rock
CD: Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway – DictatorThursday, 19 July 2018
System of a Down guitarist and vocalist Daron Malakian isn’t going to let a little thing like his band going on an extended hiatus get in the way of releasing new music. With SOAD having gone all quiet on the recording front since 2005’s double... Read more... |
Best Albums of 2018Wednesday, 04 July 2018
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.Brad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution! ★★★★★ Prolific... Read more... |
CD: The Alarm - EqualsMonday, 02 July 2018
Not many bands have a reputation for passion quite like The Alarm. Right from the early Eighties, tracks like "68 Guns" attracted fans who wanted music to believe in – something with a message and a conscience. That ethos came from the band's... Read more... |
Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars, BBC Two review - blues, booze and duesSunday, 01 July 2018
There’s undoubtedly a memorable film to be crafted from the life of guitar legend and grand old survivor Eric Clapton – for instance, Melvyn Bragg made a very good South Bank Show about him in 1987 – but the longer this one goes on, the less it has... Read more... |
CD: Beth Rowley - Gota FríaMonday, 25 June 2018
Gota Fría, or “cold drop”, is a Spanish weather phenomenon associated with violent rainstorms, when high pressure has caused a pocket of cold air to dissociate itself from the warmer clouds. Meteorologists, please excuse my basic and probably... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Contract in Blood / Winds of TimeSunday, 24 June 2018
Although the cover of the 19 May 1979 issue of the music weekly Sounds was dominated by a photo of American rocker Ted Nugent, attention was also grabbed by a trail for a feature on “Heavy Metal…The New British Bands”. The two-page article it... Read more... |
David Byrne, Eventim Apollo review - twice in a lifetime?Thursday, 21 June 2018
Forgive the sports metaphor, but David Byrne knocked this one out of the park. Coming out of the concert at the Eventim Apollo, you felt that the presentation of popular music had changed - that to go on stage with a conventional band with the usual... Read more... |
CD: Nine Inch Nails – Bad WitchThursday, 21 June 2018
Concluding a trilogy of releases that began with the EPs Not the Actual Events (2016) and Add Violence (2017) – Bad Witch is being called an LP despite its six tracks clocking in at only 30 minutes, a discrepancy that reportedly led an exasperated... Read more... |
The Rolling Stones, Twickenham Stadium review - until the next goodbye?Wednesday, 20 June 2018
Eel Pie, the tiny eyot in the Thames, is not too a long walk from Twickenham stadium – within hollering distance, almost, if you had that kind of voice. And if anywhere could lay claim to being the nursery that provided the perfect growing... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Download Festival 2018: three days of metal mayhemWednesday, 13 June 2018
Since Glastonbury lies fallow this year, Download is the biggest British green field festival of the summer. 100,000 souls gathered to celebrate the canon of metal on the land around Donington Park racing circuit. The site has four stages, two... Read more... |
Robert Gordon: Memphis Rent Party review - a fast-moving Mississippi anthologySunday, 10 June 2018
“There’s a rhythm in the air around Memphis, there always has been,” Carl Perkins once said. "I don't know what it is, but it's magic." The city on the Mississippi lives up to its musical heritage with performance venues aplenty, and a host of... Read more... |
CD: Roger Daltrey - As Long as I Have YouThursday, 31 May 2018
It can be hard to put distance between an artist and their behaviour. Woody Allen films present a problem for some, while I, for one, will never see Tommy Robinson’s impressionist landscapes in the same light again. One rock musician who... Read more... |
