Mental As Anything – Essential As Anything / Tents Up
Both mental and essential, Sydney's pop legends Mental as Anything return with a career-encompassing collection and a brand new studio album.
The Strokes – Angles
Thumbs down for the skinny ties and tight jeans brigade on their fourth go-round. Surely it can't be worse than First Impressions Of Earth?
Caribou – Australian Interview with Dan Snaith (Static, 2010)
Caribou (aka Dan Snaith) is not an artist prone to repeating himself. His second album, 2007's Andorra took '60s psychedelic pop and merged it with complex rhythm patterns, while his LP from last year Swim saw Snaith heading into a denser electronic direction while still retaining a fair amount of pop smarts. Caribou with long time friend Kieran Hebden better known as Four Tet will soon be the Antipodes for a series of shows but late last year Chris Berkley caught up with Snaith whilst on the seemingly never ending tour for Swim where Dan took time out to talk about the art of Caribou live versus recording, his electric friends, how some people perceive Swim to be his dark album and how to win over the doom metal crowd.
Cold Cave – London – April 4 & 5 2011
In a long black leather jacket and hoodie and stacked heels, Cold Cave's Wes Eisold looks like any other kid you see in Camden on a Friday night, except that he's not and it isn't and before he even opens his mouth, you're thinking "wow, that leather jacket really is the shit" and it is. It's also a special day for 80's synth-obsessives Cold Cave, as Eisold curtly informs the assembled at Rough Trade Records - "Welcome to our album birthing day". Their second album, the strangely positive sounding Cherish The Light Years showing a marked change from the same Cold Cave that played London back in May 2010.
El Perro del Mar – Love Is Not Pop
While we love pop, Sweden's El Perro Del Mar remind us that pop is not love.
Sonic Youth – The Eternal
The Enternal is Sonic Youth's celebration of newfround freedom. I guess that mean's no more working for the man.
Models – God Bless America
The Post-Punk years in Australia were a mixed ground. The key bands of that era were floundering or disbanding while the second wave was about to hit, bands like Hunters and Collectors, Hoodoo Gurus, The
Villagers – Howling at the Moon (Static, 2010)
Villagers is the nom de plume of one Conor O'Brien, the young Irish gent with the piercing blue eyes positioned above these words. Having released his debut album Becoming A Jackal on Domino Records last month to widespread acclaim (surely topping the album charts in Ireland is nothing to be sneered at), O'Brien has been steadfast in moving his Villagers around the country like a pack of wayward Irish gypsies.
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Amadeus, Amadeus, rock me Amadeus! Phoenix's fourth album is a show stopper without a Salieri in sight.
Who The Hell Are… Civil Civic?
There aren't that many great instrumental duos in the history of rock and roll. I've thought about this for about 20 seconds or so and bored already. To arrive at that musical decision, and to arrive at that musical decision when your bandmate doesn't even live in the same country, is as perverse as it is stupid. Being as they are Australian, perverse stupidity is our calling, and it's why Civil Civic succeed where others have just gone "Dude, we need another member". With the title still up for grabs (or until some smart-ass avant-garde freak shoots me down), Civil Civic could turn out to be the greatest instrumental duo in the history of rock and roll. Wouldn't that be just dandy?
Interpol – Our Love to Admire (Ltd Edition)
Capitol/EMI, 2008 [rating:7.5/10] Our Love to Admire was one of Webcuts' favourite albums of 2007. In fact we considered the third album by Brooklyn's Interpol as their most consistent and fully realised work to date.
The Kills – Alison Mosshart talks Midnight Boom (2009)
Arriving on the scene way back in 2002 with the gritty Black Rooster EP, The Kills took the garage rock aesthetic and beat it down, creating a skin and bones strut that stank of sex
Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
A break-up album like no other, Sweden's pop princess Lykke Li hits an emotional core that has Webcuts in awe.
The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
Oh my god! The third album from this Rhode Island folk trio proves to be a natural selection.
Centro-Matic / South San Gabriel – Dual Hawks
Cooking Vinyl, 2008 [5/10] (Centro-Matic) [7/10] (South San Gabriel) Will Johnson can seemingly do anything. A prolific songwriter, Johnson has spent over a decade playing indie rock in Denton, Texas' Centro-Matic, putting out a succession
Stephen Malkmus – London – 9 December 2009
Stephen Malkmus has been ‘jicking’ for as long now as he was leading the charge in Pavement, releasing as many albums, yet never reaching the same heights. His solo career seemed to be in constant war of expectation over delivery. It's not Pavement. It's not a bunch of twenty-year-olds fighting their generation. But the louche stage prescence, that hazy cynical drawl, the greying hair framing the eyes in a semi-slacker curl, little has changed over the years.