Author: Jim Pusey Page 2
Yuck - Stranger Things Album Review
It's been five years since Yuck's eponymous debut album, which impressively harnessed a post-grunge sound that made that record feel like a legitimate 1990's relic, rather than a pale imitation. That the band from London...
Review posted on 18th February 2016
Shearwater - Jet Plane And Oxbow Album Review
In the wake of some high profile deaths in the days and hours that heralded the arrival of 2016 the cultural climate seems to have taken on a sense of nostalgia. Celebrating past success and...
Review posted on 25th January 2016
John Cale - M:FANS/Music For A New Society Album Review
John Cale is relentlessly innovative, his latest project is a radical re-interpretation of his 1982 album Music For A New Society. The result is a dramatically different album using familiar building blocks, perhaps a better...
Review posted on 12th January 2016
Jim Pusey's Top 10 Albums Of 2015
I'd argue though that the last twelve months has seen the strongest showing from female artists across the board for many years. Many acts would easily have made my year-end list on a different day,...
News posted in Music / Festivals on 22nd December 2015
Bruce Springsteen - The Ties That Bind: The River Collection Album Review
Springsteen’s fifth album, and his only double studio offering, The River remains an important part of his back catalogue. Somewhat overlooked, it lives under the shadow of the likes of Born To Run and Born...
Review posted on 9th December 2015
Adele - 25 Album Review
It may come as a bit of a surprise to some, but I am partial to well-crafted Pop. Over the course of three albums Adele has developed into an artist who has not only captured...
Review posted on 7th December 2015
Beach Slang - The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us Album Review
Beach Slang's debut album, The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us, is yet another record that makes me want to jump on a plane and hang out in bars in their...
Review posted on 16th November 2015
The Staves - The Old Fire Station, Bournemouth, November 8, 2015 Live Review
There was a distinctly religious feeling to proceedings when Watford based trio, The Staves, played at Bournemouth's Old Fire Station last weekend. It wasn't just that the Staveley-Taylor sisters were performing on a Sunday night...
Review posted on 12th November 2015
The Staves - Interview
Ahead of their recent show at Bournemouth's Old Fire Station, Watford's The Staves sat down with Contactmusic's Jim Pusey to discuss working with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, touring with Florence Welch, the best records of...
Interview posted on 12th November 2015
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats - Patterns, Brighton - October 16th 2015 Live Review
It's always a pleasure to see an accomplished band play to a sold-out audience in a small club. When it's a Soul band with a Hammond organ, sax, trumpet, and all the trimmings, it's best...
Review posted on 20th October 2015
EL VY - Return To The Moon Album Review
4AD is perhaps the perfect home for EL VY's debut album Return To The Moon, it's somewhat of an oddity as a collaboration between two established artists that seems to fit into the tradition and...
Review posted on 9th October 2015
Lucero - All A Man Should Do Album Review
Lucero's new album 'All A Man Should Do' is like good bourbon, and it's not just that the Alt-Country veterans hail from Tennessee. Like a shot of the good stuff, there's a faint sweetness amongst...
Review posted on 17th September 2015
Craig Finn - Faith In The Future Album Review
Craig Finn's second solo album, 'Faith In The Future' (released on Brooklyn-based indie label Partisan), is the best evidence yet that the 44-year-old could write the great American novel of the 21st Century if he...
Review posted on 8th September 2015
Beach House - Depression Cherry Album Review
Album number five from Baltimore Dream Pop duo Beach House is another impressive achievement. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally have been keen to point out that Depression Cherry is an evolution out of step with...
Review posted on 25th August 2015
Pavement - The Secret History, Vol. 1 Album Review
Welcome to an alternate universe, one in which Pavement's critically applauded debut 'Slanted and Enchanted' didn't happen in 1992. Instead, imagine that Stephen Malkmus, Scott Kannberg and Gary Young had recorded an entirely different set...
Review posted on 10th August 2015
Gilmore And Roberts - Conflict Tourism Album Review
It seems odd to describe a record as polite and well mannered, but in essence that's what much of the material on Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts' fourth full length studio offering boils down to....
Review posted on 30th July 2015
The Rolling Stones - From The Vault: The Marquee, Live in 1971 DVD Review
The latest release in the Rolling Stones' 'From The Vault' series comes hot on the heels of the remastered and expanded reissue of their seminal 1971 album 'Sticky Fingers'. While The Marquee gig is a...
Review posted on 22nd June 2015
Isle Of Wight Festival 2015 Live Review
It's perhaps fitting that my prevailing memory of this year's Isle of Wight Festival will be guitars. This was after all the 45th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's legendary performance on the Island, something that was...
Review posted on 16th June 2015
Florence + The Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Album Review
If 2011's 'Ceremonials' was the exorcism of Florence Welch, then the 28-year-old's follow up 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful' is her break-up album. While that may seem a somewhat fashionable move this year -...
Review posted on 1st June 2015
My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall Album Review
My Morning Jacket's seventh studio album 'The Waterfall', their first in four years, finds Jim James' five-piece band in a psychedelic and pastoral mood. It demonstrates many of the experimental tendencies of James' 2013 solo...
Review posted on 12th May 2015
Best Coast - California Nights
There comes a point for many bands where they seem to shift up a gear. Their sound doesn't change, there's no magical lyrical progression, but perhaps with increased confidence everything just sounds bigger. Think back...
Review posted on 5th May 2015
Dan Mangan - Bleach, Brighton - April 29th 2015 Live Review
Dan Mangan's return to Brighton on Wednesday night was almost three years to the day since he last set foot on a stage in the town. In fact, last time I saw the Canadian musician,...
Review posted on 1st May 2015
Seasick Steve - Sonic Soul Surfer Album Review
It's difficult not to like an album that crackles into life with instruments that sound like a rattlesnake preparing to pounce. That is how Steven Wold, better known to the world as Seasick Steve, has...
Review posted on 24th April 2015
Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color Album Review
Alabama Shakes' use of Blues Rock and Soul has taken the four-piece band from Athens, Alabama, to great heights in a relatively short period of time. Their sophomore effort 'Sound & Color' is a similar...
Review posted on 13th April 2015
Modest Mouse - Strangers To Ourselves Album Review
Reviews of Modest Mouse's sixth studio album 'Strangers To Ourselves' have seemed keen to label frontman Isaac Brock as an eccentric. You'd imagine, then, that the eight-year gap between albums has seen him fall down...
Review posted on 31st March 2015
Frank Black and The Catholics - Complete Recordings Album Review
Frank Black's continued curation of his career highlights seems to be an ongoing process. Following the somewhat successful resurrection of The Pixies that reached a pinnacle last year with their first new record in two...
Review posted on 12th March 2015
Joe Pug - Windfall Album Review
Joe Pug's third record 'Windfall', his most accomplished work to date, shows why his re-location to Austin from Chicago was a clever move. His folk compositions are now soaked in Southern Country instrumentation and references...
Review posted on 9th March 2015
Brian Wilson - No Pier Pressure Album Review
Brian Wilson's solo back catalogue has been an impressive re-imagining of the distinctive song writing that catapulted The Beach Boys to success half a century ago. The 72-year-old's eleventh studio recording under his own name...
Review posted on 23rd February 2015
The Staves - If I Was Album Review
In the five years since the release of their debut EP, The Staveley-Taylor sisters, better known to the world as The Staves, have undergone a dramatic transformation. Their song writing, initially rooted solely in the...
Review posted on 3rd February 2015
Bjork - Vulnicura Album Review
Björk has always navigated a delicate balance between genius and whimsy. The 49-year-old's ninth solo album certainly falls pretty close to the former category, making it all the more disappointing that an internet leak has...
Review posted on 30th January 2015
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Leisure Festival - Dreamland in Margate
On the same day that Glastonbury welcomed back Margate's adopted sons, The Libertines, Margate itself put on it's very own Leisure Festival as it...
Pretty Fierce talk to us about collaborating with Doja Cat, emetophobia, arena tours and staying "true to yourself" [EXCLUSIVE]
Sheffield's very own all girl group Pretty Fierce are still on a high after the recent release of their debut single - 'Ready For Me'.
Will Varley & Jack Valero - The Astor Theatre Deal Live Review
Three nights before the end of his current tour Will Varley returned to his home town of Deal to delight a sold out crowd in The Astor Theatre.
WYSE talks to us about her "form of synaesthesia", collaborating with Radiohead's Thom York and the prospect of touring with a band [EXCLUSIVE]
With only a few days to go before Portsmouth based songstress and producer WYSE releases her new single, 'Belladonna', we caught up with her to find...
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Bay Bryan talks to us about being a "wee queer ginger", singing with Laura Marling and being inspired by Matilda [EXCLUSIVE]
Colorado raised, Glasgow educated and Manchester based Bay Bryan is nothing if not a multi-talented, multi-faceted artist performing as both...
Keelan X talks to us about staying true to "your creative vision", collaborating with Giorgio Moroder and being "a yoga nut" [EXCLUSIVE]
Former Marigolds band member Keelan Cunningham has rediscovered his love of music with his new solo project Keelan X.
![Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]](https://images.contactmusic.com/images/home/homepage/luke-de-sciscio-abof-a.jpg "Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]")
Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]
Wiltshire singer-songwriter Luke De Sciscio, formally known as Folk Boy, is set to release is latest album - 'The Banquet' via AntiFragile Music on...
Annie Elise talks to us about the challenges a female producer has to face and "going through a year of grief and sickness" [EXCLUSIVE]
Electronic music pioneer and producer Annie Elise says that the release of her first EP - 'Breathe In, Breathe Out' feels "both vulnerable and...
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