Previously the bassist with Irish indie rock million sellers JJ72, Hilary Woods embarked upon a solo career following the band’s demise. Her debut EP ‘Night’ – released in 2014 – took a step away from the jangling sounds of her former band and instead took a fascination with dream pop drones and acoustic guitar, creating a kind of dark folk vibe. Two years on, ‘Heartbox’ continues her musical journey, but takes it down a deeper and more foreboding route, often dispensing with the folkier elements, leaving just moody dream pop and electronica for the basis of three surprisingly minimalist soundscapes.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
AIRBAG – Disconnected
In 2013, Norwegian prog rockers Airbag released their critically acclaimed third album ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’. Naturally, in some quarters of proggy fandom, people got excited. In some ways they were right enough to do so, since the album contained some fine music; it was all very well played and excellently produced. In other ways, it was hard to understand the hype. For all of Airbag’s obvious talents, the music all too often sounded as if it had been plagiarised from ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘The Division Bell’. There came a point – fairly quickly, too – where you could legitimately ask why you’d spend quality listening time with music derived from such classics in a very obvious way, when you could put on a Floyd disc and hear it all done properly?
FOR THE IMPERIUM – Hail The Monsters
Finland’s For The Imperium are an intense bunch. ‘Hail The Monsters’, their second full length album, is one of those records that’s really hard to get through in one sitting. It’s frightening. Not just because it’s intense and heavy – this is by no means just noisy alt-rock or metal – but more for the fact that between the obvious grooves, these guys aren’t afraid to experiment.
NAKED – End Game
Take a computer graphic from 1983. Use it to create the outline of a naked woman. Call the band Naked. To be honest, that doesn’t really get things off to the best start, but could possibly be forgiven if the music within this album was of a high standard. Which it isn’t. As it is, most the tunes on this Swedish band’s debut release sound very tired.
THE LOW ANTHEM – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
‘Oh My God, Charlie Darwin’ is the second (proper) release by the Rhode Island based folk/Americana trio The Low Anthem. It doesn’t always sound like an album which is capable of reaching huge audiences, but with the resurgence of traditional sounding music which happened throughout the late 00s, it has the air of an album which needed to be recorded. The playing throughout is very natural, which alone creates a rootsy, homegrown feel. Essentially, what we have here is an album of tunes to fill the empty space during cold and dark autumnal nights: songs which are often reflective and occasionally whiskey filled.