Reissue CDs Weekly: The Damned
Admirably succinct entry point into first five years of Brit-punk pioneers
The Damned: Go! 45
CD: The Fall - Sub-Lingual Tablet
Another fine disc to slip under the tongue
The Fall has always delivered great album titles, and Sub-Lingual Tablet is right up there with the best – Witch Trials, Hex, Caustic, Are You Are Missing Winner… The song titles, too, have a medicated, sub-lingual ring that no other artist could pull off – “Junger Cloth”, anyone? – guaranteed to wipe away all psychiatric waste...
Reissue CDs Weekly: Eurovision 2015
Never mind the Finnish punk, the year Australia came to play is defined by musical sludge
Various Artists: Building Bridges - Eurovision Song Contest Vienna 2015
The Fall, Brixton Electric
A powerful sub-lingual assault on the senses
They begin with “My Door is Never” from 2007 album Reformation Post TLC, and close a little over an hour later with “Sparta FC”, from early in the century, and from a long-gone Fall line-up. In between, a flurry of blurred, brutal songs from the new and most recent albums set about pummelling a packed house at the Brixton Electric.
DVD: Rude Boy
Despite its shortcomings, film vehicle for The Clash is an essential pop-cultural document
Rude Boy is a rotten film. Nonetheless it exerts an inexorable draw as it includes live footage of The Clash which is amongst the best of any rock group on stage. The performance of “Safe European Home”, caught on camera in July 1978, is white hot. That is, the performance as seen. The audio track was subsequently modified in a recording studio.
The Stranglers, O2 Academy, Birmingham
The Men in Black sell out in Birmingham and burn the place down
Perhaps it’s because today’s economy often seems to reflect the nightmare of the late Seventies, but recent years have seen plenty of the original punks return to public attention with a renewed vigour. Whereas some, like support band The Rezillos, have reformed after a break of several decades, the Stranglers, despite a few line-up and stylistic changes, have never gone away and aren’t shy about playing a set of tunes drawn from their 40-year career.
Reissue CDs Weekly: Martin Hannett & Steve Hopkins
Collection revealing the legendary producer’s mainstream aspirations
Martin Hannett & Steve Hopkins: The Invisible Girls
10 Questions for Rumer 2015
The singer-songwriter opens up about her new album and her punk rock side
Last autumn Rumer reappeared with her third album, Into Colour, surprising everyone with a lead single that was disco-flavoured. The rest of the album was closer in scope to the opulent LA easy listening and classic West Coast singer-songwriter fare that the singer has made her own since her first major label single, “Slow”, blew up in 2010.
Reissue CDs Weekly: Radio Birdman
The ultimate statement on Australia’s greatest cult band
Radio Birdman: Radio Birdman
Album of the Year: Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
In a year of women who rocked, Gainsville punks topped the charts
There are, probably, two things standing in the way of Against Me! topping as many best-of lists as they deserve to this year: firstly, the January release date, which tends to lead to many fine records being abandoned for the newest and shiniest; and secondly, the tortuous route it found to release at all. Label issues, intra-band politics and the small matter of the additional attention paid to the band's songwriter and frontwoman Laura Jane Grace's first album since coming out as transgender in 2012.