Portishead's Third has been a long time coming, the result of a lengthy creative topor following 1997's dark, distinctly underrated album Portishead. Importantly, though, they've shaken it. While the core trio of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley remains, this is quite a different band to Portishead's 90s incarnation: gone is the slo-mo turntable scratching and smoky jazz ...
Manufacturer: Universal
Manufacturer: Virgin TV
Twickenham’s Noah And The Whale name themselves in honour of director Noah Baumbach’s 2005 feature The Squid And The Whale, which feels strangely appropriate: post Juno, no indie flick would quite feel complete without a soundtrack like Peaceful The World Lays Me Down--sensitive, homespun indie-folk that blends the tremulous intimacy of Jeffrey Lewis and Adam Green with an ...
Manufacturer: Xl
An astonishingly intense and ambitious album, Elbow's Cast of Thousands is relentlessly experimental. Having toiled for 10 years over their spellbinding Mercury-nominated debut Asleep in the Back, the maverick Bury five-piece--who were initially hailed as the new Radiohead--have produced a worthy sequel in a comparatively short two years. While mirroring their debut's melancholy ...
Manufacturer: Commercial Marketing
Sam's Town is a tremendous departure for the Killers. Whereas their first album, Hot Fuss, was the work of Anglophiles trying to sound like their musical heroes, particularly Pulp and the Smiths, their second album has set its sights much higher. The Killers are clearly not content with their indie-rock status; from the explosive introduction of the title track, Sam's Town ...
Manufacturer: Mercury
Final Straw, third album from Glasgow-based quintet Snow Patrol, is a darker, nastier and altogether bleaker beast than anything they've produced before. These are ostentatiously pop melodies that have been locked up in a basement, blindfolded over night and subjected to gleefully twisted torture and cruelty until they've squealed. The bruised, distorted (yet basically acoustic) "Wow" ...
Manufacturer: Polydor Group
Sigur Rós--the sound of snow-capped peaks. Or winged things flocking over vast plains. Or salmon making that final courageous, muscular leap upstream, homeward bound. Ever since the BBC so aptly enlisted the help of their "Hoppipolla" single to theme their groundbreaking natural history series Planet Earth, the ever-ethereal Icelandic band have become somewhat typecast, finding themselves ...
Manufacturer: EMI
Manufacturer: Sonybmg
If you're the defeatist sort that doesn't tend to believe in second (or indeed third) chances, you could do worse than to look to Aussie-pop femme-fatale Sia and for hard evidence Some People Have Real Problems, her third solo effort. Originally celebrated as one of the voices of Zero 7, and also with a solo hit of her own (the pre-Stefani-esque "Taken for Granted"), at the turn of the ...
Manufacturer: Monkey Puzzle
