the last dinner party
From The Pyre via Island Records
Reviewed by Anya Weston-Shaw
Album released 17th Oct 25
The Last Dinner Party return with From The Pyre, a record that burns brighter and darker than their debut. From the storming opener Agnus Dei, the band immediately reclaim their flair for the theatrical, lush, urgent, and steeped in myth.
There’s a strong thread of wicca and pagan imagery woven throughout, with an earthy and rather raw emotional landscape being carved, giving the album a sense of ritual and mysticism. It’s a natural progression from the baroque opulence of Prelude to Ecstasy, but here the drama feels more grounded, more earth and fire, than velvet and lace which feels like a progression from their debut.
The band’s charismatic vocals shine across the record, carrying an almost choral resonance at times. Tracks like Second Best show off intricate song structures and layered harmonies that nod to both classical influences and modern pop ambition.
Elsewhere, The Last Dinner Party lean into their glam rock instincts, particularly on This Is The Killer Speaking. With its dramatic piano intro and incredibly catchy hook, it feels both cinematic and slyly tongue-in-cheek, a nod to their flair for storytelling and self-aware performance.
From The Pyre captures a band unafraid to evolve. It’s confident, charismatic, and occasionally chaotic a record that proves their fire wasn’t a spark of debut hype, but something much more enduring.
electric litany
Desires via Flying Hearts
Reviewed by Levi Tubman
Album released 17th Oct 25
Electric Litany are a London based alternative synth pop group who describe their latest album as Emerging at a time when the line between truth and illusion is increasingly blurred and “if reality is a construct, does it even matter what’s real?” that’s putting a lot of weight and expectation on an album, let’s see if it holds up.
Opening up the album, Falcon’s intro brings a Japanese feel to it, with what sounds like, an unfortunately short lived, synth bass Koto. When the drums and vocals come in, they’re slow and distant, opting for a clean sounding process and less recording a drum kit down the other end of the hall, giving it such an ethereal sound you feel you might float away just from listening to it.
In case you needed bringing back down to earth, this is followed up with Opia, which might have been better titled dystopia. From the start its angular and angrier, with synths sounding more like alarms and thumping kick drums, with a darker bleak vocal tone. It’s a post-apocalyptic soundscape punctuated with bright piano chords that feel like bursts of hope.
After the juxtaposition of the opening tracks the album settles down to what might be called more traditional songs, or traditional for Electric Litany anyway. Reciprocate and Diamonds are pulled straight from 1980, perfectly capturing the energy and sound of new wave. They really help move the album along and help give it direction.
The themes of ethereal dream pop and Dark Wave are wound all throughout the album, with parts sounding like they’re played down a well with sparse and light vocals backed against angry synths where saw tooth is king. Luckily, it’s held together and doesn’t lose its identity by having sounds so at odds with each other.
The latter half of the record unfortunately seems have sections that drift a little and lack focus, where you don’t quite get the ending, you're expecting remaining a little flat, although this is a band that doesn’t conform to the standard pop rock norms and could quite easily be put down to personal taste.
This is brought back in touch though with the last track Bless, its sporadic cymbals build to bring in the rest of the drum kit, with building synths, they gradual layering of sounds it reads like a story, with the anticipation building to the culmination of delayed strings just slightly echoing off into nothingness.
This album is definitely a slow burn, you can see the time and creativity that’s gone into it, but you need the right setting and time to listen to it, if you're someone who listens to the first 10 seconds of a track and if it doesn’t grab you, skips to the next, you're going to miss a lot.
It’s interesting and creative, I just wish, for my personal taste, there was more structure in some of the songs.
Track Listing:
1. Falcon
2. Opia
3. Reciprocate
4. Diamonds
5. Prism
6. Itor
7. For Another
8. Crumpets
9. Junkie
10. Bless
coldrain
Optimize (EP) - via Century Media Records
Reviewed by Levi Tubman
EP released 24th Oct
The Japanese post-hardcore/metalcore quintet Coldrain, with seven studio albums already to their name, don’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down with this five-track EP. Known for their intense, hard-hitting sound, they’ve also gained recognition for releasing music in English broadening their reach to a global audience.
The EP opens with its title track, Optimize. True to the genre, the driving opening guitar riff, is quickly joined by frenetic drumming and layered harsh vocals that deliver raw, gritty aggression grounded by deep growls This brings our first taste of the clean vocals and Masato’s range. Higher pitched clean vocals are not new, but these are reaching heights a lot of other metalcore bands can’t helping set them apart from the crowd. Crisp and punchy, it’s a fantastic start to the EP full of energy and hooks it draws you in.
Despite its short runtime, the EP delivers plenty of variety across its tracks. Chasing Shadows leans heavily into electronic elements and processing, giving it an industrial edge with vocals that take on an almost mechanical quality. Next comes a lighter, more melodic track, though it still carries its share of growls and shouts, bringing a refreshing contrast and proving the band refuses to be boxed in. The EP’s catchiest song flips the usual formula, featuring predominantly clean vocals punctuated by heavier bursts. Paired with hooky riffs, it’s the kind of track that lodges itself in your head long after it ends.
Rounding off the EP, Free Fall leans into a more traditional and heavier metalcore sound. It’s powerful without descending into noise, maintaining both clarity and creativity while delivering full-force energy. The track highlights some of the EP’s strongest vocal work, blending layered growls with choral style backing for added depth. It’s a bold, satisfying closer, exactly how a record should end.
In a genre that’s getting all too flooded and tired, this truly stands out. Its creative and varied, with catchy sections from the very start. With solid production really filling every frequency. The guitars are clear and crisp, the bass providing a rumbling foundation, with thick solid drums, snare slightly high and proud, with every word clear and present.
This is a solid 10/10 for me and they’re on tour in the UK soon, get the EP and get down to see them!
Tracklist:
1. Optimize
2. Chasing Shadows
3. DIigitoll
4. Incomplete
5. Free Fall
witch fever
Feavereaten
Reviewed by Neil Milner
Album released 31st Oct 25
Witch Fever’s second album Fevereaten arrives as an obvious attempt to widen the abrasive template they sketched on 2022’s Congregation. The Manchester four-piece, Amy Walpole (vocals), Alex Thompson, Alisha Yarwood and Annabelle Joyce, have traded some of their ragged immediacy for studio polish and a taste for drama, and the result is a record that frequently wants to be larger than its material.
Produced with a firm hand by Chris W. Ryan, Fevereaten is meticulously mapped: click-locked rhythms, bass-led song skeletons and a clear appetite for texture. The band add new timbres, notably an electric cello drenched in pedals, and push drums and guitar toward a heavier, more theatrical register. At its best the album generates a nervy, cinematic gloom; the swelling of “The Garden” and the slow-bloom of “Amber” show an ear for atmosphere and arrangement.
Thematic focus is one of the album’s strengths. Walpole reframes religious trauma through gothic tropes, hagstones, poltergeists and the sensation of being watched, and the record’s foregrounding of personal perspective gives the songs an honest, reclamatory logic. There is purpose behind the fury.
Where Fevereaten falls short is its central human instrument: the voice. Walpole’s delivery is intense and confessional, but too often it inhabits a single mode of perpetual escalation. Performances that might have benefitted from restraint instead tip into shouty catharsis, leaving little room for melody, nuance or dynamic shading. Lines that aim for terrifying intimacy repeatedly circle back on themselves, which turns urgency into self-absorption rather than revelation. It’s probably my age, but I quickly tired of it. Several tracks feel top-heavy with intent but undernourished by tunefulness, which makes sustained listening more of a test of stamina than an invitation.
The album also struggles with consistency. Promising openings, guitar figures that flirt with shimmery like textures or moments that recall the early sweep of The Joy Formidable, too often fail to develop, dissolving into forgettable chaos, illustrated by opening track ‘Dead to me’. ‘Safe’ briefly suggests a brighter, more controlled path before ending with relief rather than resolution. The title track offers the most sustained respite, but even it relies on volume and passion where a clearer melodic through line would have helped.
There are notable musical ideas here, inventive production touches, occasional intricate guitar work and bold textural choices, yet they are repeatedly undermined by a vocal approach that refuses to sit. For listeners seeking melodic development, subtlety and restraint, Fevereaten will feel like an exercise in amplification over form. Fans who prize feral energy and gothic theatricality will find material to admire, but the record rarely translates ambition into grace.
Fevereaten is earnest and occasionally brilliant, but its flaws are persistent and structural. The band have broadened their palette and taken risks; they simply haven’t found the balance between spectacle and craft on this record.
Track listing:
01. Dead To Me!
02. Final Girl
03. The Garden
04. Northstar
05. Drank The Sap
06. Safe
07. Fevereaten
08. Burn To Hit
09. See Ya Next Tuesday
10. Reprise
11. Amber
12. I See It
The boojums
The Boojums - via Having Fun records
Reviewed by Chris Morley
Album released 31st Oct 25
There's definitely something to be said for simplicity, & if it's possible, the Boojums manage to sound like Nick Cave fronting the Ramones- buzzsaw riffing meets the Bad Seeds, if you will.
It's intense, its immediate & its genuinely refreshing, twelve songs in what feels like as many minutes minus any mucking about, a genuine antidote to much of the overproduced artifice masquerading as music now.
This feels genuinely alive, sermons from the garage floor succinct enough to remind us there's living to do after a listen, Wings Of Fire, Stick Together & Meet Me In The Middle particularly affirming if you're looking for something to lift the spirits in tough times- guitar, bass & drums enough to make a righteous racket.
Hopefully coming to a pit near you soon enough- whether that's “pul” or “mosh”.........
luvcats
Vicious Delicious - via AWAL
Reviewed by Andi Bridges
Album released 31st Oct 25
Luvcat has recently been tipped as one to watch by several high-profile magazines and media. And certainly over 35 million streams suggests that the wider public tend to agree. And on the strength of this album I can see why.
The album opens with – Lipstick, one of seven songs from this 15-song set already released into the wild. It’s based around a slow seductive groove, drums and bass locked in nice and tight whilst a simple piano motif dances across the rhythm. The opening lyrical couplet, “All dolled up in stats, no nice place to go, because no fucker asked me to the rodeo”, pretty much sets the tone for the collection of songs. This is a new next generation of girl power making it presence felt in the game of romance. Luvcat knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to say so. During the chorus, when she sings “Come kiss off all my lipstick” the brass section reinforces the yearning.
Matador, the track that was the first to drop and kick started this whole process for Lurcat just over a year ago. Her voice has just the right tone for words such as “You know I tried my best to turn your black eyes hazel and kiss away your cruelty. I’m glad we got undressed and put all our cards on the table and by cards, I mean me, apple in mouth when you left town”. There is a darkly poetic wit in the lyrics. It’s the same noir glamour that The Last Dinner Party utilised to great effect on their debut album.
Dinner @ Brasserie Zedel has a 1930s Berlin Cabaret feel, due to the presence of some bierkeller oompah brass patterns and a plucked guitar. It also has the dirtiest trumpet solo ever committed to tape. The staccato intro to album title track - Vicious Delicious gives no clue to where it’s going to end up. “You’re so cruel and you’re so vicious but oh my goodness you’re so delicious”. This is sophisticated dance pop; Sabrina Carpenter will probably sound like this when she grows up.
One of the quieter moments on the album is – Spider, which utilises a string section to fine effect. The intro nods towards an old music box which fits in with the lyrical theme. The song builds to a crescendo at the three-minute mark before falling away to just voice and strings only to build once again to an even bigger finale. Laurie evokes thoughts of Yorkshire due to its colliery brass band sounding pulse.
Current single – Blushing, is the most up-tempo song on the album although the honour for the most riotous track belongs to set closer – Bad Books, with goes all out swing with a sublime piano solo. “I am an alley cat, skulking in the black”.
And as Luvcat says“Making this album happened accidentally. Amongst the madness of the last year, I decided I didn’t wanna fuck around with EPs or mixtapes. I really wanted to make my first proper statement and when I found out Halloween fell on a Friday, I knew we had to be fast to get it together. Its lipsticks a little smudged and its stockings are a little torn, but I am so proud of how we’ve captured this strange, magical story and all the lovers and libertines I’ve met along the way. I think the record is old school romance slightly off its hinges. A swinging pendulum between love and addiction, ecstasy and melancholy, eroticism and innocence, the deliciously vicious and the viciously delicious.”
celeste
Woman of Faces
Reviewed by Huw Williams
Album released 14th Nov 25
Since her breakout year in 2020, Celeste has been through some turbulent times that have kept her away from the limelight. Her debut record – Not Your Muse – blew up and thrust her to superstardom accompanied by the BRIT Rising Star Award, topping the BBC Sound of 2020 poll and a nomination for the 2021 Mercury Prize.
As has been the case with other artists – notably RAYE – the success brings shackles and the freedom to create in an authentic voice is harder to find. This tension, a breakup and battling with depression has meant that finding the balance between delivering for a label, but staying true to her integrity and personality has been a challenge.
What can we expect from Woman of Faces? In an interview with The Standard, Celeste explained how she’s been able to push back against that expectation and create something that balances enough of the familiar tone and timbre that drew people to her five years ago, but does not compromise on her unique point of view and her lived experience.
What we get as a result, is a searing account of this period in Celeste’s life. Written from deep within this darkness, the songs are honest and raw, exposing with clarity what it feels like at the lowest moments. Facing things head on, the opener (and lead single) On With The Show tells us of the struggle to battle through the difficulty and push through to the other side. It pulls no punches, building to an anguished crescendo which aches with Celeste’s grief.
Keep Smiling and Happening Again both imply a resignation to events – an inevitability about what is to come but struggling, in the moment, to find a way out. And so it continues, with the enormity of Celeste’s pain etched into each piece, building an astonishing picture of her battle.
The title track – Woman of Faces – recalls the unfiltered emotion of listening to Nina Simone, baring the soul’s wounds but with a defiance that became her absolute strength. It culminates in Could Be Machine, a plaintive cry, a howl of emotion that stands apart from anything else on the record.
This leads to 3 final tracks that sound like resolution – the defiant This is Who I Am, a more hopeful Angels Like You and reflective Carmen’s Song that also feels more uplifting with a very distinct production compared the preceding songs. You feel Celeste reclaiming her power by the close of the album, not unempowered by her experience, but instead breaking out from the subservient narrative that can wrongly and unhelpfully define women in an industry still far too male-dominated.
The sound, produced by Grammy winner Jeff Bhasker, is rich and affecting. Orchestral-influenced, Rosie Danvers’ arrangements add cinematic scale to the storytelling. In particular, Happening Again evokes the emotion with a devastating ascending chord progression in the middle of the song before retreating back to a piano underpinned by long, ominous notes bowed on a double bass. Keep Smiling’s trembling string unsettle, denoting the tension in the lyrics.
With Celeste’s signature jazz sensibility and the “film orchestra” arrangements alongside the honest lyricism, she has created an album that is irresistibly current but immediately timeless. It could sit alongside Simone, Billie Holiday and Amy Winehouse for the unapologetic delivery of their meaning through lyrics, while the production has more of the beauty of Sarah Vaughan – evoking the feeling through the music and instrumentation.
It's important, urgent and emotionally immense and marks the point at which Celeste comes back determined to be heard on her terms. We should all take the time to listen.
james
Nothing But Love (The Definitive Best Of) - via Universal Music
Reviewed by Neil Milner
Album released 21st Nov 25
Nothinging but Love arrives like a long, affectionate letter from a band that has spent four decades learning how to sound urgent and comfortable at the same time. Spread across five albums or three CDs, this definitive best-of is generous to the point of insistence: it asks time of you, and rewards patience with an anthology that traces James from their restless, folky beginnings to the swaggering, danceable anthems that made them household names.
The collection opens with the early, tactile charm that first hooked audiences at venues such as St. George’s Hall, Bradford, where I first saw them supporting the Smiths in 1985 – imagine that! Songs built from playful rhythms, tricky harmonies and instrumentalists who clearly enjoyed reworking the rulebook. Tracks like “What’s the World” and “Hymn from a Village” remind you that James have always been at their best when being both nimble and earnest.
By the mid- to late-1980s, tracks such as “Johnny Yen” show the band’s appetite for individualism: joyful, slightly destructive pop with a classy edge. I also saw them again around this time with Happy Mondays supporting – imagine that!
Then comes the obvious apex: “Sit Down.” Reissued into the mainstream in 1991, it became the juggernaut everyone remembers — achingly communal and impossibly buoyant — and even when chart fate conspired against it, stalling behind Chesney Hawkes for the fun number 1 spot, the song’s emotional gravity feels undefeated here. Later staples such as “Born of Frustration” and “She’s a Star”, (currently the main star of the 2025 Waitrose Christmas add along with an actor and a comedian), map the band’s shift toward broader, more anthemic territory without losing the texture that made the early records special.
What keeps this retrospective compelling is the throughline of evolution. The darker, funk-rock turns of “Jam J” and the late-century, folky reflections of “I Defeat” are not detours but fixtures in a catalogue that tolerates contradiction. Post-millennial moments like “Whiteboy” and 2014’s “Interrogation” prove the band can still assemble great swathes of sound that gather you up and move you toward the nearest dance floor.
The great age of James sees their music having echoes of other bands and James sounding like others, though they came first. But the new 2025 cut “Wake Up Superman” hits back sounding familiar, restless, defiantly alive.
Nothing but Love asks for time and attention; in return it offers a tidy consolation. James are both comfort and provocation, a band you can trust to surprise you even when you think you know the next line.
Track listing:
01. What's The World
02. Hymn From A Village
03. Chain Mail
04. So Many Ways
05. Johnny Yen
06. What For
07. Ya Ho
08. Sit Down (7” Rough Trade Version)
09. How Was It For You?
10. Come Home (Flood Mix)
11. Lose Control
12. Sit Down
13. Sound
14. Born Of Frustration
15. Ring The Bells
16. Seven
17. Out To Get You
18. Sometimes
19. Laid
20. Jam J
21. Say Something
22. Honest Joe
23. She's A Star
24. Tomorrow
25. Waltzing Along
26. Play Dead
27. Destiny Calling
28. Runaground
29. I Know What I'm Here For
30. All Good Boys
31. Just Like Fred Astaire
32. We're Going To Miss You
33. I Defeat
34. Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
35. Chameleon
36. Whiteboy
37. Waterfall
38. Crazy
39. Dust Motes
40. Interrogation
41. Moving On
42. Curse Curse
43. All I'm Saying
44. To My Surprise
45. Nothing But Love
46. Girl At The End Of The World
47. Busted
48. Many Faces
49. Leviathan
50. All The Colours Of You
51. Beautiful Beaches
52. ZERO
53. Love Make A Fool
54. Is This Love
55. Life's A Fucking Miracle
56. Way Over Your Head
57. Wake Up Superman
58. Hallelujah Anyhow
bee bee sea
Stanzini Can be Allright via Wild Honey Records
Reviewed by Dave Flerin
Album released 21st Nov 25
Stanzini Can Be Allright” is the fourth album by Bee Bee Sea, and to be frank, the band and the record read like a love letter to DIY music. It's a journey that's taken them from smalltown nowheresville in Italy; to forming a collective of local creative types; hosting their own festivals; forming their own label; and supporting modern luminaries including Thee Oh Sees, IDLES, and Broken Social Scene. It feels like they’re telling the kids “Look where we come from. If we can do it, so can you!”
“Stanzini…” is twelve short-ish tracks coming in at a rather rapid pace. It’s got lots of varying shades, but all within a very definite, unrefined indie-guitar style. It opens with “Holy Money”, sounding like the very definition of garage-sounding guitar music, and giving off distinct Undertones vibes. Overall, their sound is pretty new-wave influenced, with lots of bits in there that remind you of some esteemed and familiar bands. Take “Keep it Cool”, which is about 10% The Hives, 10% Popscene-era Blur, and 10% Libertines.
They’ve turned up the “trashy” control on this one to very positive effect. The two slightly more leisurely but blissful minutes of “Memories of Another Life” allow the playing and lyrics to show themselves a bit more, giving us a couple of peeks at a beautiful descending melody before it disappears. Definitely the standout track thus far.
“You” is a dissonant, discordant thing which spits and splutters through its one and a half pretty perfect minutes.
The opening riff of “It’s All About the Fast Music” retraces the faint steps of “No More Heroes”; a great way to start a song by anyone’s standards. If I was seventeen I’d adore this band, sigh! And an added bonus is how short most of these tunes are. None outstay their welcome, and are gone and onto the next one before you get bored or notice their flaws.
All in all, it’s a fun album to get messily wasted to with your mates. And, unlike Labour and the Tories, these guys have largely stuck to their manifesto, which in this case is “trashy guitars everywhere, with shoutable melodies messily smeared over the top”. I have no idea what the big message is that Bee Bee See are trying to get across in their songs, but if they’re after creating some music befitting a chaotic night out which ends up at the local indie-disco then they’ve absolutely nailed it. It’s confirmation that Italy has gone indie, and it's out on November 21st 2025 on Wild Honey Records in the usual formats.
seven blood
Life Is Just A Phase
Reviewed by Levi Tubman
Album released 21st Nov 25
Life Is Just A Phase is the debut album from the fast-rising German four-piece Seven Blood, arriving less than two years into the band’s existence. I always look forward to hearing a band’s first foray into the world, are they going to play it safe until they find their footing, or throw everything on the table and accept whatever comes? Will they build slowly, or hit their peak right out of the gate?
Opening the record is House ≠ Home, with a guitar intro that instantly transports me back to dim 90s rock venues with a riff reminiscent of early Deftones. Then just before the vocals come in the bass starts, and I had to rewind and take a second listen! The bassline is understated but so catchy, a proper low rumbling grunt with a sound that’s simply perfect! This is a song where the vocals could really let loose and take over the rest of the band but Azaria’s vocals are restrained just enough that power’sbalanced. Short breakdowns with processed vocals and wide, ringing verses highlight their emo lineage, perfectly finished by using the symbol ≠ instead of the long form title House Is Not My Home.
A band not afraid to get a little electronic, Cold Eyes opens with drums crushed to almost nothing, before being released as the rest of the band kick in. Hitting a little harder with screaming backing vocals back in the mix with lead vocals powering through we get a glimpse into her range. The role of the drummer is to set and keep the tempo and help drive the song forwards, to be the backbone, instead the drums are almost over busy and off beat under the vocals giving the song energy and an almost frantic feeling. It’s a bit of a move away from the norm for drums and its all the better for it.
While the band’s natural habitat is loud and aggressive, Hourglass and Killing From the Inside pull things back with a gentler approach. Both tracks include quieter passages, with Hourglass offering moments of almost delicate vocals, just enough softness to show they can do subtlety before erupting into their signature huge verses and choruses. Synth’s adding just enough colour to break from a rigid stereo type. With Killing From The Inside taking a more traditional approach, with more of my new favourite bass tone. The layering of the guitars as one push so far back in the mix it somehow manages to confuse the ears and make it hard to tell just how many are playing instead of sounding empty or quiet, its just another creative touch that peppers this record.
To The Unknown is a personal highlight for me. Electronica and synths are given a lot of reign here on the quieter sections, with some beautiful distant choral backing. Its also the song that shows off the vocals the most, and this is certainly a voice that deserves to be shown off. Keeping the pace steady, the kind that naturally gets your head nodding and foot tapping. Following along in a similar vein to the previous 2 songs, they fit together well showing the thought that’s gone into the track listing
Closing the album, Fall From The Sky moves at a slow, drifting pace. For many bands this would be the token acoustic track, and in a way it fills that role for Seven Blood, stripped back compared to everything before it, yet still carrying a surprising heaviness. The first time I heard it, I genuinely thought it had ended early, but at 2:49 it’s simply the shortest track on the record, rolling in with weight and atmosphere its gone as soon as it arrives. The first and last tracks should stand out, they bookend everything else you’ll hear, with the last song playing as important of a role as the first. As my favourite of the eleven tracks, the finale more than earns its place.
This isn’t a perfect record by any means, but I’m honestly struggling to pinpoint its flaws. It helps that the genre blend is right up my alley, melodic with rock, metal, hints of darkwave, and even touches of synth-pop lurking in the background. Some moments remind me of The Birthday Massacre, while others bring a burst of 90s nu-metal nostalgia. They’re not a pop band, but there’s just enough upbeat brightness in a few places to soften the edges and make the songs catchier and more inviting.
The drums are busy at times I’d expect to be pulled back with a wonderful frantic energy, joined along with the bass just grooving away in the quieter parts providing a lot of the melody filling out the sound when its louder with runs and accented notes. There are some really catchy riffs here, but theyre not a riff based band, these are always followed up by these big seeping chords that suddenly drop down to short staccato stabs following the drums running out to a short lead section, while the seem to be as equally at home sitting back with the band or taking off as lead to be followed, I couldn’t find the ages of the band members, but Azaria’s vocals have a maturity that feels beyond her years.
As a personal preference I tend to like less polished production with a heavier band but here it works perfectly. I wont go on anymore about my thoughts on the bass! But with the drums every roll on the toms is crisp and perfectly balanced and tuned, with these huge guitar sounds that call out width and depth from nowhere while all throughout the vocals are always perfectly clear and crisp without being thrust out of the mix just to get your attention, they just slot in their place seamlessly.
There are a couple of exceptions here, mainly on a couple of quieter parts you can hear just a little intake of breath before a big vocal section, something I always like to hear on a recording, not matter how polished I think they are a part of the song and should be in there.
I’ve probably listened to Life Is Just A Phase more than any other album this year. It’s an easy 10/10 for me, and Seven Blood is one of the most exciting new bands I’ve come across in years.
Tracks:
1. House ≠ Home
2. Cold Eyes
3. No Breakout
4. Monsters
5. Hourglass
6. Killing From The Inside
7. To The Unknown
8. Not Your Misery
9. As We Bleed
10. Strangers
11. Fall From The Sky
cousins & willoughby
The Bridge via Witchwood Records
Reviewed by Chris Morley
Album released 28th Nov 25
Two old Strawbs (Cousins & Willoughby) go on one last trip, given added poignancy in light of Cousins' passing in July of this year, the bridge between his thoughts & music a key component of this lost gem.
Recorded on a sojourn to Italy, there is a sense that the reissue is at least part a last will & testament to their enduring friendship, a sort of Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing with guitars that will hopefully find a bigger audience than its original 1993 outing.
A new coat of paint applied by Blue Weaver to give his old mate the best of send-offs.
If nothing else it just might put you in a suitably wistful frame of mind for the time of year & reaching towards Italy, the Bridge of Sighs serving as Cousins' inspiration for a little sonic architecture of his own with friends like Mary Hopkin stopping by.
my life story
Joined Up Talking via Republic Of Music
Reviewed by Neil Milner
Album released 28th Nov 25
Reissued albums often invite us to reconsider overlooked gems, but Joined Up Talking, My Life Story’s third studio record from 2000, is more a curiosity than a revelation, less buried treasure than a time capsule of nonchalance. This 25th anniversary edition, complete with B-sides, demos, and rarities, highlights both the band’s ambition and its limitations, an excavation revealing more sediment than sparkle.
Led by Jake Shillingford, the band’s chamber‑pop ambitions—woven with strings, brass, and theatrical flourishes, found their heyday clinging to the fading coattails of Britpop. In my view, a band like the Delgados did something similar, but with more ambition, dexterity and edge. Here, the lush instrumentation often masks songs that are, at best, serviceable. Tracks like ‘It’s a Girl Thing’ showcase strong hooks, but elsewhere (‘Sunday Tongue’, ‘Neverland’, ‘I Don’t Believe in Love Songs’), the band veers perilously close to boy-band karaoke, complete with the imagined stools and earnest cardigan-clad harmonies. The ‘New New Yorker’ fares better, a curious hybrid of Billy Bragg and Beautiful South, while ‘Two Stars’ hints at invention without quite delivering it.
The B-sides outshine the album proper. ‘History of the World’ bristles with urgency, ‘Cherries’ achieves something epic, and ‘My Sweet Little Death’ channels the intensity of The Jam’s ‘English Rose’ and the Manic Street Preachers ‘Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky’. These moments suggest a band capable of risk and adventure, alas not demonstrated on the album proper.
The demos and rarities album add little beyond alternate versions of songs that were already middling.
This edition, then, is less a revelation than a Christmas present for the faithful. For everyone else, it’s a reminder that not every album deserves canonisation. Joined Up Talking is neither terrible nor good. It simply exists, a middling chamber-pop relic that has not grown older gracefully, nor transformed into an undiscovered classic and shines only in its margins.
Track listing:
1. Empire Line
2. If You Can’t Live Without Me Then Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?
3. It’s a Girl Thing
4. Sunday Tongue
5. Yes to Everything
6. Walk / Don’t Walk
7. There’s Nothing for Nobody and Everybody Wants to Be Someone
8. The New New Yorker
9. Neverland
10. Stalemate
11. I Don’t Believe in Love
12. Two Stars
B Sides of the era
1. Cherries
2. Holy Deadlock
3. Emerald Green Blah Blah Blah
4. My Sweet Little Death
5. The History of the World on Ice
6. I’m a Statistic
7. Sleep
8. Florence’s Theme
9. Self-Defence Mechanism
10. Paint It Emerald Green
11. It’s a Boy Thing
12. Walk / Don’t Walk (Parts 1 & 2)
13. E.G.M.C.M.X.C.I.X.
Demos and rarities
1. Neverland (RAK Demo ’97)
2. The New New Yorker (RAK Demo ’97)
3. Emerald Green Blah Blah Blah (RAK Demo ’97)
4. Walk / Don’t Walk (Battery Demo ’97)
5. Florence’s Theme (RAK Demo ’97)
6. It’s a Girl Thing (Matrix Demo ’98)
7. I Don’t Believe in Love (Matrix Demo ’98)
8. Sunday Tongue (Matrix Demo ’98)
9. Empire Line (Single Version)
10. Grieve (Matrix Demo ’98)
11. Here Comes the Big Weekend (Matrix Demo ’98)
12. If You Can’t Live Without Me Then Why Aren’t You Dead Yet? (Matrix Demo ’98)
13. Stalemate (Matrix Demo ’98)
14. Two Stars (Matrix Demo ’98)
15. There’s Nothing for Nobody and Everybody Wants to Be Someone (Demo ’97)
16. It’s a Girl Thing (D-Bop’s Boys Mix)
