First there was Test Icicles, that scrappy band that scribbled the chaotic, neon template of experimental, noisy indie-punk. Although the unconventional genre-hashers sparked much intrigue, the band split in 2006. Two years later, Dev Hynes, one of the Test Icicles trio, launched back onto the scene with his debut album under the moniker Lightspeed Champion. Opting for ukuleles and acoustic guitars over Moogs and strangled fretboards, a much mellower and accessible sound was heard. His new style, and also his thick black-rimmed glasses, continued the fascination that surrounded his first step into the music industry. Now, after a two year break, Hynes releases his follow-up, Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You.
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Too often is the case that young and breaking bands are buried under the mass airplay of better known, established artists. A new Manchester-based company, Love & Disaster, are clearing the way for fresh talent by releasing a series of EPs. Backing some of the most exciting and attention-deserving musicians in and around the city, Love & Disaster are proudly sharing the overlooked local talent that they feel deserves recognition.

First up in the Northern showcase are Airship, an indie guitar band that surfaced last year. The fast-paced ‘Kids’ bursts open with a siren-like, snappy, Bloc Party-meets-Editors riff. An air of buzzy enthusiasm continues throughout the typical indie track, complete with a sing-along chorus, cymbal-laden percussion and reverberating distorted echo. Continue Reading

It seems like a long time since Biffy Clyro shook the airwaves with their debut studio album in 2002. Seven years and four more albums on, the hairy Scots still manage to conjure up excitement with their heavy melodic rock. With Garth Robinson at their side, the same producer who worked on Puzzle, Biffy Clyro have made Only Revolutions another album that will wow listeners as well as pushing the boundaries to progress their sound further.
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It’s all too easy to label British pop-punk/ emo bands in skinny jeans as whiney, guyliner-scrawled, Americanised twenty-somethings with a need to vent their bottled up teen angst. However, this presumptive branding could see a number of decent bands getting lost or ignored amongst the drivel. Not Advised are a pop-punk band from Southampton. Yes, they wear very tight fitting jeans, and yes, they do sound like they’ve come from the other side of the Atlantic, but there’s a lot more meat in their music than in some of the wilted emo that is flailing around.
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On the release of their debut EP, Amy Pay interviewed folk band Cherbourg. Random but true, the dance moves of the late, great James Brown were unintentionally discussed. Needless to say, the usual music related banter also featured.
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Cherbourg, in this context, doesn’t refer to the quaint city in northern France. Neither does it refer to the aboriginal community in Australia. It is, in fact, the name of a London based folk-rock band who have released their debut EP, Last Chapter of Dreaming. Although they have been likened to Beirut and Arcade Fire, one listen to their dulcet tones will make you wonder why such a comparison was made; the EP makes the four-piece sound a little more stripped back and quite a lot less spectacular. Nevertheless, there is a hidden countrified charm to them that makes the listen worthwhile. Continue Reading

After wallowing in debate over whether to retire from music or not, Patrick Wolf is back and preparing for Battle, his forthcoming album set for release this Autumn. As a warm up for his yet-to-be-announced world tour, the glitter-adorned, self-proclaimed lycanthrope has plotted a four-date tour in March.

Wolf wrote on his blog: “After taking a break from touring last year, I am excited to be back onstage to perform my new album, Battle…I’m so very excited to get back on the open road and onstage where I belong…I am planning to present a whole new bigger production and vision to what I have delivered in the past… So be prepared for many surprises and new arrangements of the best from the last three albums.”

March
8th – Colchester Arts Centre
9th – Gloucester Guildhall
10th Cambridge Junction
12th – London Heaven

Tickets go on general sale on Wednesday 4th February.

Shortly after being confirmed for next year’s Shockwaves NME Awards Tour and subsequently winning an award at next year’s Brit Awards, Florence and the Machine’s Florence Welch, the current London it-girl of indie, took time out to answer Amy Pay’s questions. Read on to find out what Welch’s genre-hopping band have planned for the not-so-distant future. Continue Reading

Before their gig in Cardiff last week, New Zealand’s masters of bleeps and beeps, So So Modern, chatted to TLOBF about their mammoth recent tour, coordinating outfits and possible plans to be radiation therapists and child educators.

Tell us a bit about yourselves and your band.
[Daniel] Hello. My name is Daniel Nagels and I play drums.
[Aidan] My name is Aidan and I play two synthesisers and sing.
[Mark] I’m Mark. I sing, I play guitar and synthesisers and push buttons.
[Grayson] I’m Grayson. I do pretty much what Mark does; I play guitar, play keyboards, play the sampler and do some singing, but I look a bit better.
[A] So So Modern is a band from a city called Wellington in New Zealand. We started just before Christmas 2004. We were just jamming with different people at different times in the same city, but the city is so small that you can’t really avoid anyone that displays similar interests as one’s self and so we just got together. Continue Reading

Tearing up the remains of their theatrical entrance music, the Manic Street Preachers began their Reading and Leeds Festival warm-up gig at Newport Centre with a louder-than-King-Kong-on-a-bad-day version of 1994’s ‘Faster’. Over a decade since they last played at the sports-hall-come-music-arena, James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore appeared, charged with the energy of fifty Duracell rabbits and the same youthful spirit as when they last killed silence in their home county.

Packing in a pitch-perfect set, featuring both old material and tracks from their more recent albums, the Welsh heroes served up a sumptuous smorgasbord of musical treats to keep the timeline of attending fans bouncing the soles off their sweaty shoes for almost two hours. Songs that have gained a permanent place in their setlist over the years, such as ‘You Stole The Sun’ and ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, were polished off to a tee almost effortlessly. Stirring two covers into the song-cauldron, the Manics aired their toughened-up rendition of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ [which wasn't too cringey, despite the exaggeratedly-happy keyboard, and was the nearest the pop princess will get to a full-blown guitar solo] and Nirvana’s ‘Pennyroyal Tea’. The latter, according to Wire, was a favourite of Richie Edwards, the band’s never-to-be-forgotten guitarist and the hand behind their bold and honest lyrics on their first albums, who went missing in 1995. Continue Reading

You know when the CD player knocks on to repeat just as the worst track comes on, leaving the same song looming again and again? Well, this album is like a recording of such an incident: uninspiring, “same-old, same-old” and tiresome.

After their debut album, Bend To The Breaks, seemed to tiptoe unnoticed through the backstreets of 2006, Glaze Records’ Five O’Clock Heroes return with Speak Your Language. Sadly, it seems as though the part-British, part-American band have barely anything original to say; all they seem to do is reiterate and regurgitate the musical styles and sounds of their predecessors. Continue Reading

Glancing at a photo of Fear Of Music, some people might disregard them on the assumption that they are yet another generic indie band. Well, all that can be said is ‘more fool them’. These fresh-faced Mancunians are anything but generic.

Since being spotted in 2001 during their teenage years, Fear Of Music have been pricking up ears nationwide, give or take a few line-up changes along the way. Having provided support for some impressive names including Manic Street Preachers, Silversun Pickups and Mute Math, and with a handful of impressive EPs under their wing already, it isn’t surprising that they have established a fast-growing fanbase. Continue Reading

The Transgressive Hot Summer Tour hits UK cities next month. On the bandwagon this year are six of Transgressive’s biggest names: Absentee, Esser, Liam Finn, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, So So Modern and Jeremy Warmsley. Each night, four of the acts [five in some venues] will take to the stage. Each set will last half an hour, with the running order decided at the start of the gig. At £7/£8 a ticket for the on-road mini-festival, with no mud or dubious looking noodles in sight, it’s got to be pretty good value for money. For ticket information and to find out more about the artists, head over to the Transgressive website at www.transgressiverecords.co.uk.

Tour dates:
July 4th – Oxford Zodiac [14+]
Absentee, Esser, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

5th – Leicester Charlotte [14+]
Esser, Liam Finn, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

6th – Nottingham Bodega [14+]
Absentee, Esser, Liam Finn, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

7th – Sheffield Plug [14+]
Esser, Liam Finn, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

9th – Leeds Brudenell [14+]
Esser, Liam Finn, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

10th – Manchester Night & Day [18+]
Esser, Liam Finn, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

11th – Liverpool Academy 2 [16+]
Absentee, Esser, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

13th – Cardiff Ifor Bach [14+]
Absentee, Esser, Liam Finn, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

14th – Bristol Thekla [14+]
Esser, Liam Finn, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

15th – Birmingham Bar Academy [14+]
Esser, Liam Finn, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

16th – London Cross Kings [14+]
Esser, Liam Finn, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley, Special Guests

17th – Brighton Audio [16+]
Absentee, Esser, Liam Finn, So So Modern, Jeremy Warmsley

19th – Glasgow King Tuts Wah Wah Hut [16+]
Absentee, Esser, Liam Finn, Jeremy Warmsley

Friday 28th March, the opening night of the Laugharne weekend, featured intimate performances from Edward Larrikin and Patrick Wolf. First up was Edward Larrikin, the singer of now-defunct Larrikin Love. Larrikin offered a handful of bright acoustic jaunts, sounding, at times, a little like a half mellowed-Peñate and half Jeff Magnum (Neutral Milk Hotel) minotaur.

The twenty-one year old, pale-faced pixie ended his fleeting fifteen minutes with ‘I Wasn’t Even There’, a simple-yet-clever melodious chant based on a conversation between Lucifer and an angel. With a cheeky, possibly nervous, impromptu chuckle and a quick foot-stomp of relief, Larrikin shyly shuffled off the tiny Millennium Hall Stage to the applause of many who seemed previously unaware of his work. Continue Reading

Photographs by Jacob Saunders. Taken in Oxford, 4th Feburary ‘08.

Like an over-spilling matchbox, Cardiff Barfly was packed to the brim for last night’s sold out Lightspeed Champion gig – a claustrophobic’s nightmare. Ranging from old Test Icicle fans to people not even old enough to remember them, Dev Hynes, a.k.a. Lightspeed Champion, certainly seems to have won a place in many people’s music collection despite his change in musical direction. Continue Reading