Keep Me Going (All Night) is the debut single from Manchester four-piece Hates Talking. Fronted by Sam Carson, formerly of Lunar, the band have spent lockdown honing their sound for an assault on the Manchester scene and further afield and announce their presence with this earworm of a first public reveal.
Day two of Bolton's new Right To Roam festival saw an outdoor stage in the town centre as well as at the Octagon, Alma and Vaults. We caught the last two local bands outside - Pageant Mum and Clouds And Errors - before heading to the Octagon for local boy James Holt and Granfalloon revealing tracks from his forthcoming Positive Songs album.
Right To Roam is a new two-day festival around a number of venues in Bolton town centre, part of an ambition plan of local music lovers and venues to inject some life into scene that gets dwarfed by the bright lights of Manchester down the road. We visited the main stage in the town's newly refurbished and impressive Octagon Theatre to catch Ist Ist, Gravediggers Union and locals Clouds And Errors.
John Bramwell concluded his Hebden Bridge Trades Club residency with the third sold-out night of the run of socially-distanced shows accompanied and supported by Harriet Bradshaw on cello. He delighted a rapt audience with a set of I Am Kloot classics stripped down and reinvented as well as tracks from his forthcoming Full Harmonic Band record The Light Fantastic.
A sunny Manchester mid-afternoon felt like a perfect introduction to Julia Bardo's forthcoming Bauhaus L'Appartamento album as she played a seven-song set of tracks taken from the album with her five-piece band on the main stage in Manchester International Festival's Cathedral Square hub.
One of the highlights of the Manchester International Festival for us is the free series of live performances that take place across the city. Moved across from the Town Hall due to the ongoing works there, Cathedral Square is home to this year's hub and on a wet Monday night, Dave Haslam has curated two of the North West's most talked-about young bands in The Lounge Society and Blanketman.
It’s easy to lose yourself in the songs of Dublin four piece Odd Morris. New track The Once Was Enough, a taster from their forthcoming EP Cityscape The Ballet due later this year, follows in the same vein. It’s dreamy and haunting with brooding sonic landscapes full of intent and sentiment that tug at the heartstrings.
The Seahorses, Dodgy and The Bluetones were three of the more recognisable names in the mid 1990s Britpop explosion and these days their front men are out on the solo tour circuit, delivering a dose of old favourites whilst writing new materials. Having struck up friendships, this socially distanced show not only has all three of them performing on their own but one of their first ever live performances of their new MCH (Morriss, Clark, Helme) super-group in the picturesque Bowdon Rooms in Altrincham.
Whilst festivals are being cancelled around our ears, Manchester's After All Festival continued in a socially distanced format on Thursday night - a sold-out event at Manchester's Tribeca combining a range of different styles of music and urban poetry to an appreciative crowd that had been starved of live music for sixteen months.
Manchester-based musician and songwriter Jake Hardman's debut album is the joyous sound of an open-minded individual who appears to have absorbed the very best of British music from the last forty years and channelled it all into thirteen excellent predominantly upbeat compositions that radiate freshness, talent, intelligence and humour. Andy Sweeney was suitably impressed by Jake's debut - read on to discover why.
"Where's Fretwell?" has been a catchphrase in the corners of the internet that remembered the unique charms of the Manchester-via-Scunthorpe songwriter Stephen Fretwell from the middle of the 2000s when he released two much-loved but commercially-ignored albums Magpie and Man On The Roof. After twelve years in the wilderness, he's about to return with a new album Busy Guy - and we were fortunate enough to be in the twenty-five strong socially distanced crowd at Salford Eagle's Inn for just his second comeback show.
VLURE completed their short tour of England with another sold-out socially-distanced gig in the Pink Room of Yes in Manchester. Once again they delivered a set that blew away those who had an inkling of what to expect as well as those catching them for the first time. Support came from an intense performance by Manchester's own Document, playing their first show for sixteen months.
The Red Stains made their much-anticipated return to the live stage with their first show in eighteen months at a socially-distanced sold-out show at Aatma on Thursday night supported by Sick Ducks. As unpredictable as ever, they demonstrated that absence had definitely made the audience's hearts grow fonder.
Birkenhead witnessed VLURE's first live show since last spring; a euphoric emotional return to the stage - a band emerging from the cocoon of lockdown and spreading their wings like the most beautiful of creatures.
Thank you Shame! Tonight we were made to feel alive again. Bringing a mate to his first gig in fifteen months was always going to be emotional but tonight’s show by the raucous outfit Shame at the wonderful, and brand new, three hundred and fifty capacity space Future Yard in Birkenhead confirmed what we already knew - music is good for the soul and live music even more so.
As they approach forty years as a band James are still going strong, selling more gig tickets than at any time in their history and continuing to challenge both themselves and their audience by developing and stretching their sound with each album. Their sixteenth studio album All The Colours Of You asks questions of the world around them, in their line of sight the mutation of the extraordinary times of their last album into social revolution, pandemic and personal loss, unafraid to challenge whilst pushing their playful side to the fore. Weird, but accessible, it's possibly the most accurate snapshot of the real essence of James that they've ever released.
Sligo-based Some Remain are the latest outfit creating waves across the Irish Sea. The alternative four piece mix rawness and high energy creating a post-punk feel that immediately grabs your attention and we’re predicting bigger and better things for them in the not to distant future.
Live music. The buzz, the thud of the bass drum that mirrors your heartbeat, faster and faster as the energy in the room rises and the adrenaline starts to pump. It's a feeling that you don't get elsewhere, your aural senses triggering a reaction that enables to lose yourself in the creativity of others. Fuck, we've missed it for the past fifteen months. Ist Ist and Gravediggers Union provide us with a first trip down the road to what music lovers among us love the most.
The Slow Readers Club's SoundON session was a homecoming of sorts, returning to the Derby Hall in Bury Met, which also hosts the Edwin Street studios where they recorded their albums Cavalcade, Build A Tower and 91 Days In Isolation. Featuring seven songs that felt like a mini Greatest Hits set and showcasing a harder edge to their sound without losing their uplifting melodies, they whet the appetite for their long-delayed return to the live arena.
Not content with his roles as a living legend, a figurehead of Manchester's music scene and the creative industries guru in residence for British Libraries, Inspiral Carpets bassist Martyn Walsh has been busy over the past year creating new music. The Afterglow EP is his collaboration with Simon Lyon and his second new release, following on from his ¡La Ruta! project at the end of last year.
The Lovegods were back between 2003 and 2006 one of the most exciting new bands in the country, building a strong dedicated following until it all fell apart when Australian lead singer Deah was refused entry back into the UK and had to move to France. Fifteen years on, they've revealed a video to accompany the release of a lost Peel Session of an unreleased track called Stand, a reminder of what a great band they were and how the UK immigration service robbed them and us of what they might have achieved.
Live music returned at the weekend with Blossoms headlining a 5,000 capacity tent in Sefton Park in Liverpool alongside local heroine Zuzu and Wigan's up-and-coming The Lathums. Our friends Maarit and Harriet from the At Most One Tour Twitter account were among them and give a fan's eye perspective on the most important live show of the year.
James today release Recover, the third single to be taken from their forthcoming album All The Colours Of You, a deeply personal track that seeks to find optimism out of the most horrible of personal experiences - the death of a loved one.
Rosellas celebrated the midnight release of their latest single Common Ground with a live stream set from Manchester's Spirit Studios. Showing a love of their many influences yet merging them into their own unique sound that sounds both modern yet timeless, the eleven-song set demonstrates they're a band to be reckoned with.
Rewind to last year and a packed Golden Lion in Todmorden. An ecstatic audience witnessed Carlisle's The Lucid Dream deliver a one off performance and a stunning set, during which they showcased some of their new album. The album was put on hold due to the pandemic. However the album has certainly been worth the wait.
Stephen Fretwell continues his long-awaited return with the second track Embankment and the announcement of his first album in thirteen years, Busy Guy, which is released in July.
Last Friday Gold Baby released their debut EP Rabbits after a series of nine singles that preceded it. We caught up with Siân, Sara and Scott for a chat about how the band came together, their ways of working, the four tracks from the EP and their hopes to be able to get out on the road once we come out of lockdown.
Alright In The End is the debut single from Wolverhampton singer-songwriter Natasha Nicole. A song that helped her to fight her own anxiety meltdowns and panic attacks is turned into comforting advice for anyone else in the same situation.
“How else do you honour and thank an artist?
But with the art itself.”
That’s a bold statement from David Balfe aka For Those I Love that accompanies the self titled debut album from the Irish wordsmith. It goes without saying Balfe’s proclamation is backed up with this deeply personal record of pure beauty.
Nine singles into their existence, Gold Baby have taken the plunge with their debut EP Rabbits. Across four tracks they demonstrate a knack of combining instant hooks, changes of pace and lyrics that will fascinate, confuse and make you smile often within the same line.
Hailing from Galway the Irish quartet Slyrydes are back with a bang with new single Boy In The Debs Suit, a year after releasing five enthralling singles in the space of the previous twelve months.
Without having released a single in the traditional sense VLURE had already made their presence felt with a live performance video of Desire at the tail end of 2019 and a series of support slots where they threatened to upstage the headliners. 2021 sees them belatedly, for reasons we all know, enter the fray with Shattered Faith - more an unequivocal statement of intent than a debut single.
James return with the title track of their forthcoming studio album All The Colours Of You - a topical view of the world written in times of COVID and the white supremacist final days of the Trump administration.
#WheresFretwell became an internet question that noone could answer for a decade as Stephen Fretwell disappeared completely from the music scene after his 2007 album Man On The Roof and his last tour in December 2011. His movements became the stuff of internet conjecture with rumours of forthcoming new music raising hopes that then became nothing. But now, ten years on, he is back, with an album in the pipeline if the latest rumours are to believed, and a beautiful first track called Oval.
Proletariat's comeback last year came as a bit of a surprise after they bowed out after a series of sold-out Manchester shows you could count on both hands a couple of years ago, burning out before it seemed they'd achieved much of what was expected of them. Having released a trio of singles since they announced they return and unable to return to the gig circuit because of the restrictions, they set up a live stream show from Hyde's Festival Theatre on Friday night.
There's two kinds of reformation - the big cash-in on the legacy and nostalgia culture that seems to be polluting the pool for new artists being able to make their mark and those that aim to conclude unfinished business that come about as a result of old friends getting back together to rekindle the magic of their formative days and the excitement of being in a band. The latter tend to be more rewarding and Bradford's thirty-one years later follow up to their Shouting Quietly debut sits alongside Thousand Yard Stare's Panglossian Momentum as a shining example of a record that's been made for the sake of making it.
Live music. Remember that? The thrill and excitement and adrenaline as the drums kick in, guitars roar and the bassline rumbles seductively and then the vocals come in, delivering words of wisdom, experience, loss, love or any combination of them? Close to a year after the gig scene came to a grinding halt and on the day we finally (hopefully) got a date for it to start again, The Blinders reminded us what we've been missing with a scintillating live show mixing tracks from last year's Fantasies Of A Stay At Home Psychopath and their debut Columbia on a Twitch live stream from Scruff Of The Neck's Manchester offices.
Dulcimer Melody's debut album Dark Alchemy was one of our favourite random finds of 2020, following an effusive championing of the album in Facebook group to find a record we described as "a meticulously constructed set of ten songs, taut with tension, rippled through with dramatic moments and with a voice that soars, drifts and takes the listener off on a journey through its creator's detailed mind maps." With a new single Absent Friend, we got in touch with her to ask a few questions and she recorded her answers for a video interview.
Matter Of Mind's first single of 2021 demonstrates a harder edge and a vitriolic biting response to an ex who's done them wrong as the Stockport band deliver their most ambitious single to date.
Rang Dizzy is the first track to be revealed from Ryley Walker's forthcoming album Course In Fable, his first studio album of original material under his own name alone since 2018's Deafman Glance.
Sometimes the only PR that can sell you an album is the music itself. We were listening to something sent to us in one of the hundred or so emails we get every day when, away from the computer, You Tube threw a song we'd never heard before by a band we'd never heard of at us. And then when you delve more you find and album and a back catalogue.
