An astounding series of peaks across North-West Spain are reified in folklore as instantly recognisable landmarks nefarious conquistadors and regular Joes all fixed upon as they finally sailed into the serenity of home waters. Anabel Santiago’s 2007 album Desnuda is in effect a rejuvenation of a musical heritage which sails between those many Spanish traditions, the ghosts of imperialism, the […]
Listening to Diamond Head’s most enduring of epics (although forgive the mild misnomer “epic” as it happens to be under 5 minutes long), offers the chance to discuss exactly why Stourbridge’s hairiest, most underground rockers never quite grasped the glittering prize of major league renown. As the title track of 1983’s critically mixed Canterbury swaps range from […]
Wailing “God Bless America…” is not the selling point on which you can convince someone of a song’s cathartic merits, even if this song magnifies in grace over one of the most astounding cinematic closing sequences ever, James Guercio’s wirey, disillusioned, Electra Glide In Blue. Tell Me, also written by Guercio, and delivered as a […]
Serafino Murru passed away in 1994. It would be difficult though to accept the terminal shockwaves of this roughly sketched street balladeer after the scraping acoustic spears of Lo Scudetto In Sardegna rip through any dustclouds gathered in the decades since Luigi Riva and the Rossoblu last ran rings around mainland hierarchies. Murru is the archetypal everyman, […]
An alternative title for this triumphalist rant could be “When Critics Bite Back…”, but the dangers of sounding like a Sky One documentary cross bred with a doughnut addled Rolling Stone sub-editor are for now, enough to keep me satisfied with my primary path of destruction. Sure it’s a pre-occupation as old […]
Three weeks ago I sent a pal an email. Not the kind of drunken rant fest that brings an after effect of head bowing/avoid all eye contact for at least 6 months afterwards. Conceived in an Evangelical state of purity, my friend’s cyber telegram arrived with a link to the lyrics of Idiot Wind and precise instructions […]
“For in vain from the grasp of Religion I flee The most tenderly loved of my soul Are slaves to its hated control It pursues me, it blasts me! Oh where shall I fly What remains but to curse it, to curse it to die?” (1) Every bit the sneering, instinctive, anti-puritanical, vote-splitting impulsive Prometheus, […]
Aynsley Dunbar could’ve been a contender. Take the two overwhelming and contradictory pieces of evidence. One, his 1967 self-composed, acrid billowing account of romantic hindsight Warning, then place it alongside the other, his poodle rock sojourn of 1987, as a rather subdued skinthumper for a Whitesnake who went for the Rock N’ Roll Gok Wan […]
Although I claim to be a holier than thou leftie, there are some conservative impulses I just can’t budge, one of them being a rather straightforward, no-frills list of 7 songs which encapsulate 2008 for me. Yeah, I’m a party pooper, so what? Christmas is for schmucks anyway… So in order… (1) Midnight‘s Another […]
Instead of shedding tears over just how much Mike Skinner has forfeited his concrete jungle panache in a series of increasingly trend adhering, substance lacking albums since (and including it has to be said) A Grand Don’t Come for Free, let’s remember for one beautiful instance the Brummie smartmouth had perfection precariously wobbling in his […]
