Supertramp are to reissue half-speed remastered vinyl editions of their commercial breakthrough album, Crime Of The Century, and its follow-up, Crisis? What Crisis?
After their self-titled debut in 1970 and its successor, Indelibly Stamped Supertramp veered away from their prog roots to mainstream acclaim on 1974’s Crime Of The Century thanks to the ‘Dreamer’ single, with the album reaching No 4 in the UK and No 38 on the Billboard Hot 100. A year later, Crisis? What Crisis? was less successful in the chart, but has since been named Roger Hodgson’s favourite Supertramp album.
Both albums have been remastered at half-speed by Miles Showell at Abbey Road, overseen by the band and original co-producer Ken Scott.
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Searows’ second album, Death in the Business of Whaling, pries and forces confronting emotions to surface. With the title alluding to lines from Moby Dick, Alec Duckart pieces together the divided forces of life and death, the in-between, and feelings unable to be pinpointed.
Opener Belly of the Whale envelops us into a trance, setting the tone for an album gripping at dark corners. Haunting lullabies meet lyrics of death and solitude: ‘After the plummet, sinking into the grave / I’m left in the stomach at the bottom where I live’. It feels cinematic, with instruments creeping around sparse vocals. Dearly Missed begs us to solve a puzzle ending in tragedy, soundtracked by death knells of blazing guitars. Kill What You Eat similarly builds with lyrics that lash: ‘If I say it’s not really…
When Chilli Jesson first appeared on the cover of NME way back in 2012, it was as one half of the most charismatic, chaotic indie frontman double act since Pete ‘n Carl. Palma Violets, the headline declared, were “the best new band in Britain”. Jesson, their bassist and sometime vocalist, was the effortlessly cool mouthpiece of the operation. But behind the youthful bangers and artfully dishevelled hair, Jesson’s adolescence had been tumultuous. At 14, he lost his father to drug addiction, and it’s this grief that – almost 20 years on – the musician addresses with his new venture, Dead Dads Club.
The project (which follows a short-lived second band, Crewel Intentions, and a previous, eponymously named solo venture) might…
The Lowest Pair is an American folk duo made up of Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee, known for their intertwined vocal harmonies and banjo-forward songwriting. Formed in 2013, the pair has built a dedicated following through records that balance traditional folk roots with plainspoken, emotionally direct lyrics. Having a particularly prolific run in their early years, releasing six albums in their first seven years, the pair haven’t released a new album since 2020’s The Perfect Plan. With Always As Young As We’ll Ever Be, The Lowest Pair returns at the start of the year with an album that feels steady, focused, and fully settled into who they are. Now seven albums in, this new album also finds the duo expanding the band’s familiar banjo-driven core with lyrics that discuss…
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The Lighthouse begins with its title track. Strums of perfect fifths, low moans of woodwind and thundering rumbles of percussion frame a journey towards a beacon at “high tide on a lonesome wind”. The death of one of Jackson’s two mothers when she was a teenager informs her lyrics here and elsewhere: in ‘The Bricks…
The title of DJ Harrison‘s fourth Stones Throw album might be misleading to some, as ElectroSoul is an evolution of the Butcher Brown player’s dusty fusion of jazz, funk, and hip-hop, and other sounds, neither a sharp stylistic pivot nor a genre exercise. There’s no discernible Kraftwerk or Bambaataa influence — nothing is sleek and booming like Planet Patrol’s “Play at Your Own Risk” or any modern track in that lineage that could be classified as such. Due to its predominant mood and the circumstances in which it was made, ElectroSoul could be considered Harrison’s Mellow Madness. Quincy Jones recorded that 1975 album after he recovered from multiple aneurysms. Harrison experienced a health scare that wasn’t as serious, but it led to a prolonged…
The Necessaries came together in 1978 and in the too-brief lifespan of the band counted among their members, Ed Tomney (Rage to Live, Luka Bloom), Jesse Chamberlain (Red Crayola), Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers), Arthur Russell (The Flying Hearts), Randy Gun (Love of Life Orchestra).
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Julian McCamman is getting a fresh start. Last summer, just a year after his band Blood released their debut studio album Loving You Backwards, the Philly-via-Austin rockers suddenly called it quits. “Blood began with a fervent need to pronounce a particular love and sensitivity with the rage filled defense I felt it deserved,” frontman Tim O’Brien wrote in their breakup announcement. “The music and performance at its best was always a call to rouse ourselves and others to the present, to heighten life for a moment, to expand the potential for a life more deeply felt outside of the show.”
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In the early fifties, Lucky Roberts ran an after-hours club in Harlem. Lucky had been the dean of New York ragtime pianists in the early decades of the century, and had influenced James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, and Duke Ellington, among others.
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Part of Rhino’s annual “Start Your Ear Off Right” promotion is a very welcome surprise: a remastered and expanded edition of one of the most underrated albums by British pop/rock band Squeeze.
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Naive Melodies is a bold and visionary tribute to the music of Talking Heads, reinterpreted through the lens of Black musical innovation. Curated by Drew McFadden – the creative mind behind BBE’s acclaimed Modern Love (David Bowie tribute album) – this new collection dives deep into the Afro-diasporic rhythms and experimental soul roots that helped shape Talking Heads’ unmistakable New Wave sound. Inspired by artists like Fela Kuti, Parliament, and Al Green – whose influences loomed large in the band’s rhythmic DNA – Naive Melodies shines a light on the Black music traditions that underpinned their artistry.
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…includes the original album and nine bonus tracks: seven previously unreleased tracks plus a 2025 remaster of “City of Refuge” and a 2025 mix of “Memphis Shakedown.”
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This is the dilemma for the Carolina Chocolate…