Album Review: Vessels

Album Review: Vessels
Album: Dilate
Label: Bias

You may remember Vessels as an up-and-coming bunch of lads with a penchant for the post-rock genre. They’ve been away a while, and in that time the post-rock pretensions have faded, replaced with a newfound focus on electronic doohickery.

Album Review: Mr Scruff

Album Review: Mr Scruff
Album: Friendly Bacteria
Label: Ninja Tune

It’s been six years since Mr Scruff last put
together a new album. In the intervening years he’s grown older and wiser, and no doubt seen the cut-and-paste electronic landscape he helped shape back in 1997 change almost beyond recognition.

Album Review: Fat Goth

Album Review: Fat Goth
Album: One Hundred Percent Suave
Label: Hefty Dafty

Dundee’s Fat Goth have returned with the bold promise to probe the issue of sex in their own tongue in cheek (yes, cheek) manner that has served them so well since their debut in 2010.

Album Review: Then Thickens

Album Review: Then Thickens
Album: Death Cap at Anglezarke
Label: Hatch Records

Variety is the spice of life, and going from a boiler-suited nightmare trio to something erring closer to chilled-out summer rock vibes is one way for Then Thickens’ Jon-Lee Martin to reinvigorate the spirit.

Album Review: La Dispute

Album Review: La Dispute
Album: Rooms of the House
Label: Better Living

I bloody hated poetry at school. I don’t know what your experience was like, but those seemingly never-ending anthology books full of Seamus Heaney’s outlook on potatoes were a daunting time in English lessons.

Album Review: †††

Album Review: †††
Album: †††
Label: Sumerian Records

††† – or, for the sake of our collective sanity – Crosses, is yet another side project starring Deftones’ Chino Moreno. This time he teams up with Far guitarist and childhood friend Shaun Lopez and producer Chuck Doom for a project that does no harm to his reputation as one of the most diverse and creative survivors of the 90s rock and alternative music armageddon.

Album Review: Pelican

Album Review: Pelican
Album: Forever Becoming
Label: Southern Lord

It’s been a period of transition for Chicagoan post-rockers Pelican. In 2012, two years after he stopped playing out-of-town shows, guitarist and founding member Laurent Schroeder-Lebec threw in the towel admitting that his heart wasn’t fully into it anymore. Stepping up to the plate on Forever Becoming, the band’s fifth album in a decade, is Dallas Thomas.