Elizabeth Taylor once said that success was the best deodorant of all. If we can believe Queen Liz, then James Vincent McMorrow must be smelling pretty good right now because here we are in the Olympia for the second night the Dubliner has sold out the venue.
Flashback to 2010 and James headlined Whelan’s, a…

In a sea of quirky, one-of-a-kind singers, Feist was always something different, wasn’t she? She wasn’t look at me I’m kooky like Florence, didn’t ape Kate Bush, was never the emotional mess that was Chan Marshall (praise the lord for that one) and, unafraid of a big number dance routine, she wasn’t as po-faced or…

Never one to shy away from pushing the boat out too far, Patrick Wolf is back with a record that’s less “Look at me! Look at me!” and more “This is the talent my hardcore fans have been screaming about for years.” Based on a first listen, fifth album Lupercalia… is the better looking, less

Author: Eamon Nancarrow
(Showcase UK)
Bandana-sporting, air guitar wielding aspiring rock gods of the ’80s take note – your ill-fated quest for rock superstardom has made its way into print. In Holywood Star… (think NI not LA) author Eamon Nancarrow recalls his pursuit of fame by ditching the typical music memoir fare of excess in

Marianne. Ah yes, symbol of womanhood to our Gallic friends, but stick ‘Faithfull’ on the end and you conjure up different images; ’60s icon, legend, Stones WAG, fashion inspiration for Kate Moss, smack and breast cancer survivor, oh and subject of the infamous mars bar tale from Rock Babylon…. Now on her 23rd record, Marianne Faithfull’s discography

“Consistently reliable” isn’t the most exciting musical appraisal, in fact it sounds a bit like a character assassination, up there with ‘harmless’ and ‘nice’. But for the once side-project now full-time Twilight Singers their four albums prior to Dynamite Steps… have been exactly that.
If you’re familiar with the work of Greg Dulli, you know

There was a time when posh London boys masquerading as poor, romantic free spirits were deemed the future of not only music but of pop culture. That ship has sailed but no one has told Carl Barat. If you can get past the sleeve image of Barat taking his own picture in a mirror (analyse…

Was it a Samson-like moment when the beards and flowing locks got chopped? Did it come with the release of lyrically abysmal pub favourite ‘Sex On Fire’? Or was it just the natural sting from international success? The point where Kings of Leon morphed from quirky, redneck hopefuls into rock-lite stadium dinosaurs is yours to…

In a culture of ‘guyz’ and ‘lolz’, where N-Dubz are role models and Kanye is God, Tinie Tempah has shot from the underground to make the top of the charts his castle, like Dizzee before him.
Written on the back of Number 1 hit ‘Pass Out’ Disc-Overy…, Tempah’s debut (no, really), is very much

Since her departure from Belle & Sebastian, Isobel Campbell’s solo career has been patchy (her atrocious take on 60s classic ‘Bang Bang’, anyone?). Yet with Ballad of the Broken Seas, her first collaboration with rent-a-guest-vocalist Mark Lanegan, it seemed she had pulled perfection out of the bag. Third time around, the question is – have…

Seeing a legendary band past their heyday is always a risky endeavour. Like the old adage of never meeting your heroes, a lot rides on the encounter, enough to shatter your long-held illusions and wonder what all the fuss was about. In the Vicar Street bar, 80s hits like Frankie’s -Relax’ filter through the trickling…

For most music writers, reviewing what you love is more difficult than tearing into what you hate. Fact. So coming up with enough complimentary adjectives to detail the most recent Dublin show by the always bankable Mark Lanegan is indeed a quandary. While Lanegan’s performances are forever an occasion to look forward to, he occupies…

Five years since the release of Howl and the subsequent internal wranglings of the group began to surface, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club seem destined to be remembered for what they could have achieved but didn’t quite get there. With the release of new studio album Beat The Devil’s Tattoo…, their first LP on their

Being bestowed with the title of ‘Sound of X Year’ can be a blessing or a curse and is a gauntlet nine out of 10 artists are destined to fail to live up to. With Ellie Goulding’s debut, Lights…, the hype machine has unfortunately claimed another victim.
Reinterpreting folk-pop through synths and samples, the