ALBUM REVIEW: Lustmord – Much Unseen Is Also Here


Lustmord is the pseudonym of Brian Williams, now more than four decades into his music career and with myriad releases under his belt, including many soundtracks and collaborations, as well as a plethora of “ordinary” albums.Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She


Chelsea Wolfe’s seventh solo full-length (and her first in around five years), She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She (Loma Vista Recordings), seems to represent something of a rebirth for Wolfe, both in terms of thematic content and sound.Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: New Model Army – Unbroken


Not unlike their Parliamentarian namesakes, Bradford’s New Model Army have tenaciously hung on to their libertarian left-wing hopes of a new “utopian” society, fusing Punk, Folk, and their own twisted brand of progressive Pop along the way.

The band’s latest full length, Unbroken (earMUSIC) marks their forty-fourth year, and this record brings exactly the experience fans of the band will be looking for.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Mountain Caller – Chronicle II: Hypergenesis


Mountain Caller’s latest release, Chronicle II: Hypergenesis (Church Road Records), is the much-anticipated follow-up LP to 2020’s Chronicle I: The Truthseeker. The London-based three-piece (Claire Simson on guitar, El Reeve on bass, and Max Maxwell on drums) perform mostly instrumental music that (so it is said) “[transcends] language and [communicates] through the universal language of sound”.

And, true to the words of the press hype in question, Hypergenesis does indeed cross musical boundaries in a way that, whilst not entirely new, feels burstingly fresh and urgent.Continue reading


FESTIVAL REVIEW: Damnation Festival and a Night of Salvation 2023 Live at Bowlers Exhibition Centre


 

This year’s Damnation Festival is the second since it has returned to its original home of Manchester after many years at the University of Leeds. The festival had outgrown the confines of its erstwhile venue and now takes place at Manchester’s Bowlers Exhibition Centre across three large stages. Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: Jo Quail – Invocation – Supplication


 

Invocation / Supplication (By Norse Music), the new offering from experimental cellist Jo Quail, is actually a compendium of two connected three-song cycles. The first, Invocation, features the contributions of Heilung vocalist Maria Franz, plus brass instruments, percussion, bass and a choir assembled from crowdsourced mobile phone recordings of individual syllables. Supplication, on the other hand, is a less embellished affair, with just vocals from Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari and Koen Kaptin’s trombone parts to augment Quail’s cello and sound design.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter – SAVED!


 

Kristin Hayter is perhaps better known by her erstwhile pseudonym Lingua Ignota, under which moniker she has released several albums that combine dark experimentalism with the influence of classical and folk music. Stating that it is “not healthy for [her] to relive [her] worst experiences over and over” through the music of her previous project, she has now recast herself as Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, under which name her new album SAVED! (Perpetual Flame Ministries) arrives.

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