I adored The Hold Steady in my twenties. The band had three different focal points – guitarist Tad Kubler was a classic rock riff machine, emulating the bar band rock of Thin Lizzy. Vocalist Craig Finn was inspired by hip…
Most successful musicians start their recording careers as young adults, but New Zealand country artist Aly Cook’s an exception. Cook’s been involved in the music scene for years, but only released her debut album in 2011, crowdfunding for each of…
Jenny Lewis has been a fixture in indie rock for two decades, firstly with Rilo Kiley and then a solo career. Even before her music career Lewis was a public figure; a child actress who debuted in a Jell-O commercial…
Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell recently became the first musician born in the 21st century to score a number one single in the United States. Eilish had already been building a profile for a few years, debuting on SoundCloud and…
Big Thief are an indie rock band with prominent folk and Americana influences. They’ve been prolific in their short career, with U.F.O.F. their third album in three years. Big Thief are influenced by vintage folk-rock acts like The Band, Neil…
Mitski Miyawaki was born in Japan to an American father and Japanese mother. She studied at Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music, during which she self-released her first two albums, 2012’s Lush and 2013’s Retired From Sad, New Career in Business.…
Aldous Harding was born in Auckland, New Zealand, as Hannah Harding, the daughter of a blues singer father and a folk singer mother. Designer is Harding’s third album and, like her second album Party, it’s on the celebrated 4AD label…
In New Music Review, I usually cover records released in the last few months, but I’ve been enjoying this 2018 release lately, so: Sophie Allison was born in Switzerland and grew up in Nashville. She self-released indie guitar pop as…
Siblings Eva and Sam Hendricks grew up in Westport, Connecticut. Eva Hendricks dabbled in musical theatre and sang jingles for commercials. In 2011 Eva Hendricks, vocalist and guitarist, recorded an EP with guitarist Spencer Fox. The duo were joined by…
Vampire Weekend’s first three records collided indie rock into African guitars. The New York four piece emerged with their debut album in 2008, as the popularity of indie guitar bands was waning, but their approach was fresh enough that they…
Brooklyn power-pop band Charly Bliss impressed with their 2017 debut Guppy. Their energetic power-pop was indebted to the 1990s, with parallels to Weezer’s debut and Veruca Salt. But Guppy was a terrific album; the band’s excellent hooks, coupled with Eva…
Congratulations to Jim S. and Bruce who both scored 49/50 in the first week of the decades quiz, putting them in the lead with an average percentage of 98%. This week’s challenge is from the 2010s. You need to link…
Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2015 album Emotion wasn’t a big seller, but it was critically adored and became a cult favourite, making it a tough act to follow. Alongside Jepsen’s impeccable pop sense, the record featured indie rock textures. Organic instrumentation…
Weyes Blood was born Natalie Mering, in California, and grew up in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She derived the name Weyes Blood from the Flannery O’Connor novel Wise Blood, and released her first album in 2011, following self released albums as Weyes…
As time has gone on, music has splintered further into sub-genres. Technology has allowed anyone with the inclination to make and release an album, and it’s also easier for music fans to focus their attention on a single obscure sub-genre.…
Ariana Grande is currently the world’s biggest pop star. She headlined Coachella the past two weekends and she’s broken numerous records; most notably, with the release of thank u, next, she’s joined The Beatles as the only act to monopolise…
The b-side is largely a 20th century commodity – from around 2005, singles charts began to count digital downloads, and the physical single is now obsolete. But there are still 21st century equivalents to the b-side – for example I…
It’s tempting to conclude that, in the era of streaming, the album is merely a mechanism to garner extra plays on Spotify. But records like Julia Holter’s Aviary demonstrate that the long player is still the prestige format. Julia Holter…
Mitski Miyawaki was born in Japan to an American father and Japanese mother. She studied at Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music, during which she self-released her first two albums, and served a short stint as a vocalist in a prog-metal…
Charlotte Aitchison christened herself Charli XCX after her MSN Messenger handle. She broke through early as a songwriter, penning ‘I Love It’ for Icona Pop while still a teenager With an ear for pop hooks and a devoted Instagram following,…
One goal for this blog this year is to engage with new music more regularly, and I’m planning to feature a feature length review of a recent release each month. The Beths are from Auckland, New Zealand, and Future Me…
Born in Texas, a year before fellow country star Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves has followed a markedly different musical path. Swift is the golden girl, whose albums go to number one. Musgraves is the outsider, whose grandmother cried when she…
New Zealand singer-songwriter Anika Moa was a curious choice to bid for stardom in the US market. She’s now a tattooed, coarse-mouthed entertainer, who has branched into TV presenting and children’s music. Moa moved into making children’s music after having…
This page collects album reviews for 2010s artists for whom I’ve only reviewed one or two albums. In 2018 I started covering new albums regularly, so this page leans heavily on the last couple of years of the decade. (Sandy)…
The New Pornographers emerged in 2000, a conglomerate of talent from nationally successful Canadian bands like Zumpano, Destroyer, and Limblifter. While A.C. Newman is the group’s main creative force, the band spotlighted Neko Case’s warm, sumptuous voice and Dan Bejar’s…
My most played album over the last month has been Kacey Musgraves’ third major label long player, Golden Hour. Musgraves began her major label career with Same Trailer, Different Park, which musically played straight to Nashville conventions, while questioning the…
Up until this year’s Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe’s entire musical career has consisted of Afro-Futurist concept albums, based around her alter-ego Cindi Mayweather. But with Dirty Computer, Monáe’s created a much more personal album, expressing her political and sexual concerns; she.…
My wife and I are away on our tenth wedding anniversary holiday this weekend. I wanted to post a song befitting the landmark, but I struggled to find anything appropriate. Led Zeppelin’s ‘Ten Years Gone ‘ has always felt autumnal…
My favourite musical discovery of 2018 has been Nadia Reid. Reid is from Dunedin in the south of New Zealand, and ‘Richard’ is from her second album, 2017’s Preservation. Preservation was runner-up for album of the year in Mojo magazine,…
I’ve already discussed HAIM recently on this blog, and I still find their sunny harmonies like musical comfort food, but I had a startling epiphany about them during the week that I wanted to share. Here’s the cover of the…
I haven’t spent a lot of time with Janelle Monáe yet, but she’s impressive; able to enjoy popularity despite an uncompromising approach. While there are clear antecedents to her use of science fiction concepts in the R&B genre, with Parliament in…
Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly doesn’t have a lot left to prove with the 23rd studio album of his career. While he’s never broken big outside of Australia, he’s a beloved songwriter in his own country; he’s a member of the…
Mark Kozelek has steadily released a handful of brilliant songs on most of his albums, ever since the Red House Painters’ 1992 sad sack, slo-core debut Down Colorful Hill. His songs are usually coloured by his own nylon string or…
I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog so far with music from the 1960s and 1970s, and it’s always a relatively easy task; generally, I find that most artists that have stood the test of time for 40…
Neil Finn is a respected elder statesman of New Zealand pop, with a recording career that stretches back to Split Enz‘s 1977 art rock album Dizrythmia, when he joined the band as a guitarist at the age of 18. He…
Brooklyn indie band TV on the Radio were formed in 2001. They’re effectively a rock band, but their music is overlaid with loops and samples, and topped off by the vocals of Tunde Adebimpe. The R&B in his voice tops off…
I’ve been very impressed by Jason Isbell’s last two albums; 2013’s Southeastern and 2015’s Something More Than Free. After sobering up, he’s fulfilling his potential as a great songwriter. After two albums of heartfelt, acoustic country, Isbell plugged his electric…
I know this is usually a music blog, and apologies to my regular readers for the change in topic today – this is just a one-off. I’m hardly qualified to be a political commentator but wanted to vent a little.…
