Hinds don't believe in God. They declared this as they surveyed the converted church that is St Luke's, and given the past few years you can't blame them for lacking faith.
In 1964, the Norwegian division of Philips Records began issuing singles labelled “Bergen Beat.” The picture sleeves of 45s by Davy Dean and the Swinging Ballades, Sverre Faaberg and the Young Ones, The Jokers, Rune Larsen and Teen Beats, The Quartermasters, Helge Nilsen and the Stringers and Tornado bore a bold stamp recognising each band’s origin in the country’s second city.
Canadian singer Basia Bulat has tried on various musical hats during her career but is most associated with singer-songwriterly folk-pop. Her last album was the melancholic, string-swathed The Garden but with Basia’s Palace, her seventh album, she seems in a jollier frame of mind. She has veered into overtly electronic pop before, especially on her 2016 album Good Advice, but this time it’s a bubblier, warmer version. Then again, these nine songs still find room for heartache.
Bowling For Soup are celebrating their iconic album, A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, on a fun-filled, energetic tour for its 20th anniversary. Their sold out stop at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall was a joy to experience from start to finish, the light-hearted essence of the band evident from the minute we walked in. From comical merch to on-stage banter, the fun was infectious and made for a special evening executed by clear well-seasoned professionals.
Cyndi Lauper was preceded onstage by a brief video that zipped through her career, which she drily declared was just in case someone was at the gig by mistake. It’s tempting to wonder what an unexpected visitor might have made of this farewell tour, given it shifted from Rabbie Burns mentions to gestures of support for the LGBT+ community, wig changes and, at one point, Lauper climbing up from a trap door wrapped in what looked like percussive body armour.
After co-fronting Vinegar Joe with Robert Palmer, Elkie Brooks first charted as a solo artist in 1977 with “Pearl’s a Singer.” Yet there was more to her musical past than the 1971 to 1974 spell in the blues-rock outfit. Her contributions to You Got Me Hooked! - More Marylebone Beat Girls are “He's Gotta Love me” and “Stop the Music” – both released a decade before “Pearl’s a Singer.”
The Weeknd is a global megastar, one of the biggest music sensations of the age. Last year, his compilation, The Highlights, was the second best-selling album in the world, and he has 27 songs with over a billion streams on Spotify, which is a record. His latest album is the third part of a trilogy which started, back in 2020 with After Hours.
VINYL OF THE MONTH
Buñuel Mansuetude (Skin Graft/Overdrive)
If I’d listened to this blind, I would have absolutely no idea who it was by. This isn’t the voice I remember on those Spandau backing tracks. In fact, it’s a sound straight from mid-80s soft rock. If that makes you feel queasy, step away now.
On 26 September 1966, The Twilights set-off from Australia to Britain. The journey, on the liner the Castel Felice, took six weeks. A day after boarding they learned their sixth single, “Needle in a Haystack,” was an Australian number one. There was nothing they could do to promote the hit, so after disembarking at Southampton they looked for work.