The Morning Benders – Big Echo
Oh, summery shimmery albums. Why must you hook us so? Berkeley, CA's, The Morning Benders serve up a treat.
The Fierce & The Dead – If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecombe
Epic post-rock from The Fierce & The Dead on their debut album. Seek it out, post-rock fans.
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
Rowland S. Howard – The Final Interview (Static, 2009)
Forever known as Nick Cave's red right hand in the Birthday Party, Rowland was the purveyor of that skeletal, metallic guitar style that along with the bass growl of Tracey Pew, defined the sound of the band. Speaking to Static's Chris Berkley, only a few weeks before his passing, Rowland S. Howard recounts his extensive career and his brief return to music with Pop Crimes.
The Cult – London – 21 January 2011
When you add up the years, you realise Ian Astbury and Billy Dully have been making music as The Cult for a long-ass time. Sitting in the rafters of the Hammersmith Apollo ("Hammersmith Odeon", Astbury demurs, referring to the venue's previous appellation), the debt paid to the excesses of rock n’ roll have more-or-less treated both kindly. Astbury, the once flower-child/wolf-child looks a little rough round the edges, but when you style yourself on Jim Morrisson and then suddenly become him, what can you expect. Duffy on the other hand, is ageless, looking more like David Beckham‘s older brother than a well-tooled guitar god.
Paul Westerberg – 49:00
Dry Wood Music, 2008 [rating:8/10] Paul Westerberg fronted one of the last truly great rock and roll bands with The Replacements. The entire Replacements oeuvre is currently being remastered and re-released for those who missed
Tom McRae – The Alphabet of Hurricanes
If only England had their version of the Wild West, otherwise Tom McRae might've found himself in much stronger grounding.
The Darling Buds – London – 22 September 2010
You’d be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu here. Is it 1989? Did The Primitives and The Darling Buds really both play London within a week of each other? Having been absent from the live scene for most of the '90s and all of the past decade, for both bands to surface at the same time is unthinkable. Unthinkable, but pretty damn cool. It brings back memories of a time when the music magazines invented a scene called ‘Blonde’, where bands were lumped together purely based on the colour of the lead singers hair. Which by their way of thinking meant you were either a Blonde, a Goth or in Fairground Attraction.
Factory Floor – Interview (Static, 2010)
Part extreme noise terror, part euphoria, East London’s Factory Floor have made a name for themselves as being loud and uncompromising, or as they stress in the interview below "brutal". Having walked half-way in during their set supporting American synth act Cold Cave earlier this year, Factory Floor's performance was very much a "what the fuck?" moment, unsure as to either quickly vacate the room or take stock of the diffused electronic/industrial free-form concotions they were composing. We stayed, with reservations... Chris Berkley of Static caught up with Gabriel Gurnsey and Nik Colk from Factory Floor shortly after their appearance at the Offset Festival in London in September to find out more.
The Whitest Boy Alive – Rules
Erlend Øye and company break some rules but also unwittingly create them on their second album entitled, you guessed it, Rules.
Wet Illustrated – 1x1x1
Sizzling psyche-pop debut from San Francisco three-piece Wet Illustrated. A little Feelies, a little Sonic Youth.
The Organ – Thieves
Mint Records, 2008 [9/10] Vancouver's The Organ shared that same shadowy intellectual existence that made them sound like a darker version of The Smiths, without Johnny Marr's trademark flair and Morrissey's veiled humour. Helmed by
Zola Jesus – Her Dark Materials (2011)
From her isolated upbringing in rural Wisconsin, combined with a passion for opera, philosophy and industrial music, Nika Rosa Danilova aka Zola Jesus has created a name for herself as being a successor to the
Hazards of Swimming Naked, Lion Island, Mr. Maps, Hunz – Brisbane – 21 August 2010
A Brisbane bounty with trippy post-rockers The Hazards of Swimming Naked joined by Lofly math-rock legends Mr. Maps, plus the baroque charms of Lion Island and electronic wunderkind Hunz.
Arcade Fire – Los Angeles – 8 October 2010
You know you've had a good day when you wake up in a resort in Palm Springs and end up almost 24 hours later face down, literally face down, in a plate of tacos in downtown LA, head throbbing and ears ringing. There’s no way to rationalise it, nor the fact that between such decadent highs and lows, Webcuts was in attendance to witness the second night of Arcade Fire’s two night stand at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. On a night where the streets (well, one street) were filled with yellow NYC cabs and fake snow, Arcade Fire required no illusory set-dressing to impress Tinseltown.
R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now
With appearances from Peaches and Patti Smith, R.E.M. show no signs of wear and tear in their fourth decade of making music.