Chimpomatic

Sub Pop's newest signings are really lightening my mood of late with this debut album of effortless indie rollers. With lead singer Vincent Kircher's grasp of melody and the ease of which this band deliver their message, That's How We Burn emerges as a record beyond its years. This could be due to the band's stint in relative musical obscurity ....read more

This 5 track EP comes into view as another darkly looming juggernaught in this impressive bands back catalogue. It continues on form the success of 2007's awesome Turn The Lights Out and though doesn't really aim to make much ground in terms of progression it manages to more that solidify this band as one of Matadors more steady exports. ....read more

Wild Nothing is the work of Virginia's Jack Tatum and though Gemini wears its 80's mope influences on its sleeve it does it with pride. Drenched in hazy sunshine, vocals buried in texture, swirling jangle guitars and synth washes all combine to create a glorious mud of sound that penetrates every pore of your being. It has the nostalgia of Pains Of ....read more

Hippies is the Matador debut from this Austin three-piece and it improves on the previous Free Drugs effort. This doesn't stray too far from the archetypal dirty knees of your favorite garage bands and is all the better for it. Out of the ramshackle compositions come sugary choruses, rolling guitars and a frantic rhythm section. Vocal duties are of ....read more

"It must be some kind of... hot tub... time machine" Craig Robinson deadpans to the camera when he and his buddies find themselves in a ski lodge in 1986. That's about the depth of the plot in this wilfully stupid comedy. Which is what makes it work. It feels like a film where they came up with a title that they liked, and then wrote back ....read more

The Album Leaf’s new record ‘A Chorus of Storytellers’ is a very nice album. They’ve been recording for the last ten years and are signed to Sub Pop records, which should tell you something, although I’ve never heard of them before. Possibly because they’re so nice. You know like one of those people that you get ....read more

Deerhunter's Bradford Cox continues his creatively lucrative side project with a stunning followup to 2007's Let The Blind Lead Those Who Cannot Feel. Adopting a more introspective addition to day job's astral soundscapes Let The Blind was conceived from the loneliness of a hospital bed and emanated as a whisper from the cracks of Deerhunter's wall ....read more

The progression that occurred between this Californian bands first installment and 2008's All We Could Do Was Sing hinted at a road that could take them to the momentous heights of Arcade Fire. Sounding like a raggedy relative of the Canadians they shone with effortless grandeur and lifted their sound way beyond their acoustic starting point to one ....read more

I recently invested in a new pair of ear phones. I figured, hey I spend most of my waking time listening to music so why settle for substandard equipment. I was bored of getting half the story, I wanted to hear everything that was intended in a song, I wanted to hear the drummer clearing his throat, I wanted to hear the singer thinking about cleari ....read more

It was relatively late in coming, but the praise that followed Justin Vernon's debut Bon Iver project was unprecedented and warranted. The critics aren't messing about with this new side project featuring Vernon alongside fellow Wisconsinites Collections of Colonies Of Bees - and there has been much frenzied chatter about Unmap for a while now. Whi ....read more

'All my friends are funeral singers', declares the title of the new album by Califone and maybe it's me, but I don't see this as something to shout about. The prospect of 60 minutes of morbid whining seems none-too enticing and a glance through a track list which includes 'A wish made while burning onions will come true' and 'Krill' doesn't leaves ....read more

Over the years Ray Raposa has trodden much ground with his Castanets. With Cathedral, their 2004 debut for Asthmatic Kitty, Raposa's country roots were laced with noise and free-jazz haze-outs, while 2007's In The Vines welcomed in the warmth with its glistening lap-steel moments. 2008 saw the release of City Of Refuge which increased this warmth t ....read more

The world of DIY noise-pop is a different place now than when we last heard from Ohio trio Times New Viking. In 2008 their Matador debut Rip It Off gate crashed the scene and sounded like a major malfunction in the recording room with red lined production drenching what sounded like good pop songs. It arrived with due critical acclaim but now seems ....read more

THEN: The seemingly perfect casting of DeVito, plus 80's babe Michelle Pfieffer made this seem like the ideal follow-up to Burton's (at-the-time) phenomenal 1989 Batman re-imagination. A change in scheduling moved the production from London's Pinewood back to Burbank in California, where a whole new Gotham took up 50% of the Warner Brothers back-l ....read more

Big Pink eh? Classics like ‘The Weight’ and ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’ comprised an impressive first album by The Band and in retrospect, while the songs are more divergent than their eponymous... Hang on, where am I? This isn’t Mojo magazine. Any comparisons to Robbie Robertson’s folk-rock outfit can stop the ....read more

Covers compilation Ciao My Shining Star brings together a broad range of bands to cover the songs of influential musician Mark Mulcahy - with the aim of raising money to support the artists and his daughters after the tragic death of wife and mother Melissa Mulcahy. Mulcahy and his prior bands Miracle Legion and Polaris were never big names in the ....read more