If you’re old, you’ll know what to expect. If you’re young and have got into Yuck then see where they got the jangly guitars and lovetorn lyrics from. I worried when I heard Buffalo Tom had reformed. I needn’t have worried, it’s like they never went away.
Rival Schools : Pedals
2001’s debut album was going to be a hard act to follow. Schreifels honed his skills for many years in many bands and United By Fate was the culmination of this. Pedals is less immediate but after repeated listen is just as good an album. Not just one for the emo kids, it’s a good, [...]
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The Mountain Goats : All Eternals Deck
I love The Mountain Goats and probably always will but the last album was better than it’s predecessor and this one is better again. Opening track ‘Damn These Vampires’ is the best thing they’ve done in ages. Depressing slowies and bile spitting, clattering stompers are all present and correct. As is a weird sort of [...]
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The Cave Singers : No Witch
Dark, dirty, edgy, bluesy folk rock. Strong contender for my album of the year so far. The Cave Singers have always been an interesting folk band but this sees them step it up a notch. There are moments that hark back to the Rolling Stone’s more menacing moments and there are sparse, folky tracks. It’s [...]
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Wilco : Being There (£4.90 Recommended)
Wilco still get categorised in ‘country/americana’ in Diverse and probably other record shops in this country and beyond. This is probably the reason why. They haven’t been this ‘country’ since, indeed, the follow up, ‘Summerteeth’ was a straight up indie pop album. It ain’t all twangy guitars though, the first track is over 6 minutes [...]
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De La Soul : 3 Feet High And Rising (£4.90 Recommended)
OK, so this isn’t Public Enemy, it isn’t gansta rap and isn’t House Of Pain but this was the album that got me into hip hop way back in 1989. I was 13. It’s a witty, upbeat, intelligent album that led to me to listen to A Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic 5 and latterly, DJ [...]
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Animals That Swim : I Was The King, I Really Was The King (£4.90 Recommended)
This album from 1996 has come up in conversation disturbingly often lately. It’s almost like it was making it’s own concerted effort to get my attention. Firstly, a mate of mine posted the video for opening track ‘Faded Glamour’ on his Facebook wall. This song is brilliant, easily in my top 10 nineties singles. Then [...]
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Dinosaur Jr : Where You Been (£4.90 Recommended)
People (including some members of staff in this here shop) will argue that this isn’t Dinosaur Jr’s best album. They’re wrong. Yeah, ‘Freak Scene’ was on Bug and was the song that got them on MTV and into the consciousness of the grunge generation but this was this 1993 album where it all came together. [...]
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The Get Up Kids : There Are Rules
Influential Kansas City five piece, The Get Up Kids, return in January 2011 with a new studio album, ‘There Are Rules’ – the band’s fifth full-length collection, and the first on their own Quality Hill Records imprint. Seven years after what looked to be their final album ‘Guilt Show’, The Get Up Kids returned to [...]
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Yuck : Yuck
Do any of you remember Future Kings Of Spain? They sounded like the sons of Dinosaur Jr and Pavement. Yuck tread similar ground but maybe with a bit more sheen. They’re my new favourite nineties US rock revivalists, it’s about time really. They don’t sound like Nirvana though.