"Punk’s not dead. After all, how could you kill an idea, an attitude, and an outlook? And if that genre was the equivalent of a sonic opposition party to a governing force of acceptance and conformity, then perhaps we need it now more than ever. "
/modern-war-barking-poets-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"Set to a suitably dark and decadent sound, a clash of PJ Harvey’s unbridled imagination and Queen of the Stone Age’s unrelenting drive, it is at turns groovesome and rocky and psychedelically off-beat and brilliantly accessible in that Trojan Horse way that the best outlier songs manage to sneak past the gatekeepers and into the consciousness of the discerning music fans."
/tiny-stupid-song-transcendecadence-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"Roman Gabriel, you may know from the most excellent Seasonal Falls, and if there is a similarity between that band and this, it is in a sense of gentleness and well-crafted musical penmanship. If that band errs on the folk side of indie, here we find ourselves immersed in the indie side of pop. Poised, precision, near-perfect pop!"
/little-epiphanies-the-kind-hills-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"Any band only a few years into their story that has already received the thumbs up from The K’s and The Sherlocks, and has opened for Toploader and Pentire, must be doing something right. Give “Halfway” a spin, and you realize that they are doing everything right."
/halfway-the-pedals-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"If the core of this collaborative album lies in hushed saxophone, spacious piano, and a 4,000-mile distance between the two main players, then the result feels like a much more intimate and personal affair, music made across a vast distance distilled down to its very essence, a feeling, a mood."
/blank-slate-open-space-alaskan-tapes-blu-miles-reviewed-by-dave-franklin-2/
"This third solo single and glimpse into her forthcoming EP, Dear, “Love You More” reveals Clarity Liao to be an artist who effortlessly blends singer-songwriter vibes with R&B grooves, pop-infusions with neo-soul sass."
/love-you-more-clarity-liao-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"Sometimes, gaining a little insight into an artist goes a long way to explaining and understanding their music; knowing a bit about who they are can speak volumes about what they are trying to say through it. So, once you are aware of Nino Sable’s childhood relocation from Portugal’s sunlit northern coast to Germany’s industrial heartland in the Ruhr, the music makes a lot more sense."
/post-mortem-melanculia-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"The singer-songwriter template may seem as if it was set in stone a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean that the astute artist can’t find new ways of charming the pants off us via that style and sound. Tom Hancock’s debut album, Innate Subjects does exactly that."
/innate-subjects-tom-hancock-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"Touching on all periods of Jean-Paul Vest’s project, if nothing else, it reminds us that music needs to evolve, that artists can’t just explore the same sonic ground all the time, and so this is a record that documents the high points of his continual quest for creative pastures new."
/year-of-the-horse-last-charge-of-the-light-horse-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"With a new album, Ocean Cabaret, now out, it felt like the perfect time to catch up with GALVEZTON, aka Robert Kuhn, to find out about his life, where the songs come from, and what might be in store for him next."
/worlds-within-worlds-rolling-into-g-town-with-galvezton-at-the-wheel/
"Saul Damelyn not only creates music, but he also creates music about creating music…how meta is that? What I mean is that he is drawn to writing about the artistic life, about pursuing dreams, finding yourself through creativity, and, once found, being true to yourself."
/kings-queens-and-dream-machines-saul-damelyn-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
"But if you are looking for music that seems to build bridges between Middle Eastern spice and celebratory modern folk, timeless traditions and modern digital dexterity, the serene and the psychedelic, then “Oori” has everything you need."
/oori-pharaohs-daughter-reviewed-by-dave-franklin/
