the previous album. The title Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin is a kind of wordplay, leading to the acronym “K.A.D.A.V.A.R.”. In a sense, we are facing a self-titled album, and while I wouldn’t say it’s a new start, the latest effort does echo some more familiar sounds compared to the rather melodic…
Steve Morse has long been regarded as one of the most respected guitarists in rock, admired not just by fans but by fellow musicians around the world. His tone, phrasing, and ability to constantly push forward and innovate have defined his career for decades. After briefly stepping away from prior music commitments following the passing of his wife, Morse returns with renewed focus and inspiration. Reuniting with longtime bandmates Dave LaRue on bass and Van Romaine on drums, he delivers Triangulation, the first new Steve Morse Band album in sixteen years.
The group’s last outing, 2009’s Out Standing In Their Field, came just before Morse and LaRue embarked on the Flying Colors adventure with Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse, and Casey McPherson.
In the Wake of Poseidon 40th Anniversary Edition. Released in a double Digipak stored in a slipcase. Includes a booklet with new sleeve notes by King Crimson biographer Sid Smith, along with rare photos and archive material. King Crimson opened 1970 scarcely in existence as a band, having lost two key members (Ian McDonald and Michael Giles), with a third (Greg Lake) about to leave. Their second album – largely composed of Robert Fripp’s songwriting and material salvaged from their stage repertory (“Pictures of a City” and “The Devil’s Triangle”) – is actually better produced and better sounding than their first. Surprisingly, Fripp’s guitar is not the dominant instrument here: The Mellotron, taken over by Fripp after McDonald’s departure – and played even better than before – still remains…
In 2009, the Triton venue (near Paris, France) was sold out to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Univers Zero, an iconic band of the Rock in Opposition movement.
These two exceptional concerts highlighted a radical and unique style of music, at the crossroads of new music and chamber rock, skilfully blending acoustic and electric instruments, as heard on the cult album ‘Ceux du Dehors’.
Around Daniel Denis (drums), Michel Berckmans (oboe, bassoon), and Andy Kirk (keyboards and guitar), three historical figures of the group, complemented by four other talented musicians, offered an intense multimedia show, intertwining a condensed version of key pieces from the repertoire with more recent compositions.
…newly mixed with the supervision of Roger Glover and analogue-mastered at renowned Chameleon Studios in Hamburg, this new edition includes a bonus CD featuring previously unreleased instrumental takes and studio rehearsals recorded during the songwriting process.
Deep Purple’s 2005 album Rapture of the Deep generally maintains the quality of 2003’s surprisingly sturdy Bananas. It’s the second release from the re-energized lineup of vocalist Ian Gillan, guitarist Steve Morse, bass guitarist Roger Glover, drummer Ian Paice, and keyboardist Don Airey, who replaced the retired Jon Lord. The band’s comfort level has increased, and after nearly a decade onboard, Morse’s stamp is all over the place. At first, this guitar genius’ presence…