Album: Mark Morton - Without the Pain

★★★ MARK MORTON - WITHOUT THE PAIN Second solo album from Lamb of God guitarist lays down hefty southern boogie

Second solo album from Lamb of God guitarist lays down hefty southern boogie

Mark Morton is best known as a guitarist with US metallers Lamb of God. They’ve been going for three decades, established and successful, at the more extreme, thrashier end of the spectrum, but still achieving Top Five albums on the Billboard charts.

Tallinn Music Week 2025 review - Estonia’s capital accommodates all flavours of music

TALLINN MUSIC WEEK 2025 Estonia’s capital accommodates all flavours of music

The festival where everything appears on an equal footing

Langenu are a black metal band. On stage at Estonia’s Tallinn Music Week, they are fearsome. Blood-vessel-burstingly intense. Tempering their force with twists into progressive, psychedelic-adjacent territory, they are a band any rock fan would dig.

Deap Vally, Concorde 2, Brighton review - final blow-out before the rockin' duo quit

★★★★★ DEAP VALLY, CONCORDE 2, BRIGHTON Final blow-out before the rockin' duo quit

Los Angeles queens of the dirty riff are as magnificent as ever on their final go-round

Towards the end of the encore, Deap Vally bring on their friend Solon Bixler. Frontwoman Lindsey Troy hands him her guitar. Despite this being their farewell tour, these two songs, she tells us, are new. The duo, now briefly a trio, go ballistic, a punk rock explosion ensues. Drummer Julie Edwards attacks her kit like Animal from The Muppets, Troy stomps like a glam rock loon before rolling about the floor, and Bixler scissor-kicks his way to stand aloft the bass drum.

They’re burning with the right stuff. They have been all night.

The Great Escape Festival 2024, Brighton review - 12 hours on the musical frontline of Day Three

★★★★ THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL 2024, BRIGHTON Checking out gigs by Being Dead, Kneecap, Pip Blom, Looking Glass Alice and more

Checking out gigs by Being Dead, Kneecap, Pip Blom, Looking Glass Alice and more

If the weather’s good TGE Beach is a grand start to a day. As it sounds, it’s a purpose-built seafront space to the east of central Brighton, containing three stages as well as stalls selling vegan kebabs, Filipino street food and German sausage.

The Great Escape Festival 2024, Brighton review - a dip into day one and the elephant-in-the-room

★★★ THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL 2024, BRIGHTON Day one & the elephant-in-the-room

An opening snapshot of Brighton's multi-venue showcase

Before reviewing The Great Escape, we must first deal with the elephant in the room. Or, in this case, the room that’s crushing the elephant, like the trash compactor in the first Star Wars film.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM BIT

Album: J Mascis - What Do We Do Now

Tapping into the endless elemental flow of an alt-rock mainstay

It seems like time flows differently for J Mascis. He’s now not far off 60, it’s 40 years since he founded Dinosaur Jr, and he’s been involved in untold musical project from the most rarefied of abstract psychedelia to guesting with Lemonheads and Nirvana, but within his own core output he is tapped into exactly the same wellspring as he was all those years ago.

Snayx/Shelf Lives/Monakis, Patterns, Brighton review - storming, punking triple-header

★★★★ SNAYX / SHELF LIVES / MONAKIS, BRIGHTON Storming, punking triple-header

Fired-up three band package tour hits the south coast with a communal sense of fury

Patterns is a small, low-ceilinged, underground, seafront venue. Tonight it would be a feast for any passing ancient succubae who happens to feed on raw human energy. From 7.00 PM until 10.00 PM, the room plays host to a package tour of three rising bands. Their short, vim-filled sets are hard-wired to a thrilling, relentless punk intensity.

Album: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers - I Love You

Likeable debut from Aussie outfit which combines punkish bio with a feminist edge

Canberra band Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers continue the recent tradition of Australian indie bands having unwieldy comedy names. However, their music, as laid out on their debut album, has higher aspirations, bridging their scuzzy punkin’ roots and a larger sound, loosely somewhere between The Breeders and Foo Fighters, yet very much their own thing.