Category: women in the music industry

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The Wombats: “Fix Yourself, Not The World” – Album Review

After finding renowned TikTok success, The Wombats find new form in their Talking Heads-esque style of modern music – without the album being “too pandemic-y.”

Reflecting modestly on the horrors of the past few years in regards to COVID-19, the trio of Matthew Murphy, Tord Øverland Knudsen, and Dan Haggis wanted to keep the bold and fun of Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life interloped with the fragile and fragmented of self-reflection … and the hopes of seeing those lights at the end of the dark, long tunnel.

Murph’s zany lyrics are here in their comfortable masses (“Don’t wanna be talking to myself in a supermarket/Watching myself sink into a carpet somewhere/Don’t wanna end up there”) and truly incorporate an expertly-built album that encompasses new sounds of highs and lows fitted into a Wombat wonder that we’ve all grown accustomed to over the years.

Ever since they shared their love of Joy Division and ultimately forgetting the irony over ten years ago, The Wombats have become a musical – and cultural – phenomenon to the world of indie and rock abound. In the time that an unknown remix of Greek Tragedy came one of those re-used songs used by millions on TikTok, their following and listens skyrocketed and resulted in a profound reflection on their chaotic journey to achieving international fame.

Their fifth instalment is a true telling of captivating songwriting, modest musical moments and a band that are well and truly in the element. With a pre-tour to boot with more to come in the Summer, it will be a year for the ages.

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Twin Atlantic: Transparency – Album Review

FIRST WEEK, PLENTY OF NEW 2022 MUSIC: From a change in era to another, there seems to be an apparent monsoon of new music in our midst this week, with the 7th of the day the first Friday into the new year.

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Emblazoned in the comfort of remote recording during the time of a pandemic, the album is more of a happy accident rather than that of a cultivated design. Still, the album is bold, abrasive and another synth-inducing powerhouse inciting that of our past tenures from 80s synth-pop and early 00’s dance electronica.

Despite the rapid change in electronica for Twin Atlantic since their underwhelming POWER turned the tide in 2020, this album steers a band in a more compulsive direction with fun one-timers One Man Party and Bang on the Gong simply being ordered to play loud.

It may be a stretch to conclude that the Twin Atlantic of 2011’s Free and 2021’s Transparency are the same band but alas, for a band faltering for new material in their past state of songwriting, any change is a good change. At least they’re evidently making music they love making.

Despite the album being somewhat safe and flat in some places however, the narrative is a feel-good setting with the lads just merely experimenting when forced into a studio during lockdown.

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… Sharing fulfilling stories on the absurdity to social media in parenthood, the album is an intriguing and exciting prospect for a new dawn eclipsing onto one of our favourite Glaswegians …

LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS BELOW! Any ideas coming to mind?

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The Weeknd: Dawn FM – Album Review

NEW TO 2022: After clutching all the headlines with his much-lauded 2020 album of “After Hours,” Abel Tesfaye stepped into something new and something of reflective prowess. Cleary, Tesfaye simply knows no bounds in terms of exploration, as his fifth album takes off with any pre-warning safety announcements. Harnessed in to a fictional radio station that goes by the name of 103.5 Dawn FM – with Tesfaye’s apt-neighbour Jim Carrey narrating along the way – the album swoons and careens into the plethora of dark and cool Depeche dark-synth pop.

Unlike the tensive, illustrative work of After Hours that somehow puts up a front throughout, Dawn FM is a mature new approach to resolving past mistakes and stepping out from the shadows as a better person.

Accepting fate rather than denying plausibility is a encouraging tact here through the telling of Dawn FM …

“God knows life is chaos but he made one thing true: you gotta unwind your mind, train your soul to align and dance til you find that divine boogaloo. In other words: you gotta be heaven to see heaven. May peace be with you.”

… after all, it is always darkest before dawn. And after dawn, comes a new day.

Familiars feature the poignant, self-reflective Out of Time, the janky guitar-flex of Sacrifice and the incessant bass jabs of Best Friends to the trap drum machine overruse of Don’t Breaky My Heart, the album suffers somewhat in depth as it does in musicality. But it is an ultimatum of sorts – it is one we must get pass through ourselves.

Reflective of his journey, has The Weeknd finally found peace within himself?

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LabBaby, Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s Christmas Hit: Going for the Christmas Quad

In an attempt to become the first music “artist” to earn the Christmas Number 1 single for the FOURTH year in a row, Internet personality and blogger of LadBaby (better known as Mark Hoyle) and his wife Roxanne are earning their weight in sausage rolls by donating all proceeds to Trussell Trust UK, an immensely important charity during this time of the year, providing the nation with necessary and life-saving food banks. This time … they have two colossal names in the world of music to fit the roster – and to get them over the line in emphatic fashion. Sir Elton John and Ed Sheeran.

The song is a zany and heart-warming take on Sheeran’s and Elton’s original Christmas release of Merry Christmas For Everyone which plays into the nation’s utter adoration for sausage rolls. It may be interesting to note if both Elton and Ed gave away their earnings from their own song to charity too … Anyway, I digress. With Christmas being a particularly difficult time for many across the nation, this comes at a much-needed time for during both Christmas and a global pandemic that has caused hurt, anguish and despair over the past two and a half years we have endured the work of COVID now.

So please … even if you don’t buy singles anymore, do it for this one because it’s all going to a good cause. Merry Christmas, folks.

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Return of the Tale: More concerts are cancelled in amidst COVID surge

From punk-idled Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes cancelling their two intermittent London shows off the back of their ‘Sticky’ tour to Harry Styles’ Pre-Orange Bowl concert being cancelled in Florida overseas due to a variant surge amongst the prevailing pandemic, the live music sector is amongst fears yet again as we enter a ‘new year’ in 2022.

We may very well be venturing into a lockdown in January 2022 too, so a lot of cancelled concerts will more likely return for Spring and Summer seasons next year, which means more months postponed in a music industry – already trying to adjust and amend itself from the 10-month lockdown closure that we saw at the start in 2020.

Should we be expecting to live with these COVID variants moving forward? Even with vaccinations strife among our population, these variants are still running rampant with positive cases throughout Europe and the US. Will we ever evolve to normality again with us attending live music events for a full working annual year? Only time will tell.