Dustdevil and Crow – While Speaking Softly You Can Hear The Insects Sing - February 2011 February 13th, 2011

The Messthetics compilations have identified a lost strand of late seventies, low fidelity, British art rock, in which the minimally monikered ‘Bendle’ swam the surface noise with The Door And The Window. Today, he continues to confound with Dustdevil and Crow, whose second album suggests an art school Wicker Man soundtrack, or The Velvet Underground’s…

Drive-By Truckers – Go-Go Boots - February 2011 February 13th, 2011

Go-Go Boots, assembled from the same sessions as last year’s plaudit-plastered The Big To-Do, ditches scuffed roots rock for smooth country soul, perhaps reflecting Patterson Hood’s father David’s membership of the legendary Muscle Shoals Swampers. The album as whole finds the band’s downbeat narratives gaining extra resonance, pitched over uncharacteristically clean grooves like the twitchy…

The Dead C – Patience - February 2011 February 6th, 2011

Calling their 25th album Patience is a quietly hilarious move by New Zealand’s immortal gods of transcendental junk shop noise, The Dead C. Its opening track, Empire, is a testing eighteen minutes long. Guitar feedback, usually a gestural shortcut to bite-sized rock thrills, becomes translucent ectoplasm, smeared over stumbling listless drums, wrapped in rehearsal room…

Paul Collins – King Of Power Pop - February 2011 February 6th, 2011

Nobody told Paul Collins guitars were over. Thirty-five years into his career, the former songwriter of The Nerves re-embraces that skinny tie and white sneakers Seventies punk pop sound, and you are duty bound to fall in love with his latest album. King Of Power Pop is precision-engineered to embed itself into your subconscious, each…

Refried Ice Cream – Witness To The Storm - January 2011 January 30th, 2011

Sixty-seven year old Denny Brewer and his son, Denny Junior, form the nucleus of Refried Ice Cream, operating out of a home studio East of El Paso. Their website mixes anti-establishment paranoia with natural remedy advice. “Criminals are running our government!” “Use cinnamon to help diabetes!” Their album features sententious gobbets of beatnik wisdom and…

The June – Green Fields And Rain - January 2011 January 30th, 2011

On their second album, The June re-animate familiar sixties sounds via the conduits of the Eighties American Paisley underground bands and the Nineties Britpop groups that also assimilated them. Despite the trio hailing from Parma, Italy, Christian Ravanetti perfectly replicates Liam Gallagher’s nasally elongations of John Lennon’s flattened Liverpool vowels. The June’s vintage Rickenbackers sound…