We open our picks of this week’s crop with Sharon Van Etten, who has had a celebrated career since the release of her second album, 2010’s epic. On its release, epic laid a romantic melancholy over the gravel and dirt of heartbreak without one honest thought or feeling spared. Her songs covered betrayal, obsession, egotism,…
Releases for 17 February cover a wide range of genres, all hitting our spot! Firstly, alt.country pioneers Son Volt release an album influenced and inspired by the blues, so Notes Of Blue represents something of a departure for them, and a mighty fine departure it is too. Please Be Mine is a debut album of…
Pre-sale of the week is Prisoner by Ryan Adams, out on 17 February. Mixing the heartfelt angst of a singer/songwriter with the cocky brashness of a garage rocker, Ryan Adams is one of the few artists to emerge from the alt-country scene to achieve mainstream commercial success. The twelve tracks that make up Prisoner came…
30 October is a huge day for new releases and could easily have included Enter Shikari, Martin Courtney, Son Volt, Maverick Sabre, Alison Moorer and more. The 8 stand-out releases are: Guy Garvey’s solo album, which confounds the stereotypes of lead-singer solo albums either being the same as the band or frankly bonkers; Matt Behringer’s…
Pre-release of the week is a very exciting one for us: Ryan Adams’ magisterial take on Taylor Swift’s 1989. Swift’s compositions are stripped of their pop gloss by Ryan to reveal even more beauty underneath. The CD is out on 30th October with the LP following on 11th December, and is on special offer before…
Album of the week is Ten Songs from Live at Carnegie Hall by Ryan Adams, and there are new albums from Muse, Of Monsters & Men and Tremonti, plus debuts from collaboration projects FFS (Franz Ferdinand and Sparks) and Simpson/Cutting/Kerr (Martin Simpson, Andy Cutting and Nancy Kerr), Leftfield’s first release for 16 years, and a…
My release of the week is, unusually, a re-release. However, it is such a great album and has been so long out of print that it deserves its place. It’s Ryan Adams’ seminal debut, Heartbreaker, and every home really should have a copy! This week also sees new albums from The Vaccines, Ash, Pokey Lafarge,…