Review
by Chris Hilliard
Now, just who is David Berkeley? My introduction to this man’s music deviated wildly from the usual route of a jiffy bag and an identikit press release proclaiming the genius of somewhat who patently is not.»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Earlier in the year, DiS interviewed a newly reinvigorated Jane’s Addiction, clean sober and frankly the personification of everything the band didn’t used to be. Plumes from crack pipes no longer filled the air and instead they talked of their new love of family life and waking up in the same week and town they went to bed in. Naturally, DiS wouldn’t wish the interminable squalor of serious drug addiction on anybody, but hell it did always used to make for good copy. Now, if only DiS had got to them before they ditched the clown hair. Fortunately, one man did, New York documentary-maker and all round renaissance man Carter Smith...»
Review
by Chris Hilliard
Sometimes ‘caterpillar badminton periscope’ can sound a whole lot more magical than any linear bitch about your boyfriend.»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
“I went to my first concert when I was 8 years of age, that was in 1973. I’ve never been interested in anything else. I’ve been to two football matches in my life and I was dragged to both of them. Nothing else occurs to me. I left school at 16 years of age and 36 hours after I walked out, I’d formed a band.”»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Perry’s got a family now. Dave’s getting married to Carmen in November. They talk about having a family. I think everyone’s got a little bit wiser. You get the best out of Jane’s Addiction when everyone’s not on drugs! If you’re on drugs, you break up.»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
The August bank holiday is famed for that annual shindig of sex, drugs and bad pies - the Reading Festival. This year though it had a rival for the indie youth’s affections. Far, far away from the plains of suburban Berkshire, up in the wild, woolly backwaters of the Brecon Beacons, several hundred faithful gathered to»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Fresh from a two year sabbatical, spent snowboarding and lounging in the Hawaiian sunshine, those most noo-yoik of New Yorkers, The Fun Lovin’ Criminals are back with a mighty fine platter, rhapsodising as usual about their favourite subject matters: girls, partying and their hometown. On first glance it seem»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Josh Rouse, as Brian Wilson would put it ‘just wasn’t made for these times’.
A kid in the ‘70s, as the world around powered into power-dressing at the strike of the decade that followed, he seemingly clung onto his love of simpler times and scraggier haircuts.
Four albums in and the laidback »
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Whilst TOTP may be awash with teenage flesh, pontificating on puppy love, the paedo-pop scene can hardly claim to have generated many genuine schoolboy mavericks. Martin Grech’s ‘Open Heart Zoo’ would have seemed an assured debut as it was, but that he made his first serious creative inroads whilst mos»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
It may well be that Robert Wyatt is a little removed from the usual sphere of DIS dissemination. Away from our praise or pillory of young upstarts teetering on the verge of celebre, the music world is still awash though with many an old diamond still dusting themselves down for a burst of greatness. Under the»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Formed in San Francisco by friends Vito Roccoforte (on drums) and guitarist/singer Luke Jenner, five years ago, The Rapture have been touted as a disco Strokes, a collective with the swagger of garage punk upstarts and the sass of Studio 54. Now invariably primed as hip, cool and ‘most likely to...’, t»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Not heard of Fin yet? Well, okay, maybe just this one that can be excused, no need to throw your head in the corner under the weight of a dunce cap. With a debut single only just about to burst through on the radio waves and a video committed to reel (“It’s just a performance video. The thing is with video»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
It’s grim down south, or so it seems. Tear away a Caledonian from his homeland and drop him amidst London’s less salubrious quarters and the call of home may well get him in the end. On a mission for immortality, Grim Northern Social front-man Ewan McFarlane trawled the Camdemonium for a good few years, with »
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Well, I guess if you’re going to spend warm summer days indoors (without the writing frigtening verse bit), you may as well have your cockles warmed yet further by an ascendant troubadour, fired-up (and I if you use another heat related metaphor, forgive me but sweat is spirting from me in all directions what with »
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
First, a confession. On first hearing of Psychid’s eponymous album, I really wasn’t that impressed. Granted, I was leaning against the HMV listening post, flicking through the latest copy of Q at the time, so a well rounded and contemplative listening experience, this was not. I heard hints of mid-nineties »
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
If of course, geography had been more gracious to Captain Soul, they’d be more likely sipping margaritas mid-siesta and resting their laurels in the Laurel Canyon. Stuck now as they are in a climate more suited to morose mumblings, they nevertheless seem set on a determined endeavour to turn the sunshine up a»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Longview make big music. Not for them the stripped back simplicity of a Toe Rag studio production, ‘Mercury’ is adrift with tunes ready to waft around enormodomes and Mojave car stereos. Slogs around many an indie pub toilet for them were fortunately few, perhaps they already had a winnebago in the gli»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
While I’m not too sure dressing yourself as a collective of six feet dog men is entirely befitting of a group of men easing into their thirties and probably old enough to know better, it certainly isn’t out of character for the Super Furry Animals.
Regular tales of love, death and heartache have oft be»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Whilst the music of Rocket Science would hardly require an actual bona-fide rocket scientist to digest, it does seem to emit a certain propelled energy. The spirit of the adrenal gland is seemingly theirs to pump. New single ‘Being Followed’ has more than a hint of the Inspiral Carpets about it (co»
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
The release of another slice of ‘Vehicles & Animals’ sees Athlete in fine fettle. Awash with big choruses and bontempi keyboards (possibly), it’s a record that has divided some critics. A few damning critiques have nestled amidst the many euphoric eulogies, but if being the marmite of indie doesn’t ruf»
Review
by Chris Hilliard
...And you’re sure Black Nielson are not Yankee boys? Whilst just singing in an American accent is derigeur amongst the rock & roll fraternity, Michael Gale seems to dripping stateside college rock from every pore. Whilst some half-baked dustbowl polemic could sound very embarrassing indeed, he does at least con»
Review
by Chris Hilliard
Hmmm… I think I’ve heard this before. Ah yes… I have. There may be a different logo on the tin, but Underwater records could so easily save everybody a bit of a time and just put ‘generic house music’ on the sleeve instead. This isn’t a bad record, just utterly inoffensive as it ploughs through in a warm melange of »
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
In the fuzzy sunshine of their videos, surrounded by bikini-clad California girls, they certainly seem to emit a certain spirit of the bon vivant, but in such climes that probably wouldn’t be such a challenge. This Dublin quintet of twenty-somethings with a passion for west coast living though are also friends from »
Review
by Chris Hilliard
Like some perversely enjoyable fungal infection, The Darkness are indeed ‘Growing On Me’. If you’ve seen the video, singer Justin is to be seen playing lord of the manor somewhere in the stockbroker belt and wiggling his boney arse aplenty in the most tasteless one piece pink chest-less leotard since… »
Review
by Chris Hilliard
Whirlwind Heat were championed by a Rolling Stone magazine as one of the festival highlights of this year’s SXSW festival. I can only assume that was by the publication’s deaf correspondent. The trio are close personal showbiz friends of both The White Stripes and Brendan Benson and herein lies »
In Depth by Chris Hilliard
Australia’s The Sleepy Jackson are about as hard to pin down as mercury. Just when you think you’ve got their number, with the delicious psychedelic swoonery of ‘Good Dancers’ on their ‘Let Your Love Be Love’ EP, they sucker-punch you with some snippet of something that sounds just a touch ‘hell-bo»
Review
by Chris Hilliard
Those leading lights in that not-really-at-all burgeoning arena of Canadian gay church folk music cast aside their gay-go-go (try saying that in a hurry) masks for a lovely swooning strum.
‘A Miracle’ is three minutes of string-laden melancholia for people with a Morrissey penchant.
Thankfully»
Review
by Chris Hilliard
Treading that infinitely fine line between being terribly pretentious and just being Icelandic, Sigur Rós release their first single, ‘Untitled’, from an album with no name in a made-up language. If they didn’t make such glorious and saddening music, the desire to slap them really would be quite great. »
Review
by Chris Hilliard
“Isn’t it good to be alive?” Damn right it is. Get your Judas Priest-style hand gestures at the ready and prepare to sway them aloft in a suitably demonic gesture. ‘Your Demon Heart’ will take control of your erm... demon heart, I guess... and cause you involuntarily to say things like ‘rock on’ (and othe»
Review
by Chris Hilliard
Okay, don’t get your raincoat and dirty scowl out just yet. Eighties Echo & The Bunnymen made mad epic tunes of lip-curling swagger. In some parallel universe, U2’s songs of faith and flag-waving would have been usurped by Big Mac’s stadium-sized ego and the Liverpudlians would now be sitting astride the Albert »
