Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
From a Funeral to a Neon Bible and now out to The Suburbs, the long-awaited third album from Arcade Fire has Webcuts feeling right at home.
She & Him – A Very She & Him Christmas
It's October. Why are we reviewing Christmas albums in October? Why She & Him? Why?
Pixies – Brisbane – 31 July 2010
A few nights before this Pixies warm up concert for Splendour in the Grass, I had a vivid dream. In it I was the tour manager or press officer for the band and they were being put up in a luxury hotel with a huge swimming pool which they were swanning around in and (in)famously not getting along and refusing to do the show. It ended with me giving them a “look all the great rock’n’roll bands are dysfunctional, but when you’re on stage for that hour and a half you come together, that's when you work, that's when you function!” speech. And then I drove them to the Zoo in a black hummer.
Austra – London – 6 September 2011
Having changed careers mid-stream from a piano-based singer-songwriter with a touch of the Regina Spectors to a Nico-esque bleach-blonde gothic siren, in Austra Katie Stelmanis has found the form to match the function. With a handful of impressive singles released either side of their Kate Bush meets Nine Inch Nails debut album Feel It Break, Stelmanis may have found her creative niche but she still has much to prove. On record, Austra cloak themselves in a throbbing monochrome blanket, but on stage their live show is more telling, more vibrant and commanding, as Stelmanis, flanked by a pair of interpretive dancers/backing vocalists, add any absent colour.
Plants and Animals – La La Land
For a band who call their music "post-classic rock", Canada's Plants and Rags have at least one thing going for them.
Taken By Trees – East of Eden
Ex-Concrete Victoria Bergsman heads to Pakistan to seek inspiration for her second album as Taken By Trees.