Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Los Angeles – 25 July 2009
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks played to an audience brimming with the intoxicating scent of bearded, checked-shirt sporting aging rock dudes. Vanessa From Queens was missing but the gang was all there.
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.
Black Mountain – Wilderness Heart
Brooding psychedelic rock with some Zeppelin-esque undertones, Canada's Black Mountain let loose on their third.
Truck Festival – Steventon – 22-24 July 2011
Quietly, unassumingly, Truck Festival has become an annual celebration of all that is so very right about music. When the Bennett brothers witnessed the exploitative attitude of industrial sized events they didn’t just get mad they got even. Truck Festival was their baby and now in its fourteenth year it has blossomed into a rather lovely adolescent. Webcuts birthday boy Don Blandford was at Truck all weekend to report on the action, featuring appearances by: Graham Coxon, Lanterns On The Lake, Cashier No.9, Sarah Cracknell, Johnny Flynn, Edwyn Collins, Caitlin Rose, Mechanical Bride and Sea Of Bees.
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm
No jokes about rock dinosaurs please, Mascis, Barlow and Murph defy expectation with their ninth disc.
The Raveonettes – London – 7 September 2009
Pretty in black and pretty and back, The Raveonettes rolled into London this week to play a one-off gig showcasing their forthcoming album In and Out of Control. It wasn't all rape, guns, suicide and stealing cars, but it was near enough.
King Creosote – Flick the Vs
The two fingered salute is vigorously given by Scottish anti-folk hero King Creosote on new album Flick the Vs.
Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
Jagjaguwar, 2008 The Austin boys in Okkervil River are back with another album and like always it's filled with surprising stories, dense lyrics and great tunes that stick with you. The
M.Ward – Hold Time
As Conor Oberst once proclaimed, "M. Ward for President". As far-fetched as it sounds, Oberst may have a point.
She & Him – A Very She & Him Christmas
It's October. Why are we reviewing Christmas albums in October? Why She & Him? Why?
Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
More Pop(ular) Songs from New Jersey's finest. No condo screwing around here, just Yo La Tengo's consistent quality.
School of Seven Bells – Australian Interview (Static, 2009)
A collaboration between Benjamin Curtis of Secret Machines and twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza of On-Air Library, the School of Seven Bells (founded in name from a mythical South American pickpocket academy) that surprised
Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
Bah, it's the third Artic Monkeys album Humbug - which actually doesn't turn out to be half bad.
Destroyer – Kaputt
Lyrically and musically, simply one of the best records you'll hear all year. Dan Bejar -- Genius. Kaputt -- Divine.
Interpol – Interpol
The Lights are on but the tunes aren't home on Interpol's disappointing fourth otherwise known as #4.
Noah and the Whale – London – 16 May 2011
It’s a little known piece of Webcuts folklore that Noah And The Whale once played in my living room. Gladly, it was before my time, otherwise a compulsion to head downstairs and have words would‘ve been hard to resist. A sell-out show at the Camden Roundhouse is not to be sneered at, but if commercial success or the ability to fill a room is the barometer in which all great music is measured, we’re on (and have been for decades) very shaky ground, and when superlative-inducing American folk-rock act Okkervil River are playing across town, clearly in the wrong place.