Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Sunday, December 08, 2024
Sarah Blasko - I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain (2024)
Lady of a unique and fascinating voice Sarah Blasko returns to the past, revisiting it, in what is her seventh studio album: “I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain” and her first as an independent artist.
A return to the mountain of time that has passed, a mountain so often too steep and tortuous that it rises before each one like a presence that crushes and crushes.
“I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain” is also a magnificent return to an essential way of being that emphasizes and in what way all of Sarah Blasko’s brutal natural talent.
“I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain” offers us a lineup of powerful songs with revivifying lyricism, almost salvific in a Christian sense, capable of cinematically transporting the listener to different levels of emotion.
Two decades after debuting with the album “The Overture & The Underscore”, Sarah Blasko continues to evolve her artistic talent and has certainly produced one of the most beautiful albums of 2024 on a global scale.
INDIEVOTION RATING: 9.4/10
Wednesday, December 04, 2024
Sunday, December 01, 2024
Monday, November 18, 2024
Desperate Journalist - No Hero (2024)
Since its formation, Desperate Journalist has consistently released some of the most modernly compelling music in the renewed Post Punk genre without repeating itself from album to album, sticking the band to a sonic formula and letting it go.
Throughout their discography, the band has managed to deliver something different on each album, making it more consistent than the previous one in terms of composition, instrumentation, Jo Bevan's vocals, the crucial presence of Robert's guitars or the fabulous rhythm section composed by Caz and Steve.
The feeling that the listener and loyal fans of Desperate Journalist get is that they are not a mere collection of different individuals, each with their own abilities, but a unit that works like a band should always work and that is absolutely remarkable and displayed unequivocally on all of his albums, although it seems to be most clear on “Maximum Sorrow” and particularly on “No Hero”, his most recent, majestic and great sonic leap.
Album after album, the question has always been what Desperate Journalist will do next, because the previous album was already so good. And once again after the extraordinary “In Search of The Miraculous”, “Maximum Sorrow”, they moved forward with what can somehow be considered their simultaneously most ambitious, daring and mature album compared to what they did previously yet without move away from the path they have taken so far and which places them among the most renowned bands not only in the United Kingdom but throughout Europe.
In terms of the creative process, the approach to composition and the elaboration of each song with the introduction of various electronic elements (read synthesizers and drum machines) clearly acted as a turning point because the atmosphere created on Desperate Journalist's new album surpassed whatever expectations one had regarding what they would be able to produce on their fifth album of originals. The band has gained depth, the songs are more textured and there is an atmospheric density that combines perfectly with the guitars and the rhythm section.
We know that when integrating a band into a musical genre like Post-Punk we are probably committing some exaggeration since, in a way, after Punk, all bands became Post-Punk in some way, although there are certainly some characteristics that help to define some bands as being more in line with the Post-Punk genre, in its classical understanding, than others.
Desperate Journalist is one of them and currently on the UK music scene and even globally they are certainly one of the most prominent representatives of the genre, as well as the band that seems to be effectively contributing to an aesthetic readjustment of Post-Punk, integrating into its creative process some aspects that have always been present in some way in this musical genre, such as electronic temptation.
When listening to “No Hero”, their most recent album, this idea gains ground: we can almost identify one by one the bands that seem to have influenced the concept of this magnificent new album by Desperate Journalist. The band's most recent album demonstrates beyond any doubt that Desperate Journalist are undeniably one of the most consistent and brilliant contemporary bands because let's face it, there are certainly very few bands that can boast of having produced five practically immaculate albums over the years. which have evolved just enough so that all albums have their own identity, circumstance and temporality without sticking in an undifferentiated way with their predecessor.
In “No Hero” Desperate Journalist has produced one of the most precious, exciting, superb and lyrically important batches of music of 2024. There are ten breathtaking songs on an album that constantly begs us to play again. And with each new listen, new emotions and more enchantment. A musical treasure. The best album of the year? Most likely, yes.
INDIEVOTION RATING: 9.4/10
Friday, November 08, 2024
Porridge Radio - Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me (2024)
"Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me" is a cathartic album where the songs explode with poetic energy that spills out into a genuine ode of euphoric indie rock made of fury and intimate reconciliation. Well done Dana Margolin.
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Emma Russack - About The Girl (2024)
"When desire loses its direction - without any person or object to fixate on - it has a strange tendency to direct us towards the past."
These words that can be read in the introductory note of Emma Russack's latest album "About The Girl" genuinely remind us of a famous song that is sung like this: "When the routine is difficult and emotions are low and resentment rises, but emotions they don’t grow and we are changing our paths, taking different attitudes.”
Not that Emma Russack, who almost two decades ago made a brilliant version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" makes any attempt to sound like Joy Division, quite the opposite. Emma Russack in “About The Girl” sounds like someone who replaced the resentment that often accompanies the end of relationships and romantic breakups with self-reflection, a situation that once again brings to mind, now no longer Joy Division, but that famous Socratic phrase cited by Plato in which it is stated that “the unexamined life is not worth living by a human being”.
“About The Girl” reflects precisely this dive into self-reflection, into the investigation of a meaningful life through past events and individual circumstances without allowing itself to be confused with the mere nostalgia that is present in the album.
This is probably one of the main reasons for the highly seductive collection of songs that Emma Russack has composed for her sixth album. “About The Girl” was built and based on simpler and more acoustic musical structures, after all perhaps the most appropriate approach when looking to look at the past to uncomplicate it. It is also interesting to note that the introduction of some electronic and rhythmic elements in certain songs helps to reinforce the atmosphere.
“About The Girl” is once again an eloquent demonstration that Emma Russack is indisputably one of the most relevant names in the contemporary generation of Australian musicians.
The album cannot be compared with the previous ones, namely "The Winter Blues", although some songs touch on the same themes and question similar concerns, but "About the Girl" is particularly different because it denotes, from the opening to the final track, a more mature approach to Emma Russack's recurring problems, both lyrically and musically.
A very balanced, cohesive and coherent album that offers a very rewarding listening experience and a handful of standout songs like "Everything is Big"; “In 2001”; "I know you feel this way too", "This isn't free" and "Time". Overall, "About The Girl" is one of the best albums of the year to come from the so-called Australian music scene and beyond.
INDIEVOTION RATING: 8.7/10
Thursday, October 24, 2024
The Waeve - City Lights (2024)
The Waeve, formed by Rose Elinor Dougall and Graham Coxon, established themselves immediately after their debut album as one of the most stimulating, aesthetically coherent and consistent musical projects on the current UK music scene.
With the release of their second album “City Lights”, if there were any doubts about The Wave's excellence, they completely dissipated. This is afascinating album, made up of a very homogeneous collection of songs that offers the listener a mix of delicious sounds in moments of pure magic.
Since the first album, The Waeve has shown what it came from, what its musical references are and the tremendous difference that a genuinely powerful human and loving connection between the duo Dougall - Coxon can have in the construction and consolidation of a successful musical project.
“City Lights” is undoubtedly one of the most successful and rewarding poetic and musical moments of the year. An album that is an authentic nostalgic ode to a certain lost paradise. Superb!
INDIEVOTION RATING: 8.9/10
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
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