Album: Slowdive - Everything is Alive

★★★ SLOWDIVE - EVERYTHING IS ALIVE The shoegazing titans continue

The shoegazing titans continue doing what they’ve always done

Everything is Alive opens with all that could be wanted from a Slowdive album. “Shanty” is just-under six minutes of out-of-focus, shimmering aural fog in which guitars throb and drums are a distant pulse. An acid-house-type heartbeat is offset against a harpsichord-like refrain recalling Broadcast. Lines drift in about a burning candle and the arrival of night. It all seems to be about the passing of time.

The Walkmen, SWG3, Glasgow review - a classy return for New York's finest

★★★★ THE WALKMEN, SWG3, GLASGOW A classy return for New York's finest

There was still a tremendous power to the reunited quintet's material

As the relentless, hammering beat of “The Rat” faded away, the Walkmen’s singer Hamilton Leithauser was evidently in buoyant mood. “Like riding a bike,” he declared to the Glasgow crowd, and this was a statement that proved consistently accurate throughout the 75-minute set, as the reunited quintet played in a manner that felt like they’d never been away.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps

THE BOO RADLEYS - GIANT STEPS The landmark Creation Records double album reissued

Thirtieth-anniversary reappearance of the landmark Creation Records double album

The final track of Giant Steps is titled “The White Noise Revisited.” Its lyrics recount the crushing impact of a job where you “kill yourself at work for what seems nothing at all.” After coming home, “you listen to the Beatles and relax and close your eyes.”

Mega Bog, The Lexington review - a synth-pop makeover is tempered with dashes of new wave

★★★★ MEGA BOG, THE LEXINGTON Synth-pop makeover tempered with dashes of new wave

Confirmation that the American experimental popster Erin Birgy won’t stand still

Introducing the fifth number in this evening’s set, Erin Birgy speaks to the audience for the first time. “This is our last song, thank you,” she says. Thoughts of early Jesus and Mary Chain shows instantly surface. Is this going to be a 20-minute wonder? A five-song digest of where Birgy – who records and writes as Mega Bog – is now, playing her first UK dates since the release of her seventh album The End of Everything? Is it the end of the show?

Album: Genesis Owusu - Struggler

Ghanaian-Australian continues his exuberant alt-pop mission with a unique swagger

There’s been a sense of anticipation around Ghanaian-Australian Genesis Owusu ever since his ebullient 2021 debut album Smiling with No Teeth. He won a bunch of Arias, Australia’s Grammys, but could he break internationally? He’s toured the US with Paramore and is due to hit Europe in the Autumn, including a stop at Berghain.

Album: Dexys - The Feminine Divine

★★★ DEXYS - THE FEMININE DIVINE Theatrically engaging suite of songs centred on womanhood

Theatrically engaging suite of songs centred on womanhood, masculinity and sensual liberation

In 2012 Dexys returned with their fourth album, and first in 27 years, One Day I’m Going to Soar. It was a concept piece, original and funny, chewing over the volatility of love, containing wonderful set-pieces, most especially a trio of songs at its centre (“I’m Thinking of You”, “I’m Always Going to Love You” and “Incapable of Love”) which humorously excoriated the fickleness of romance.

Bluedot Festival 2023 review - monsoon weather can't defeat the music'n'science extravaganza

★★★★ BLUEDOT FESTIVAL Grace Jones, Pavement, Doctor Who and more defy the deluge

Grace Jones, Pavement, Doctor Who and Professor David Nutt defy the deluge

“This wasn’t the day to wear white suede boots,” says Django Django’s singer Vincent Neff, midway through the band’s Friday evening set.

He’s not kidding.

Barbie review - uneasy blend of farce and feminism

★★★ BARBIE Greta Gerwig's Barbieland comes with muddled kitsch baggage

Greta Gerwig's Barbieland comes with muddled kitsch baggage

The prologue to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie augurs well. A gaggle of young girls in a rocky desert are playing with doll-babies while enacting the mind-numbing drudgery of the early 20th century housewife. Then a new godhead arrives, a giant pretty blonde whose stilettoed feet turn slightly inwards. The girls go into a frenzy of old-doll-smashing, Also Sprach Zarathustra swells up and one girl throws her doll high in the air.