Album: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Return of the Dream Canteen

★★★★ RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS - RETURN OF THE DREAM CANTEEN Stadium rock old-timers summon up a feast of West Coast guitar pop

Stadium rock old-timers summon up a feast of West Coast guitar pop

Does the world need to hear more from Red Hot Chili Peppers? Outside the bouncin’ bro’ fanbase, a regular consensus is that, despite being one of the biggest bands in the world, doing their global stadium rock thing – with free added funk! – achieving the highest level of commercial success, they're not of actual interest.

Album: The 1975 - Being Funny in a Foreign Language

★ THE 1975 - BEING FUNNY IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE A self-aware pop band settle down

A skittering, self-aware pop band settle down

The 1975 are always looking for a way to corral Matty Healy’s ambition, to bring focus to his scattershot mind, to perhaps after all manage a generational address commensurate with his half-serious dreams of what a band can still be.

Album: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool It Down

★★★★★ YEAH YEAH YEAHS - COOL IT DOWN A return even more triumphant than we dared hope

A return even more triumphant than we dared hope from NYC's finest power trio

It’s a minor tragedy that Yeah Yeah Yeahs arrived just in time to be bundled in with a spurious “new rock revolution,” because they were so much more than rock. The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Libertines all may have had decent enough songs, but all were ultimately extremely trad rock, sonically living in mythical pasts.

The Big Moon, Oran Mor, Glasgow review - partying prevails despite band's bad luck

★★★★ THE BIG MOON, ORAN MOOR, GLASGOW Partying prevails despite band's bad luck

The quartet's pop and indie blend was in fine fettle

Presumably before setting out on their current tour the Big Moon smashed a few mirrors, walked under some ladders and crossed the paths of numerous black cats. Not only is this jaunt over two years in the making, endlessly postponed for the usual coronavirus reasons, but the foursome also lost most of their equipment in Spain just prior to hitting the road.

Music Reissues Weekly: Bill Nelson's Red Noise - Art / Empire / Industry - The Complete Red Noise

BILL NELSON'S RED NOISE - ART / EMPIRE / INDUSTRY The Yorkshire maverick moves forward

After putting Be-Bop Deluxe to bed, the Yorkshire maverick moves forward

The British music weeklies were clear about where the Sound-On-Sound LP and its singles fitted into the current musical topography when they were issued in 1979. Comparisons offered up included Magazine, Talking Heads and XTC. And, more curiously, The Tubes. Whatever the assessments, the band behind these releases was new wave.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Best of Roxy Music

THE BEST OF ROXY MUSIC What was on CD two decades ago reappears on vinyl

What was on CD two decades ago reappears on vinyl

In summer 2001, The Best of Roxy Music reached number 12 on the album charts. The 18-track compilation tied-in with the band’s reunion tour, which kicked off that June. Original band members Bryan Ferry, Andy MacKay, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson came together for the dates. They’d last played live in May 1983, after which they split.

Album: Blackpink - Born Pink

The "Pink Venom" of capitalism concentrated to its purest form... yet

This album – and its already multi-100 million stream single “Pink Venom” – starts off with a twang of Korean traditional instruments, a background chant of “blaaaackpink”, a monumentally crunching hip hop beat and  OH DEAR GOD ARE THEY DOING A JAMAICAN ACCENT? Well yes, Korean pop gigastar Jennie of Blackpink does indeed start their second album with a patois-inflected “kick in the door, waving the Coco”. Amazingly that’s not even the weirdest thing about the opening either.

Album: Marcus Mumford - (Self-Titled)

★★★ MARCUS MUMFORD - (SELF-TITLED) The Mumford & Sons frontman finds catharsis in his solo debut

The Mumford & Sons frontman finds catharsis in his solo debut

I can still taste you and I hate it/That wasn’t a choice in the mind of a child and you knew it/You took the first slice of me and you ate it raw/Ripped at it with your teeth and your lips like a cannibal/You fucking animal.” 

Music Reissues Weekly: The Sons of Adam - Saturday's Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966

THE SONS OF ADAM Saturday's Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966

Definitive, long-overdue collection of the Sixties California garage punks

 “We played the Rolling Stones concert at Long Beach Arena. The Stones came on, and it was the first time that any band had ever done better than us. I was very angry about that.” Randy Holden was The Sons of Adam’s guitarist. He was pretty certain of his own band’s impact in November 1964.