The acoustic based, uncomplicated melodies woven throughout Nathan Edwards’s debut album have an organic sound and occasional reflective quality. By his own admission, Edwards says the different seasons have an influence over his song writing; not only did this affect his choice of album title, but also meant three of the ten featured cuts are [...]

By the end of 1972, in addition to their heavy workload with The Who, both Pete Townshend and bassist John Entwistle had recorded solo albums. Townshend had been featured on two albums inspired by the spiritualist teachings of Meher Baba and also released the moderately successful ‘Who Came First’. Enwistle had two non-charting solo albums [...]

Yuck doesn’t seem to be the best choice of band name, but it is one which suits their ugly sleeve art, depicting a cartoon of an ugly man, possibly about to throw up. As far as album covers go, it’s hard to know what they were thinking when they chose it, but it certainly makes [...]

Fronted by Andreas Johansson, Swedish outfit The Man began life as a three-piece band, bought together by their love of 70s pop. Their debut album ‘A Space Waltz’ was picked up for release in Japan by Philter Records. By the time of the recording of this sophomore disc, The Man had slimmed down to a [...]

This debut by Sunderland five-piece Frankie & The Heartstrings was produced by the legendary Edwyn Collins. Throughout the disc his production brings a gorgeous clarity, a great bass sound and plenty of separation between the instruments. Those elements, however, seem to be the band’s biggest strength.  Here they are with a brilliantly produced disc featuring [...]

With its lyrical themes and stories from the past loosely inspired by a diary from 1982, you could say this debut by London based singer-songwriter Mick Terry has been a long time in the making. ‘The Grown Ups’ is a personal record, but not in the soul-baring sense. It’s an album of lost friendships, relationship [...]

After the release of ‘Kick’ in 1987, I became a massive INXS fan. It was soon obvious I had to hear the rest of their albums. ‘Kick’s immediate predecessor ‘Listen Like Thieves’ offered me more of the same, but their earlier albums took a little more time to get into; although they still contained lots [...]

Over the years, Polly Jean Harvey is an artist who has gathered lots of great press. While never gaining status of national treasure, she’s gained a loyal fan base. She’s recorded a handful of tunes I like [‘Sheela-Na-Gig’, ‘Down By The Water’ and especially ‘Henry Lee’, though the latter has almost everything to with the [...]

I’ve followed Our Lady Peace’s career since the release of their major label debut, ‘Naveed’. As far as debuts go, that album was okay; it showed a band who were more than musically competent and they had a great vocalist in Raine Maida. There was room for improvement though… Aside from the Cult sounding ‘Starseed’ [...]

Today, the world lost a true legend. Whether playing rock or blues, part of Thin Lizzy or as a solo musician, Gary Moore played with style. He passed away whilst on holiday in Spain, way before his time. He left us a wealth of great music. RIP Gary.   February 2011