Author: Nils van der Linden

Bloc Party’s Alpha Games is an album of our times

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date April 27, 2022
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Bloc Party: Alpha Games

Bloc Party’s Alpha Games is an album of our times. No, it’s not yet another rumination on the sociological, existential, and mental health impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s not that reductive. Instead, the 12 unflinching tracks carry an underlying sense of discomfort, unease, dread; that low-level feeling surely everybody’s had over the past five years that something’s not quite right. The only relief is provided by moments of despair, outbursts of rage, and sparkles of beauty.

Tags Alpha Games, Bloc Party, Justin Harris, Kele Okereke, Russell Lissack

Music

Into The Never goes down the spiral

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date April 22, 2022
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Trent Reznor is now a married, 57-year-old father of five who won his second Oscar for soundtracking a Pixar film. But he’s always been more than your average rock musician. And, as evidenced by Nine Inch Nails’ 2018 offering Bad Witch and the group’s still incendiary live shows, he’s also retained the conflicting brutality, insecurity, aggression, and pained beauty of his finest work: 1994’s The Downward Spiral.

Tags Adam Steiner, Into The Never, Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor

Live Reviews Music

Ghost haunt The O2

Ghost’s new album, Impera, is partly about the rise of empires. It’s something they know a little about. Just over a decade ago, their debut LP didn’t even trouble the UK charts; their latest debuted at Number Two. On their last visits to London, pre-pandemic, they played at Royal Albert Hall and Wembley Arena; tonight they’re at the city’s largest indoor music venue, The O2.

Tags Ghost, Impera, The O2 Arena, Tobias Forge

Music Reviews

Red Hot Chili Peppers feel Unlimited Love

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date April 1, 2022
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Red Hot Chili Peppers: Unlimited Love

In some ways, Unlimited Love is more than just another Red Hot Chili Peppers release. It’s their first in a decade recorded with producer Rick Rubin. More importantly, it’s their first since 2006 to feature John Frusciante. His replacement, Josh Klinghoffer, is clearly a talented musician. On 2011’s I’m With You, he ably channelled the mercurial guitarist, while 2016’s more experimental The Getaway made him an integral part of producer Danger Mouse’s sonic palette.

Tags Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, Flea, John Frusciante, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rick Rubin, Unlimited Love

Live Reviews Music

Spoon unplug at Third Man Records

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date March 25, 2022
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The basement is hot. Britt Daniel and Alex Fischel have had a long day. They’re playing to around 30 people who haven’t even paid to be there. And yet the Spoon duo are giving it their all.

But that’s always been the band’s approach to live performance: crank up the intensity of their studio recordings so they sound more visceral, more direct, more emotional.

Tags Adam Buxton, Alex Fischel, Britt Daniel, Spoon, the wild, Third Man Records

Music Reviews

Placebo capture the pain of our dying world

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date March 21, 2022
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Placebo: Never Let Me Go

Everything’s a matter of perspective. Even as Placebo’s 2016 greatest hits album and accompanying two-year world tour reminded fans of their extensive back catalogue, it reminded the band they’d never been about commercial success or nostalgia.

Tags Brian Molko, Never Let Me Go, Placebo, Stefan Olsdal

Live Reviews Music

EMF are all Go Go Go at The Water Rats

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date March 20, 2022
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Recording a new album after almost 30 years is, in a word, risky. Will it be good enough to match your classics? Will it be similar enough for diehard fans to like it? Will it be different enough to keep them interested? Will anyone else even notice it’s out?

Performing said album live from start to finish to a crowd who’ve never heard it before is, in a word, insane.

Tags EMF, Go Go Sapiens, Ian Dench, James Atkin, The Water Rats

Music Reviews

Tears For Fears reach The Tipping Point

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date February 25, 2022
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Tears For Fears: The Tipping Point

The road to The Tipping Point was long and (yes) winding.

There were the initial “speed dating” songwriting sessions with flavour of the month hitmakers. There was the fully completed album of wall-to-wall “bangers” all intended to top the pop charts. There was Curt Smith’s disappointment in the results, prompting him to consider leaving Tears For Fears again.

Tags Curt Smith, Roland Orzabal, Tears For Fears, The Tipping Point

Music Reviews

Spoon get real

Spoon: Lucifer On The Sofa

The opening 20 seconds of Spoon’s tenth album tell you all you need to know. In-studio banter and the sound of instruments being tuned are universal shorthand for “this music was recorded by people playing in a room together”. And that’s exactly the spirit that the instantly compelling Lucifer On The Sofa embraces.

Tags Britt Daniel, Lucifer On The Sofa, Spoon

Live Reviews Music

IDLES punch and embrace Brixton

Post author By Nils van der Linden
Post date January 16, 2022
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Gigs, they say, should start with a bang. Literal pyrotechnics, epic walk-on music, a high-speed hit song, even a straightforward city-based greeting are all designed to grab an audience’s attention right away.

Someone forgot to tell IDLES. Or the band just didn’t listen. Either way, they’ve come up with something even more effective.

Tags Brixton Academy, Idles, Wet Leg, Wych Elm