Having recently become reacquainted with Gomez’s stunning 1998 debut Bring It On, State… was hoping for something special from Ben Ottewell, the raw, raucous voice behind the epic ‘Get Miles’. It comes as a disappointment then that his debut solo effort contains none of the ragged beauty or rasping blues we might have expected.

Following 2009’s foray into concept album territory, with the ill-advised country-rock opera of The Hazards Of Love, Portland’s Decemberists have returned to the folky blueprint that made them almost household names (in the cool indie households, anyway) with 2006’s The Crane Wife…, even roping Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in on vocals and

There are times watching The Frames play live that State is reminded of that old Sean Hughes gag about two journalists discussing their pint at the bar, with one describing it as “triumphant” and the other “a tour de force”. The Frames may be two decades on the go, but at their best, they still…

Taking up immediately after its predecessor, Assassin’s Creed II, left off, Brotherhood …plunges the player back into the life and times of Ezio Auditore, at the start of the 16th Century, as he bids for revenge against the dastardly Borgia family, led by the power-hungry Cesare and his vampish sister, Lucrezia.
When the Borgia

Looking at and listening to the gristled, gnarly Bob Dylan in recent years, you could be forgiven for forgetting that he was once the brightest new voice in American music, a maverick who rewrote the rules on music publishing and almost single-handedly invented the term singer-songwriter.
Even a cursory listen to this double-CD compilation of…

You’ve possibly already heard Imaad Wasif without even realising it. The Canadian has played with Yeah Yeah Yeahs (as a touring band member and support act), and has also contributed to Lou Barlow’s music (both his solo work and the New Folk Implosion) and worked on the soundtrack to last year’s Where The Wild Things …

Anyone who’s even passingly familiar with first person shooters knows all there is to know about Medal Of Honor…, right? EA’s long-running franchise has nothing new to offer to the genre, correct? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding ‘No’, judging by the evidence of the latest instalment in the series.

Once the darling of middle England, with a Mercury Music Prize under his belt for his debut and the go-to guy for the soundtrack to About A Boy…, Damon Gough’s star has been very much in the descendant for the last few years, as the world seemed to forget his slightly dishevelled but heartfelt

Like getting back in touch with an old friend after a long time apart, Halo: Reach feels deliciously familiar, almost running like a greatest hits compilation from previous titles in the series, with hugely engaging characters, ferocious action and seamless multiplayer modes at your fingertips.
A prequel to the original Halo …games, instead of stepping

Once more into the cockpit, dear boys… The world is in crisis, as terrorist insurgencies are mounting on a global scale, with the disappearance of three Russian nuclear devices merely the latest in a growing series of attacks on the free world. As an elite fighter pilot with the HAWX team, you’re charged with taking…

Six albums in and The Walkmen haven’t cheered up any, which might be bad news for their personal lives but for fans of bruised rock at its very best, it’s manna from melancholy heaven.
There’s nothing dramatically new about Lisbon…: if anything, its production values delve even further back into the annals of NY

The latest instalment of EA’s long-running football franchise doesn’t reinvent the wheel, because it doesn’t have to. OK, so it includes the ability to play as a ‘keeper in the ‘Be A Pro’ section, and the tackling feels more natural than any previous game in the series, but essentially, FIFA 11… contains a series of

It seems the angry young man who gave us Microdisney and Fatima Mansions has finally grown up on his fifth solo album. It’s not that he’s suddenly found love, Jesus or scientology, however: rather Cathal Coughlan‘s rage seems to have dulled or condensed into a more universally acceptable world-weary dissatisfaction. Instead of the squalling guitars…

Is there a busier man than Martin Clancy in the Irish music scene? Doubtful. Not content with having a single in the upper reaches of the Billboard charts, Dublin’s Clancy has more projects on the go than LCD’s Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Del Boy Trotter combined.
May 2010 saw the former In Tua Nua member…