Depeche Mode live for today on Memento Mori
The fifteenth Depeche Mode album, Memento Mori, is a unified, focused collection of incredibly strong songs created amidst personal loss and global tragedy.
High Window are Benighted & Delighted
Benighted & Delighted, the debut album from High Window, trades in extremely confident, nuanced, and personal songs, big on roaring guitars and soaring choruses.
Bloc Party’s Alpha Games is an album of our times
Bloc Party’s Alpha Games is always thrilling, the work of a band invigorated and with something to say in these troubled times.
Red Hot Chili Peppers feel Unlimited Love
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Unlimited Love marks the return of guitarist John Frusciante and producer Rick Rubin. It sounds like the work of old friends who’ve never seemed more comfortable in each other’s company, but still have something to offer.
Placebo capture the pain of our dying world
Never Let Me Go, Placebo’s first album in almost a decade, is the most textured, nuanced, and subtle of their 25-year career. It’s also the most emotionally powerful. Nils van der Linden reviews.
Tears For Fears reach The Tipping Point
Supremely confident and impeccably crafted, The Tipping Point is Tears For Fears’ most consistent collection of songs, meticulously curated and even carefully sequenced to create an immersive, emotional narrative.
Spoon get real
Spoon swap the electronic influences of their previous album for a loose, direct immediacy that can only come from musicians hashing out songs in real time. Nils van der Linden reviews Lucifer On The Sofa.
Steve Louw takes a trip
Steve Louw is a storyteller. From the slow train of 1990’s ‘Waiting On The Dawn’ that “takes us back to the dreams and hopes we […]
‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’ scales new heights
Good thing IMF agent Ethan Hunt isn’t afraid of heights. He’s already leapt from a speeding train onto a helicopter inside the Channel Tunnel. He’s […]
John Cleese tells tall tales
John Cleese has been the disgruntled owner of a dead parrot, a lawyer, overconfident (and ultimately limbless) knight, clueless and belligerent hotelier, TV news reader, […]
U2 rock Cape Town
“I don’t want to go home,” admits a clearly elated Bono as U2’s Cape Town show draws to an end. The feeling — echoed by […]
Kanye explores his beautiful dark twisted fantasy
Kanye West is the Angelina Jolie of hip-hop — his personal life overpowers his career. But unlike the actress — who tries to ignore the […]
Sun sets on Linkin Park
The warning signs were there. “We realised it doesn’t matter what the songs sound like — if it comes from us, it’s Linkin Park,” singer Chester […]
Brandon Flowers goes it alone
In the video for his debut solo single, an increasingly battered Brandon Flowers is rescued time and again by an ass-kicking Charlize Theron. But his […]
Arno Carstens grows up on stage
When Arno Carstens steps out on the stage, alone, and starts performing ‘Bubblegum On My Boots’ as an acoustic ballad, the message is clear: he’s […]