Marc Valentine: NY UAP (Wicked Cool Records) Stream Out now Marc Valentine kick starts the new year in fine style with his new single NY UAP. It’s another classic three minute blast of uplifting power pop from his forthcoming album that is guaranteed to lift your mood as soon as you hear it. With two solo albums already behind him as well a relentless touring schedule across the UK, Europe and the USA over the past couple of…
Sly Dunbar’s music career is an astonishing journey through many classic records with his rhythms changing the very sound and shape of music. John Brice worked with the legend and wrote this appreciation for him after his passing this week. No musicologist, archivist or connoisseur in the world will ever be able to fully archive or list every record Sly Dunbar played drums on. Even Sly, a music obsessive himself with an incredible memory, couldn’t have done it.…
Various Artists: Little Bangers From Richard Hawley’s Jukebox, Volume 2 (Ace Records) CD | LP Out 30th January 2026 PRE-ORDER HERE 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0 Richard Hawley once again opens up his musical archives to give us unique access to a whole bunch of classic songs, mainly from the 50’s and 60’s, which he aptly entitles Little Bangers From Richard Hawley’s Jukebox Volume 2. As with its predecessor, this is a magnificent and inspiring collection of 28 songs…
Burning Witches | Hammer KingManchester Academy 325th January 2026 Coming to the Swiss heavy/power metal band Burning Witches, as someone whose musical roots lie in the psychedelic rock era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, this was very much a journey into new territory. My formative live music memories are of long guitar solos, swirling lights and bands stretching songs into cosmic explorations. Heavy metal, in its modern form, is not the world I grew up in.…
Plantoid: Flare (Bella Union) Vinyl | DL available at Sister Ray Release date 30 January Plantoid appear at the LTW Festival on 14th March. Tickets available here. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars4.0 Funky prog rock Brighton trio Plantoid return after their acclaimed debut Terrapath with a nine track beauty of complicated sound that soars with layers of innovative psych without sounding like a ‘boardroom of chin stroking beards’. Wayne AF Carey reviews… Plantoid are a refreshing change to…
Band selfie – Heartbreakers dressing room Dan O’Farrell & the Difference EngineHeartbreakers, Southampton24th January 2026 The sold-out launch gig for The Fish That Learned To Drown album was an inspirational event, says Ged Babey, and ‘I’m sure I’ve seen that bloke somewhere before’. Dan O’Farrell & the Difference Engine have always been a decent, dependable ‘local band’- Nice blokes, neat songs. With ‘The Fish..’ they have somehow gone-up-a-gear to the point of turbo-charging themselves and blossomed into a…
Backengrillen: Backengrillen Svart Records All Formats Out Now Proudly anti-fascist and anti-racist death jazz, most of Refused get back together for a tour of the darker side of our current political reality. MK Bennett finds solace. “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at…
Tri-Subversion: Free Chopper Rides (Ubertroll Recordings) Out now CD | Streaming Leicester’s anarcho-punks Tri-Subversion release a feisty collection of tunes that pour scorn on the modern world. Neil Crud claims his free ride in their chopper. With their third full-length outing, ‘Free Chopper Rides’, Leicester’s Tri-Subversion have effectively scorched the blueprint of their previous records to build something far more formidable. Recorded “live” in visceral single takes at Quad Studios by Bob Bryars, and shaped by the production…
Xiu Xiu: Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu : Vol 1 (Polyvinyl Records) All Formats Out Now Purveyors of velvet-covered noise and abstract impressionism release a brand new album of delectable and delightful covers to surprise and amaze. MK Bennett has a listen. A band must make a decision when they release a cover version, more so when it’s an album, an artefact, a product sent out into the overpopulated marketplace. There may be artistic factors at play, a determination…
AAA Gripper: We Invented Work For The Common Good (Wrong Speed Records) DL | Vinyl | Streaming Out Now BUY HERE AAA Gripper deliver a labyrinthine post-punk debut album, We Invented Work For The Common Good. Fans of The Fall and Fugazi should definitely pay attention. Last year was chock-full of great live music but one of my undoubted highlights was being exposed to AAA Gripper. Playing as part of the Endless Spite all-dayer in Shipley, the…
The Style Council: Café Bleu – Special Edition (Polydor) 3 x Vinyl / 6 CD Set Available from 30th January Buy Here The Style Council’s 1984 debut album gets the boxset treatment, providing fans with a comprehensive collection of the bands first couple of years. This deluxe version of Café Bleu has been on the cards for many years, with many rumours on social media and on forums over the last decade or so. Finally, it’s here, a…
French garage label Rogue Records release two new stomping 7″s for all those under the spell of those classic garage-rock sounds. The Basements: Feelings (Rogue) 7″ | DL Out now If you never lived through it, as I didn’t, that heady sixties garage heyday where a straight three chords through a punctured speaker cone was the sound that captured a generation, the new single from Greece’s The Basements is a total trip back in time. On Feelings, and…