The Way Old Friends Do, Park Theatre review - sweet, but flimsy

★★★ THE WAY OLD FRIENDS DO, PARK THEATRE Sweet, but flimsy

Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard’s ABBA tribute is fun, but clunky

Is it a good idea to work with your spouse? The Way Old Friends Do, a love letter to ABBA tribute bands – which premiered at the Birmingham Rep last month and now visits the Park Theatre in north London – is a joint venture by actor and first-time playwright Ian Hallard and Mark Gatiss, who is both his director and his husband.

Music Reissues Weekly: Duffy Power - Innovations, Live at the BBC

DUFFY POWER - INNOVATIONS, LIVE AT THE BBC Additions to great blues-jazz stylist's catalogue

Essential additions to the great British blues-jazz stylist's catalogue

Sometime in early October 1963 John Lennon and Paul McCartney encountered The Rolling Stones and offered them one of their songs; one which became the London blues aficionado’s second single. “I Wanna be Your Man” was duly recorded on 7 October 1963 and released on 1 November. Thanks to The Beatles, the Stones charted for the first time. A Liverpool-London, north-south divide had been breached.

Album: 100 gecs - 10,000 gecs

★★★★ 100 GECS - 10,000 GECS Bonkers eclecto-core smash-pop from playfully noisy US duo

Bonkers eclecto-core smash-pop from playfully noisy US duo

If popular music is dead and done and there’s nowhere left to go, rising duo 100 gecs, from St Louis, Missouri, are here to prove there’s still deranged fun to be had cannibalising the corpse. The second album from the pair, both in their late twenties and with a background in electronic production, is a post-modern assault, garish and unapologetic, part satire (possibly), part avant-punk noisiness, and part wilfully infantile and ridiculous.

Ladytron, SWG3, Glasgow review - synth stars show time hasn't diminished their relevance

★★★★ LADYTRON, SWG3, GLASGOW Synth stars show time hasn't diminished their relevance

The quartet were thunderously loud and consistently danceable

It is a sign of Ladytron’s longevity and relevance that their support acts are now performers clearly inspired by the quartet. Elisabeth Elektra, here picked for opening the night in her home city, may not have the icy cool of the evening’s headliners, but the lineage of her buoyantly loud electro pop was clear.

At its best, she showcased a wickedly clear groove, at worst her vocal was submerged by the live drummer pounding away behind her. However it was a lively, enjoyable start to affairs.

Lucia and the Best Boys, SWG3, Glasgow review - a celebratory homecoming for rising star

★★★ LUCIA AND THE BEST BOYS, SWG3, GLASGOW Celebratory homecoming for rising star

The songstress and her band cut an entertaining but inconsistent performance

Jessica Winter is clearly a hardy soul. The Portsmouth singer made a point of shedding her jacket and top as her support set went on, a bold choice given the typically unpredictable Glasgow weather was serving up freezing snow outside at the time.

Album: Miley Cyrus - Endless Summer Vacation

★★★★ MILEY CYRUS - ENDLESS SUMMER VACATION The former child star finally in her own

The former child star has finally come into her own

Being a few years more marinated in life than Miley Cyrus, it’s taken me a while to come around to her music. From the periphery, I’ve traversed the annoyance of small folk watching Hannah Montana and the "Hoedown Throwdown", to the bemused horror of watching a young female talent be either so manufactured/exploited by a male-centric music industry or rebelling against it so hard without being safeguarded she seemed intent on implosion.

Album: Nia Archives - Sunrise Bang ur Head Against the Wall

★★★★ NIA ARCHIVES - SUNRISE BANG UR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL The jungle-pop star shows precisely what she's made of in this condensed statement

The jungle-pop star shows precisely what she's made of in this condensed statement

We are way, way past the point where it makes any sense to talk of jungle or drum’n’bass “revivals”. Thirty years from the emergence of jungle from the rave scene, its tempo and tropes have remained a staple sound for generation upon generation of clubbers, boy racers and festival goers. It is woven into the fabric of global, and particularly British, culture just as integrally as, say, indie rock guitars are.

Music Reissues Weekly: Jon Savage's 1980-1982 - The Art Of Things To Come

Thought-provoking overview of three flux years when shininess became a goal

Jon Savage's 1980-1982 - The Art Of Things To Come continues a series which began in 2015 with 1966 - The Year The Decade Exploded, a compilation springing off from Savage’s book of the same name. A follow-up looked at 1965, but after that the series has marched forward chronologically.

Album: Kali Uchis - Red Moon in Venus

Third from the American star is a slow, intoxicated and sensual love-fest

Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis knocked it out of the park with the vibrant, eclectic global pop of debut Isolation, one of the best albums of 2018.

Music Reissues Weekly: Stranger In Town - A Del Shannon Compendium

A DEL SHANNON COMPANION Baroque wonders, haunted psychodrama & garage-punk power

Baroque wonders, haunted psychodrama and garage-punk power

After Del Shannon took his own life in February 1990 at age 55, some obituaries were careful to point out that he stood apart from other pop stars who were big in pre-Beatles America. “The most tragic thing would be for Del Shannon to be lumped with, as he sometimes was in the past, all the Bobbys and Frankies and the other teen idols,” said the L.A. Weekly.