Album: Chris Cohen - Paint a Room

★★★★ CHRIS COHEN - PAINT A ROOM Former Deerhoof man fashions a shimmering gem

Former Deerhoof man fashions a shimmering gem

Paint a Room is idiosyncratic, but it is an absolute joy. Accessible too. Permeated with a summery vibe, its 10 songs glisten like the surface of lake catching the setting sun’s rays. There’s a lightness, a buoyancy which instantly fascinates.

Glastonbury Festival 2024: A Sunlit Epic of Music, Madness, Chaos and Culture

★★★★★ GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL 2024: A sunlit epic of music, madness, chaos and culture

Take the full immersive novelette-length four day head-trip through the best party in the world

SUNDAY 30th June 2024

It’s late. But not really. Not by the standards of this place. Photographer Finetime and I are in Block9 in the South-East Corner. The so-called “naughty corner”. We take turns juggernauting quomble off a pinecone. Finetime’s right eyelid is twitching. This tic developed today. Nearby is a gigantic head. About the size of a large Victorian house. It’s at an acute angle to the ground. Instead of eyes it has a kind of welders’ mask blitzing white-noise light. Like the haunted, detuned television in the 1982 film Poltergeist.

Rain Parade, 229 review - the Paisley Underground perennials prove unafraid of their past

★★★ RAIN PARADE, 229 Haziness, raga-esque guitar and top-notch psychedelia

Haziness, raga-esque guitar and top-notch psychedelia

It kicks off with “No Easy Way Down.” First released on 1984’s mini-LP Explosions in the Glass Palace, it was an instant benchmark by which to measure Rain Parade. Churning, dense and foggy, it made good on what this California outfit were portrayed as: integral to a Sixties-inspired wave of bands defiantly reconfiguring the past for the present. Not all Rain Parade songs were like this, but “No Easy Way Down” was a head-spinner. It still is.

Smashing Pumpkins / Weezer, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - double-bill of unlikely bedfellows makes a racket

Both 90s favourites went hard and heavy, if occasionally too bludgeoning

The current trend for package tours with two headliners appears to be growing, and this jaunt presented somewhat unlikely bedfellows – the theatrical angst of Billy Corgan’s crew and Rivers Cuomo’s indie trendsetters united by a shared love for guitar histrionics, 90s nostalgia for those who remember MTV2 and not much else.

Album: John Grant - The Art of the Lie

The forthright US singer-songwriter sets the personal in a wider context

“I feel ashamed because I couldn’t become the man that you always hoped I’d become.” The line is repeated during “Father,” The Art of the Lie’s third track. After this, there’s “Mother and Son,” “Daddy” and the allusive “The Child Catcher”. Parent-child relations, from either perspective, are key to John Grant’s sixth solo album. Specifically, how these have rippled through his life to form his present-day self.

Album: John Cale - POPtical Illusion

★★★★ JOHN CALE - POPTICAL ILLUSION A further surge of energy from an old hand

A further surge of energy from an old hand

At 81, John Cale, an immensely prolific, wide-ranging and innovative musician, continues to take risks, making music that may not always be instantly appealing, but always true to an artist’s authentic path.  Hot on the heels of Mercy (2023), in which he collaborated with a number of off-centre cutting-edge talents, he has produced another album full of surprises and yet immediately recognisable as his own work.

Album: Marina Allen - Eight Pointed Star

★★★★ MARINA ALLEN - EIGHT POINTED STAR Evidence of a greater confidence

US singer-songwriter’s third album’s nod to Americana is a feint

While some tracks on Marina Allen’s third album are country accented and a pedal steel is used a few times, it’s impossible to categorise Eight Pointed Star as Americana. Its sixth track, “Easy”, has the closeted atmosphere of The Velvet Underground’s third album. Next up, the driving “Love Comes Back” has a dash of former Go-Between Robert Forster about it.

The Lovely Eggs, XOYO, Birmingham review - Lancashire duo brings the Bank Holiday to a speedy end

★★★★ THE LOVELY EGGS, XOYO, BIRMINGHAM Lively punk rock for the BBC Radio 6 Dads

Lively punk rock for the BBC Radio 6 Dads

When the Lovely Eggs’ married duo of Holly Ross and David Blackwell took to the stage at the recently rebranded XOYO in Birmingham on Bank Holiday Monday, they looked like they should be playing for two completely separate bands. She was looking glam, dressed like a guitar wielding Rόisín Murphy, with a blonde bob and orange and black tiger print dress, while he slid behind his drum kit in a washed-out tour t-shirt and a Johnny Ramone haircut.

Album: Bat For Lashes - The Dream of Delphi

Sixth album from exploratory singer-songwriter embraces motherhood but not tunes

Natasha Khan’s musical career has always explored the artier end of pop. Her latest album, her sixth and first in five years, is more akin to the soundtrack work she did with Swiss composer Dominik Scherrer on BBC spook-thriller Requiem in 2018 than her Bat For Lashes albums.