NEIL YOUNG CRAZY HORSE at Vector Arena on Thursday 21 March 2013 – live review by Rod Fisher
Cheese on Toast sent Rod Fisher from Goodshirt along to review Neil Young Crazy Horse last night… The first thing I’ll say about the Neil Young show last night is how nice it…
Ballet in the Badlands by THE CHEMIST [REVIEW}
Western Australian quartet The Chemist’s debut long player is a solidly composed collection of alternative rock songs. Sonically, there’s nothing to complain about; they tick the right boxes but for me, I’m finding…
She’s A Riot by THE JUNGLE GIANTS [REVIEW]
I do love me a bit of jingle-jangle – and especially when it’s in the melodic indie pop variety when it’s pulled off well. This Ep from Brisbane quartet The Jungle Giants (great…
Comedown Machine by THE STROKES [REVIEW]
Lots of people have said that lead track One Way Trigger, when it was released earlier this year, sounded like A-Ha… and I’m pretty sure that they didn’t mean that in a complimentary…
Homosapien by PVT [REVIEW]
Sydney trio PVT apparently used to have vowels; depending on what you choose to believe the change was either due to threats of legal action or because there’s a character limit on Twitter….
Pedestrian Verse by FRIGHTENED RABBIT [REVIEW]
There’s a charming back story that accompanies FRIGHTENED RABBIT. Thankfully, rabbit is not some weird tangental nickname earned at an all-boys school based on Scott Hutchison’s surname; HUTCHinson – Rabbit Hutch – gettit?…
Chelsea Light Moving by CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING [REVIEW]
CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING is Thurston Moore’s new post Sonic Youth band – which, when you think about it, in real terms, is actually quite monumental. Sure, there have been side projects before –…
Sunburn EP by THE RAW NERVES [REVIEW]
Punk really isn’t dead. I’m not talking post-card mohawk-bullshit punk – that can, generally, go fuck itself. But garage-punk with irreverent humour and thrashy-trashy-skuzz-pop melodies and social commentary lives on with the likes…
Carole by AUTUMN SPLENDOUR [STREAM]
It’d be fair to say, that AUTUMN SPLENDOUR are one of my most favourite Auckland bands and with this new single not only do they not disappoint; I’m tempted to go so far as saying it’s their best single to date!
How Red Is The Blood by TATTLETALE SAINTS [REVIEW]
Formerly known as Her Make Believe Band (which I have to confess to preferring), NZ based Tattletale Saints crowd-sourced funded travelling to Nashville in January this year to record this album with Grammy…
Underwater Pyramids by BADD ENERGY [REVIEW]
Skuzzy-electro-punks Badd Energy return with tUnderwater Pyramids, their first album on Flying Nun. It’s the noize-quartets sophomore album, although, if one were inclined to split hairs, it’d perhaps be more correctly referred to…
DINOSAUR JR live at Powerstation, Auckland, Tuesday 5 March 2013 – review by Emily Illiterateler
CHEESE ON TOAST sent Emily from Street Chant (aka Emily Illiterateler) along to DINOSAUR JR on Tuesday – here is her review:
Amok by ATOMS FOR PEACE [REVIEW]
There was, to be fair, the danger that this super-group formed, as I have read, over a shared love of getting high listening to Fela Kuti and doing some free-form jamming, could be…
Anything In Return by TORO Y MOI [REVIEW]
Opening with the stunningly good Harm in Change – replete with a muffled bass thud, distorted and searing synths and a piano deep within the mix, comes Toro Y Moi’s third long player…
Bunker Talk by ATLANTIC CITY EXPRESSWAY [REVIEW]
Auckland three-piece Atlantic City Expressway’s debut draws inspirations from our own landscape – while citing influences as diverse as The Nudie Suits to Opossom, upon listening to this heart-warming collection of guitar-based indie-pop…
Lesser Evil by DOLDRUMS [REVIEW]
Lesser Evil is the debut long player from ‘buzz-act’ Doldrums, who is pals with the likes of Purity Ring and Grimes. Doledrums is the nom-de-plume of 23 year old Airick Woodhead and his…
No World by INC [REVIEW]
Inc are brothers Andrew and Daniel Aged and this debut long-player on 4AD records follows up their Ep 3 which came out mid last year. If you’re already a fan of acts like…
Bronze Age by THE KINGSBURY MANX [REVIEW]
My compact disc collection has a huge gaping hole in it in the K’s for The Kingsbury Manx (note I don’t, rightly or wrongly, alphabetise the “The”‘s in band names) for until this…
We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic by FOXYGEN [REVIEW]
On the strength of singles San Francisco and No Destruction, and, to a lessor initial extent, Shuggie I purchased We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic by Foxygen direct from…
Blood Oaths of the New Blues by WOODEN WAND [REVIEW]
WOODEN WAND, it seems, after doing some brief research, is the moniker of James Jackson Toth who has used it, or variations of it, over the past decade or so to explore various…
GARBAGE at Civic Theatre, Wednesday 20 February 2013 [LIVE REVIEW]
GARBAGE totally make trash of any claims of cynics that they might be tired old has-beens when they played at Auckland’s Civic Theatre on Wednesday night. They teased us older fans, perhaps a…
Do You Just Want Me To Watch You? by ALIZARIN LIZARD [REVIEW / STREAM]
ALIZARIN LIZARD carry on the long and strong tradition of irreverent and hooky and melodic power-pop/indie-punk that harks back to the likes of early Buzzcocks and has taken on many guises and passed…
180 by PALMA VIOLETS [REVIEW]
There’s this funny thing that some quarters of the British music press seem to tend to do whenever a new young band play guitar based indie rock really well and write great songs…
Holy Fire by FOALS [REVIEW]
I really dig the first two singles from Holy Fire – the first both chronologically and album-sequentially, Inhaler starts it’s life, here in the terrain of the longs-player as a claustrophobic continuance from…
Honeys by PISSED JEANS [REVIEW]
Big thunderous sludgy guitars and angry shouty vocals. At times, break-neck thrashes and others mammoth slabby throbs of feedback drenched noise. That, irreverent and venomous good times, is pretty much what one can…
Circles by MOON DUO [REVIEW]
Moon Duo – the not-so-side project of Ripley Johnson (Wooden Shjips) formed three years ago has, for many intents and purposes become his primary focus – simply, he told me in a recent…
Girls : Volume One – Music from the HBO Original Series by VARIOUS ARTISTS [REVIEW]
The purpose of these compilations, I have to be honest, does kind of allude me – I guess, at best, viewers of the show might spin the compilation, find tracks that they remember…
Elements of Light by PANTHA DU PRINCE and THE BELL LABORATORY [REVIEW]
I wager that nowhere, does any producer in a studio shout “chuck a bell on it!” when working on the next club-banger. Probably, if that was a thing, we’d call them club-ringers. Hendrik…
II by UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA [REVIEW]
Putting into words just how good the sophomore album from Unknown Mortal Orchestra is has been proving more than a challenge. Someone (it appears, exactly who, is a matter of contention) once cleverly…
MBV by MY BLOODY VALENTINE [REVIEW]
The mac’s and pc’s of alternative music culture were sent, I imagine, into a whirring flutter on Saturday / Sunday night (depends which timezone you were at I suppose) when the much talked…
