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Dorje occupy an interesting space within the modern music business. Their popularity is not fuelled by massive corporate marketing budgets, committees of image consultants, or anything remotely mainstream or traditional. Instead, Dorje have collectively harnessed the power of YouTube to get their names out there.
This is the cutting edge of music in 2016 Read more…
Instrumental guitar fans: Lend me your eyes. You know Animals As Leaders? They’re pretty sick, right? Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes know their shit. It’s pretty undeniable.
Glad we agree on that. Now, you know Steve Vai? Pretty insulting question, I know. Sorry. The guy’s a universe-class legend. Again, that’s just a straight plain fact.
Now, imagine Animals As Leaders teaming up with Vai for an entire album, calling in occasional cameos from Allan Holdsworth and his and Vai’s extensive back catalogue of virtuosic collaborators. Excited, moist, tumescent – the simple thought of that dream becoming a reality is guaranteed to make you at least one of those things. Good news ahead… Read more…
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The music world traditionally leans to the political left – and as far as those on the left are concerned, the world is presently going to hell in a driverless handcart. I’m inclined to agree with them – and so, on the evidence of new album FEAR, are Marillion.
FEAR (in this case an acronym for Fuck Everyone And Run) is a non-violent protest album. Sonically, it’s lush, vibrant, and often serene. Lyrically, however, Marillion wordsmith Steve Hogarth addresses some conceptually heavy themes with the flair of a veteran poet Read more…
Outside the Scala, London is wilting under a mid-September heatwave. Passers-by and queuing punters fan themselves with gig flyers, eagerly awaiting the welcome cool of air-conditioned surroundings. Within the Scala’s walls, mere minutes away, awaits an equally overwhelming experience.
Tiny Moving Parts (85%) do math-rock right, blending Read more…
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The Player’s Lounge is a fitting venue for a lineup this diverse. Half set from a Bond movie, half rock-ready venue complete with PA pumping out classics from the likes of Limp Bizkit and Nirvana, despite its more hip-hop-friendly name The Player’s Lounge provided its fair share of commendable ambience as the evening’s performers prepared to take the stage.
Princess Slayer (92%) are a real blast from TMMP’s distant past. Since the days of their Living EP, drummer/producer Vince Welch and vocalist Casey Lim have recruited a new cast of session players to aid in delivering a series of seriously slick EDM-based tunes. Running through a set strewn with classic personal favourites (Snake Skin; God Said), cover-remixes (ERIKA’s Fly Away Bird) and winning new songs (Every Déjà Vu), I’m going to say that Princess Slayer slayed it – mainly because as far as I can remember, I haven’t used that pun before.
I don’t think anyone in attendance would disagree with this score for Dorje (100%), considering the vast majority of the evening’s punters turned up to catch this set and this set alone. Cheers, whoops, and applause greeted every drum hit, guitar lick, bassline, and vocal melody – and that was just during the soundcheck. That can partly be explained by the fact that most of Dorje’s audience was made up of students from the local Academy of Contemporary Music – at which Dorje’s backline, Princess Slayer’s frontline, TMMP, and members of this evening’s headliners have also studied in the past – and Rob Chapman, Rabea Massaad, Ben Minal, and Dave Hollingworth are renowned and revered online for possessing virtuosic skills of the highest order.
Dorje’s set wasn’t so much a set as a masterclass in Read more…
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Although it’s 2016, not 1016, women in music remain a complicated subject. For some, anyway. Things are changing – slowly – and here, I’m going to talk about the third album from a band doing more than most to keep those changes coming.
The Pretty Reckless are currently sitting on their fourth rock-radio-topping single in Take Me Down, the first cut from Who You Selling For to see the light of day. Fronted as they are by the undeniably badass Taylor Momsen, that makes The Pretty Reckless notable as the first female-fronted rock act to embark on such a streak since The Pretenders.
In 1984. Read more…
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Let’s get that word out of the way.
Supergroup.
Ten letters more than capable of sparking instant controversy. For some, it’s a stigma, a mark of deep shame associated irreversibly with giant egos battling each other for the sole purpose of selling out and cashing in Read more…
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A camel is a horse designed by committee.
This single sentence encapsulates the core of my perspective on music. I love hearing one person give birth to an entire creative project, aided ideally by others who have as little input as is necessary to get the job done. Creative control freaks hold the key to my heart, whether they be virtuoso guitarist-composers such as Steve Vai, or erudite musical polymaths like Devin Townsend.
Plus, if you Google that same sentence, this image comes up:
If my perspective is always right and never wrong Read more…
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Brace yourself.
Until today, I was always that guy. The Dillinger Escape Plan fan who said, in the face of the still-epic Option Paralysis and One Of Us Is The Killer, “…yeah, they’re sick, but Ire Works is still easily their best album.”
I am no longer that guy.
What happened to me? Read more…
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If you think instrumental guitar is passé and boring and every lick, riff, and melody that can be written has already been written, meet Nick Johnston. Having previously collaborated with the likes of the Aristocrats and Paul Gilbert, Nick Johnston has proven himself worthy of top-class company, and is now set up to drop new album Remarkably Human at the end of September.
Having afforded Remarkably Human a full 100% score in a review readable by clicking here, there was one burning question I had to ask in order to kick off this interview… Read more…