Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring
No moby dick here, just a sensational second album from Twickenham's lush indie-folk providers.
Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
Four albums in, Camera Obscura assess their career, wisely trading 'brilliant' for 'maudlin' and coming up somewhere inbetween.
Julian Plenti – Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper
Paul Banks discovers that the best path to seduction lies in reduction on his first solo outing as the mysterious Julian Plenti.
Tindersticks – Interview with David Boutler (2008)
We talk with Tindersticks keyboardist and founding member David Boutler about version 2.0 of Tindersticks, the stunning new album The Hungry Saw, the re-issue of their back catalogue, Songs for the Young at Heart and more.
Tegan and Sara – The Con
Vapor/Sire, 2007 [rating:8.5/10] Although always writing separately, the initial blueprints for The Con, saw the twins geographically distanced -- Tegan in Vancouver, Sara in Montreal. Reunited and with demos in hand the pair moved to
Grand Atlantic / The Lovers of Modern Art / We All Want To – Brisbane – 26 June 2009
Not ones to throw angular shapes the boys here strive to find the right notes and the majority of the time they hit them.
Fruit Bats – Tripper
Chicago's Fruit Bats return to their familiar "effortless and sweet" indie folk ways on their fifth album, Tripper.
Interpol – Interpol
The Lights are on but the tunes aren't home on Interpol's disappointing fourth otherwise known as #4.
Why? – Eskimo Snow
The unlikely paring of hip-hop and indie rock actual make for compatible bedfellows with Californian band Why?'s fourth full length album.
Helvelln – Interview with Jeremy Gronow – Part 2
Part 1 Bedroom critic that I am, I'd be amiss not to suggest that only thing that lets Side 1 down is the lugubrious "Temptation". If I had my way, I would've swapped it for
Idlewild – Post Electric Blues
Idlewild return with their fan-funded sixth album, offering much talk of Warnings (and Promises). But do they deliver?
Destroyer – London – 28 June 2011
How strange to be more than fifteen years into a career and to finally achieve growing, and now glowing, recognition for the music you make. Bands today, the inverse applies, they learn to walk before they can crawl, record a debut they'll never repeat and disappear as if they never existed. Real artists will maintain and nurture their craft regardless of an audience, which more or less, is the story of Dan Bejar. Better known as the wild-card songwriter in Canadian power-pop supergroup The New Pornographers, Bejar's work as Destroyer is like mainlining into Bejar's psyche, which prior to you only got the briefest taste of.
Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
The stakes are high on Deerhunter's 4th album. Can they beat Webcuts album of the year 2008, their own magnificent Microcastle?
Drop Nineteens – Delaware
Welcome reissue of Boston shoegazers debut effort from 1992 complete with bonus tracks. It's wicked pissa!
Glasvegas – EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\
The only euphoric heartbreak here is all expectations of Glasvegas trumping their debut going out the window.
Sunset Sounds Festival – Brisbane – 2009
We review Brisbane's inaugural Sunset Sounds Festival and see how the likes of The Hives, Santogold, The Kooks, Franz Ferdinand, Faker, The Grates, Tegan and Sara, I Heart Hiroshima and more measure up in the sweltering heat.















