The Horrors – Primary Colours
The Horrors pull off the surprise reinvention act of the century and lift the curse of the sophomore slump forever.
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Animal Collective shake the sand from their fur as they take Merriweather Post Pavillion down to the Beach, Boys.
Kings Of Leon – Come Around Sundown
"a polished genre grab bag record of mostly stale, completely innocuous songs". Kings of Leon - Win!
Grouplove – Never Trust A Happy Song
Energetic indie-rock from LA's Grouplove but watch out for "the boring half of the record". Whoops.
Lydia Loveless – Columbus – 30 September 2011
A couple of songs into Lydia Loveless’s evening set, and it’s difficult to tell where Lydia the singer ends and Lydia the person begins. It’s simply hard to imagine a woman like this, barely in her twenties, and standing a little over five foot tall in her boots, could be so worldly and explosive. And yet, there she is, muttering a string of f-bombs during a song break because she can’t get her guitar tuned quite right. The attitude, the weathered, sarcastic smile. The edge. That’s pretty damn tough to fake.
Luke Haines – 21st Century Man
Luke Haines looks back at the 20th Century, and takes pop shots at the maligned and those who got left behind in typical Haines fashion.
The Primitives – Back and In Full Bloom (2010)
When you get down to the nuts and bolts of rock and roll, it's not about how tight your jeans are or how good your stylist is, it's about the music. It's about the song. For some bands in particular, it's about the pop song. Two and half minutes of spun gold that held your attention long after the needle left the record. Few bands embodied the spirit of the sublime '60s pop song than The Primitives. Sitting backstage at The Scala in London, Webcuts catches up with Tracy and Paul to rewind the clock and to talk about the events that brought The Primitives into the 21st Century and what lies ahead for the band.
Who The Hell Are… The Capitalist Youth?
Consider The Capitalist Youth, a trio of former high school classmates who play “acoustic indie rock combining a living room full of misfit instruments with lyrically driven songs about summer camp, existential crises and gubernatorial indiscretions”. They don’t write and play the kind of music that will leave listeners dumbstruck over their redefinition of a genre, but they’re able to adeptly inject something into their music that only a handful of others have done well: humanity, with a laid back sense of humor, and without any of the awkward pauses that come from other bands who get lucky on a song or two and can’t maintain things the rest of the way.
M.I.A. – MAYA
Send out the search parties -- Missing in action on the latest album from M.I.A. -- "melody, listenability, and some semblance of a point".
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – The Century of Self
Texas' Trail of Dead increase their shelf life with their sixth album, Century of Self.
Blitzen Trapper – American Goldwing
Blitzen Trapper brings to mind somebody hunting down reindeer. This has nothing to do with the music.
British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall
Hurrah for English music. Just when you think Webcuts panders almost exclusively to the Americans, British Sea Power save the day.
Robert Forster – The Evangelist
EMI, 2008 [8/10] Robert Forster and Grant McLennan were two months into writing the next Go-Betweens album when on May 6th 2006, Grant McLennan died suddenly of a heart attack at age 48. An indescribable
Factory Records – Communications 1978-1992
Long-overdue retrospective from the label that brought you the Happy Mondays, but don't hold that against them...
Stars – Interview with Amy Millan & Evan Cranley (Static, 2008)
It may've taken eight long years but Canadian indie pop quintet Stars made their way to Australia for the first time recently on the back of their fourth LP and one of 2007's best releases,
Metric – Jimmy Shaw Q&A (2009)
As predicted Metric have blown up, but not blown away, big time. Fantasies reached number eight on the Canadian charts and crept into the Australian Top 40 and US Top 100, while incessant touring in