Category: Reviews
-
Live Review: Alice SK, The Hope & Ruin, Brighton – The Great Escape, 16/05/26
During the Great Escape festival, central Brighton feels like a slightly sleazier, moodier version of one of those waiting rooms on the X Factor. Almost everyone you see seems to have just come off stage or be waiting their turn. There’s a definite sense of competition in the air, and musical ‘content creators’ roam around…
-
Live Review: Flea and the Honora Band – KOKO, London (26/05/2026)
For more than forty years, Michael “Flea” Balzary has been ploughing through the shifting tides of rock history at its frontline. With his debut solo jazz album, Honora, Flea is paying tribute to his childhood heavily influenced by his jazz-musician stepfather. Flea recalls his unstable childhood with an abusive stepfather “scary” but he also reminisces:…
-
Live Review: caroline, Knockdown Center – New York (21/05/26)
“It brought to mind a wave returning again and again to crash against a rocky and lichenous shore: never the same, and always the same.”
-
Live Review: Patti Smith – The Brighton Dome, 12/05/26
“You didn’t need to be in the audience at CBGB’s in the seventies to feel Patti Smith at her best. THIS was Patti Smith at her best. This is Patti Smith. Fuck the clock.”
-
Live Review: My New Band Believe – Earth, Hackney 02/05/2026
“Numerology”, that fierce electronic behemoth I mentioned earlier, is played here completely acoustically—if that’s at all possible, and not something I dreamed up. This reimagining creates a sense of panic and trepidation, the drummer embodying the final scene of Whiplash in a blaze of unadulterated glory.”
-
Live Review : Ásgeir, Islington Assembly Hall , London – 22/04/26
“Ásgeir and his band were, to borrow a song title from James Blunt himself, Three Wise Men indeed.”
-
Live Review: The Moonlight Radio @ Bermondsey Social Club – April 17th 2026
The venue was at capacity, which was surprising. For a fringe band just starting out, with little to no online profile and an EP still in the works, one would expect the singer’s auntie to be there, and maybe the bar manager. Instead, the Bermondsey Social Club was packed with friends and fans.
-
Album Review: Fast Money Music – Self Titled (Sick Records)
“It’s not revolutionary, but it is the ordinary done exceptionally well – and that, in itself, is worthy of praise.”
-
Album Review: My New Band Believe – Self Titled (Rough Trade)
The record doesn’t just justify the name – it makes it feel almost modest. Like the man quietly built a cathedral and then shrugged and called it “My New Shed.”