Fred Schepisi’s The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) was the Australian New Wave film that most rigorously confronted the cataclysmic effect of British and Irish colonisation on the country’s Aboriginal people.
Justin Sullivan, the last remaining original member of Bradford post-punkers New Model Army, has always given the impression of taking things all a bit seriously. After all, he did go by the name of Slade the Leveller and wear wooden clogs for the first few years of the band, railing against the small-mindedness of “Small Town England” and howling for “Vengeance”. Some 40 years on, while Justin may have mellowed a bit, he can still hardly be described as light-hearted and frivolous in his approach to songwriting.
South-coast four piece Grenades’ debut album is that most unlikely of musical outings, an ecological grunge-punk concept album. This is no wafty, feel-good affair, though, its environmental concern is akin to the eco-parable shock tactics of rough’n’ready Eighties exploitation flicks such as Cannibal Holocaust and Green Inferno.
It's been two years since Ride came back from a 20-year break with their reunion LP, Weather Diaries. Fans considered the album a triumph. This is Not a Safe Place, though, is a notch above. It's 50 minutes of intoxicating and contrasting moods that move from dreamy indie to post-punk. Underpinning the music is a sense of finding your identity in an increasingly disconnected and polarised world.
At recent live shows, Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn has taken to describing the band’s current lineup as the best it’s ever been. Boosted to a six-piece by the return of Franz Nicolay on keyboards, the Hold Steady of the band’s latter-day London residencies has been well worth the annual 800-mile round-trip: celebratory; poignant; communal; joyous.
Frank Turner’s compendium of extraordinary female lives, from the “impudence” of a Byzantine princess to his mum via Mata Hari, is admirably ambitious and historically intriguing. The arena-playing folk-punk digs deeper into factual byways than he has any career need to, insisting on his own wayward course.
Ashley Joiner’s expansive documentary Are You Proud? opens with the testament of a redoubtable nonagenarian remembering his experiences as a gay man in World War II.
“I don’t want to talk, man. Let’s just fucking do it,” announces Ese Okoroduku, before crashing into the opening guitar chord of her debut album’s title track. This sums up the Nigerian-born, south London musician's whole ethos. Up In Smoke was recorded is just two days, with only a couple of overdubs added later, and analogue tape used to capture gorgeous valve amp buzz and vocal warmth. Such a cavalier approach could easily have backfired had she not already thoroughly learned her craft as a busker before then touring her band for 18 months.
If you’ve been paying attention, you might have already heard most if not all of Bon Iver’s curiously named i,i album – weeks before its physical release on August 30. The band debuted two tracks (“Hey Ma” and “U (Man Like)”) at London’s All Points East festival back in June, and since then they’ve been dropping videos, teasers, singles and unrelased tracks all over the place.
The perfect primer to The Regrettes comes towards the end of the colourful video for “I Dare You”, the bubblegum update to “Last Nite” by The Strokes that is the lead single from their second album. Teenage frontwoman Lydia Night delivers the title lyric for the first time in the song with a cheeky wink to the camera, but it’s so subtle - and her face is but one of four, off-centre on screen - that you’ll convince yourself you dreamt it.