For a few dizzying months in 2007, New Young Pony Club were London’s pre-eminent ‘it’ band. But despite a Mercury Music Prize nomination, commercial success never quite arrived. Now they’re regrouped and planning another full-frontal assault on the pop universe. Singer Tahita Bulmer talks about the personal traumas that coloured their new record and explains why they’re not angry with La Roux for stealing their electro-pop thunder.
It sounds like the opening line to an elaborate joke – heard the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the multi-million selling, gag-stuffed science fiction saga? However, Eoin Colfer is perfectly serious about breathing new life into Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. But what has that got to do with The Blizzards? Read on to find out
Mr. Hudson talks about his mentor Kanye West’s Taylor Swift meltdown, the challenges of hanging with the hip-hop elite when you’re a skinny white guy from Birmingham and why the death of Auto-Tune is greatly exaggerated.
Though her hippyish sensibilities are a throwback to the flower-power era, Florence Welch - aka Florence And The Machine - is one of the year's most hyped new artists. She talks about domestic violence, Andy Warhol and why sometimes hangovers can be good for you.
They used to be a bit of a joke but, with the release of their fantastic new record, The Horrors are suddenly a band to watch. Faris Badwan talks about stepping out with Peaches Geldof, ditching the freak-show hair and recalls his traumatic childhood experiences on Palestine’s West Bank
Following a potentially fatal bout of auto-immune deficiency, Airborne Toxic Event’s Mikel Jollett gave up a damned promising writing career to play music.
She’s the most hyped newcomer since... well, since as long as we can remember. But with her debut album finally here, BBC Sound of '09 winner Little Boots is equal parts nervous and excited.
Tokyo is like a sci-fi version of the West – plus, the people are immaculately polite, the trains run on time and the chances of something unpleasant befalling you are virtually zero.
Assuming they haven’t all grown up by now, Manson fans will adore every dark, juvenile flourish. For the rest of us, The High End Of Low serves as a cautionary tale of artistic regression.
He’s best known for his bout of fisticuffs with Jack White but nowadays it’s the dire situation of his native Detroit that is foremost on the mind of The Von Bondies’ Jason Stollsheimer.
They’re the quirky electro-rockers who have got the music industry buzzing. But don’t mistake Passion pit for another bunch of MGMT clones. As their viral hit ‘Sleepyhead’ confirms, their whimsical sound is entirely unique – as is their enthusiasm for sampling obscure Irish harpists
They’re the hottest thing in British rock, four working class kids done good from the wrong side of the Glasgow tracks. At the start of what is shaping up to be a whirlwind year GLASVEGAS talk fame, football and fisticuffs.
They’ve been underground stars for years now. Now ANIMAL COLLECTIVE are heading for the big time – provided pesky file-sharers don’t ruin their chances.
Over the past 12 months, The Mighty Boosh have made the transition from cult favourites to arena-filling icons. Noel Fielding chats to Ed Power about playing huge venues, his friend Russell Brand's recent difficulties, and borrowing clothes from Courtney Love.
Having a tapdancer instead of a drummer might seem like the height of indie schmindieness, but thanks to Conor Oberst, Tilly and the Wall are heading for the big time.
Being evicted by Take That and hanging out with notorious Hollywood hellraisers like Matthew McConaughey are all in a day's work for keg-party rockers Iglu & Hartly.
Bird watching, real ale and having Jim Davidson taken out by a professional assassin are all on the agenda as British Sea Power swap salty tales with Ed Power.
From child actress to Rilo Kiley frontwoman to hanging out with Elvis Costello: every day is Groundhog Day, but when you're Jenny Lewis that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Released on the web fully two months before it hits record stores, Bloc Party’s third album is as gleaming and hermetically sealed as one of Kubrick’s monoliths.
From the grim and gritty depths of east Glasgow, Glasvegas tout a sure-to-be-huge mix of ragged emotion and vintage vibrations straight out of the Phil Spector playbook.
East Glasgow quartet Glasvegas have nothing to do with the TG4 show. They're the anthemic band discovered by Alan McGee in the same venue he found Oasis.
Heralded britpoppers arrive with surprisingly nuanced debut, awash with yearning psych rock plaintive guitar chimes and lashings of damp-cheeked wistfulness.
Hurricanes, Mexico and computers are on the agenda, but definitely not Kate Moss as Alison Mosshart waxes lyrical to Ed Power about The Kills' new album
Beloved of both nu ravers and Timbaland who neglected to ask permission before sampling one of their songs, Crystal Castles might just be the biggest band to come out of leftfield this year.
Animal Collective regale us with tales of Conan O'Brien, tour-bus illnesses and explain why the life of the footloose musician isn't always a romp through the daisies.
Take one Super Furry Animal, one lap-top wizard and one disgraced motor industry executive and you get synth revivalists Neon Neon and the year's best concept album.
They're flagbearers for the 'new eccentric' scene and the toast of the fashion set. So what are These New Puritans doing writing songs about Michael Barrymore?
Gaspard Augé of acclaimed electro duo Justice on the group’s stunning live performances, upstaging Kanye West and putting the humour back into dance music.
New York quartet Vampire Weekend are set to be one of the breakthrough bands of ‘08 thanks to their inspired brand of Afro-beat tinged rock. Just don’t mention Paul Simon.
He’s the classic indie shyboy who quit music to become a bingo announcer because he can't bear the rock 'n' roll gossip mill. Now Jens Lekman is back with his finest album yet words.
"As diverting as the fashion show is, the costume changes can’t mask an unpalatable truth: Murphy’s discoid shtick is the stuff of cult adoration, not populist adulation."
We’ve tipped them for success in the past, and now, with a New Year upon us, Laura Izibor, Dirty Epic’s SJ Wai and Fight Like Apes’ MayKay are set to sweep all before them.
They invented 'nu rave', bagged the Mercury Music Prize and gave Noel Gallagher the mother of all migraines. You could say the Klaxons have had a busy 2007.
Since swapping Dublin for Los Angeles, hotly-tipped indie rockers La Rocca have experienced all the ludicrous pleasures and extremes of the City of Angels. Here, they regale us with tales from their California exile.
From self-contained sound system to collaborators of choice for everyone from Mutya Buena to Kylie, Groove Armada have perfected the art of beat science.
A white man inducted into aboriginal culture, 29-year old Australian singer-songwriter Xavier Rudd eschews western-obsessed pop for more indigenous spirits.
He’s the DIY pop genius who, in the space of a year, has gone from stacking the fruit shelves at Marks & Sparks to masterminding Kylie’s next record. Meet Calvin Harris the bedsit wunder-kind.
From the goodtime vibes of Hot Chip to the full-on sonic assault of Primal Scream, this year's Electric Picnic was even more fab than its predecessors.
There’s no getting past the thick layer of grief that cakes Ash Wednesday. Far from plunging down a sinkhole of the soul, however, Perkins has struck a note of quiet defiance.
Sussex five piece Mumma-Ra, named after a character from an ‘80s TV show but otherwise earnest to the tips of their skinny denims, wax drippy in extremis.
Frontman Neil Finn is reluctant to engage in the arena-pleasing jinks with which Crowded House made their reputation – anyone hoping for another ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ is going to find Time On Earth a disappointment.
Playing Live at the Marquee on Thursday 28 June: Having caused something of a sensation on the back of their smash hit single ‘Everytime We Touch’, the German-based Cascada are now bringing their infectious brand of dance-pop to Cork.
Icky Thump fizzes with ideas. Nevertheless, you wonder whether The White Stripes are trying too hard to prod a simple formula – guitar, drums, inscrutable irony – into a new direction.
Akron singer-songwriter Tim Easton has just settled in Alaska, a place where people “go mad or die”. Thankfully, he’s still alive and sane enough to tell the tale.
Employing naked female man-slashers in their videos, hanging out with Lee Renaldo, Alex Kapranos and Rosanna Arquette – there's never a dull moment with The Cribs.
Brit-rock heroes Maximo Park are back with a new album – and without the novelty hair-cuts. Here they talk about death metal, hip-hop and missing notebooks.
A universe removed from the campfire boilerplate of 2005’s Howl, Baby 81 sees Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (reunited with drummer Nick Jaggo) rediscovering their sub-Mary Chain fuzzbox growl.
Taking the best – or at least, the most over-the-top – pieces of KLF, Slayer and Radiohead, Enter Shakarai are the hottest thing on eight legs at the moment.
They’ve got a killer dress-sense but there’s more to Mr. Hudson And The Library than spiffing threads. For one thing, they’re surely one of the first hip-hop acts fronted by an Oxford graduate.
From indie shy-boys to multi-platinum chart toppers, it’s certainly been a long, strange journey for The Shins. By now, we all know that Natalie Portman played a part in their success – but what’s Elliot Smith go to do with it?
Only the second unsigned band to sell-out the London Astoria (The Darkness were the first), this St. Albans foursome have variously been tagged as synth-wielding emo kids, New Rave of New Rave late-comers and indie boys on a hardcore trip.
Kicking off in a rush of rudimentary riffs and cracked vocals, The Weirdness suggests all of your fears have come true: rock’s angriest mob have turned into toothless old sleazes, and it seems they’re the only ones not to realise it.
Stepping – okay, perhaps “ tripping” is a better word – into Pop Levi’s phantasmagorically unhinged universe is, by turns, a thrilling and disorienting experience.
Klaxons have got glowstick-waving fans, yes, but really, there’s so much more to this band than retro-beats, explains frontman Jamie Reynolds. For instance, have you heard the one about his spiritual healer grandfather.
Bloc Party's A Weekend In The City is both less oblique and more understated; initially the album proves harder work than its predecessor – at the same time it's more open about what it has to say.
Raised in India and hailed as an heir to Tori Amos, singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot is set to break big in 2007. Just don’t ask her about her appearance on kids’ television.
With Pete Doherty, Mani, Noel Gallagher and Alex Kapranos in their fan club, and a debut album that makes the Arctic Monkeys sound like jaded old has-beens, The View have ’07 by the short and curlies. Just don’t let them stay in your hotel.
Forget all the chatter about solo albums and injuries sustained on the road: Snow Patrol are revelling in the end of a triumphant year, one which saw Eyes Open become the biggest selling album in the UK in '06, as well as making serious inroads Stateside.
We Are Scientists’ 2005 debut, With Love And Squalor, traded in fun if derivative indie-pop: there were snatches of Bloc Party’s avant-rock and lashings of The Killers’ new wave bombast.
They’ve recorded with Broken Social Scene and once shared a flat with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Now Toronto avant-rockers Metric are set to make a splash of their own.
The Polyphonic Spree may have fallen off the map but Swedish 29-piece indie-gospel ensemble I’m From Barcelona are here to fill the football-team shaped void left behind.
For indie boys of a certain age, Tanya Donelly’s absence has been a cause to mourn. The Pixies may have written the A-Z yet in the early ‘90s nobody exemplified the bubble-gum indie aesthetic quite so hauntingly and thrillingly as Donelly’s band, Belly.
Fashion mags have been drooling over Sheffield’s Long Blondes for months now – a pavlovian reaction, one guesses, to frontwoman Kate Jackson’s knack for looking quite dapper in a vintage neck cravat.
Having started out busking on the rainy streets of Dublin, 747s have lately struck up a friendship with Arctic Monkeys and nearly triggered an international terrorist scare.
Messiah J and The Expert aim to put Dublin hip-hop on the map. To do so, they must tackle several deep-set prejudices – such as the belief that Irish people can’t rap.
Rollerskate Skinny frontman Ken Griffin is back with an ace new band, Favourite Sons. And, would you believe it, they’re the toast of New York’s rock scene. Even Jack White’s a convert.
A remarkably confident and infectiously upbeat indie salvo, A Public Display Of Affection throws many familiar shapes but wins the listener over through its sheer, unyielding exuberance.
Despite having Kevin Shields stolen away from them by Gemma Hayes, Primal Scream are in the best shape of their careers. So says Bobby Gillespie in a no punches pulled interview.
Their debut Hot Fuss sold over 4 million copies and in the process set The Killers up as one of the brightest young hopes of the modern era. On the eve of the release of their second album Sam’s Town, the band look like settling for nothing less than U2-sized supremacy. Now, if only Brandon Flowers would shave off that, ahem, controversial face fuzz.
No, not that LeToya. Far from being a Jackson scion, LeToya Luckett is a survivor of another dysfunctional family, having been an original member of Destiny’s Child.
When punk-funk art rockers The Rapture emerged a couple of years ago, they failed to translate tragic hipness into big sales. Road psychosis aggravated the problem, but they weathered in-fighting to ditch the DFA production and strike out on their own.
The Black Keys, two gawky indie archetypes from rust belt Ohio, have been investigating gutbucket blues to mostly memorable effect for the best part of five years now.
Ahead of their much anticipated Electric Picnic spot, Bloc Party talk about going mad in Westmeath and explain why it’s time for a post-punk concept record.
You know her as the songstress from Stars and Broken Social Scene. Doing her own thing AMY MILLAN reveals herself to be, of all things, a country chanteuse, her heart heavy with woe.
On their second record, the Montreal quintet have chosen to go widescreen, abandoning their previous tendency towards bed-sit mopery. The broader canvas suits, though don’t expect to find any of The Dears celebrating the fact.
Tapping the spirit of the shoegaze era Giant Drag have released one of the year’s most beguiling debuts. And in frontman Annie Hardy they have a rock icon in the making.
Razorlight are one of the best bands in the world, or so reckons their dapper frontman Johnny Borrell. In an exclusive interview, he talks about heroin addiction, his troubled friendship with Pete Doherty and explains why Arctic Monkeys are also-rans.
Recorded during the Manics’ two year hiatus (they’re due to reconvene in early 2007), the album sees Dean Bradfield dealing in familiar tropes. He’s still belting out those yearning choruses, still straining for breathless high notes slightly beyond his workman’s grunt.
A case of food poisoning in the Keane camp was Welsh band The Automatic's golden ticket to a Jools Holland performance. Next stop, a UK top five hit in the form of ‘Monster’.
They’ve sold millions of records but don’t expect to find Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton breaking out in a grin. Unless England have been stuffed at football.
It'll take more than a clapped-out tour bus to stop The Answer emulating their heroes. Ed Power hears how the Downpatrick rockers' burgeoning fan club already includes Jimmy Page and Philomena Lynott.
Sometime in the past 12 months Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell took a long, unflinching look at himself in a mirror and saw Pete Doherty staring back. From such moments of clarity are great pop makeovers forged. No longer content to hawk pretty-boy Oasis pastiches, the sulky-looking Muswell Hill-ian, who embodies Razorlight even if he doesn’t write all of the music, has junked the bad-boy patois and cultivated his inner Bacharach.
Yes, the incessant downpour ensured that Punchestown Racecourse often looked more like the set of a World War 1 epic than a music festival, but the rain couldn't dampen the 80,000-strong Oxegen crowd's spirits, not to mention the fiery performances delivered by Arctic Monkeys, Franz, The Who, the Chili Peppers and a cast of, well, hundreds.
Following the implosion of Suede, drummer Simon Gilbert quit the rock'n'roll business and moved to Thailand, only to hook up with a pair of fellow ex-pats, making big music under the Futon banner.
In frontman Richard Archer , Hard-Fi possess a wry, self-aware lyricist, with a gift for poetic bluntness. Musically, however, they remain some way short of virtuoso status – melodies plod when they might soar; their debt to reggae-flavoured post-punk can tip into pastiche.
Matisyahu is a rapper with a difference. As a Hassidic Jew he lives a strictly orthodox lifestyle. Whatever you do, don’t describe his music as ‘heeb-hop’.
Stepping out with Katie Melua has provided ample inspiration for Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard, who isn’t above sending himself up in song or indeed chronicling embarrassments in the bedroom. words Ed Power
With their affirmative vibes and sprawling line-up, indie heroes Broken Social Scene are a sight to behold. But keeping this 40-legged rock machine on the road isn't always exactly a romp in the playground, confesses fromtman keving Drew.
Fairuza have cheekbones, pouts, and occasionally, a memorable tune. Given to wild self-praise, they are a band with the capacity of vex and thrill in equal doses. This, though, is marvelous – an absurd, flamboyant chunk of neo-glam, with grinding riffs and a chorus worth spilling virgin blood for.
Being lazy, one might dismiss Baltimore’s Spank Rock as a sweltering East Coast riff on Dizee Rascal. Squelchy beats, blink-and-they’re-over samples and front-man Naeem Juwan’s frenetic delivery mark this out as hip hop unabashedly of the left-field. Then the chorus, a looping girly-girl chant that burbles like a waterfall kicks in and you forget these guys are pure hipster bait. Marvelous, despite itself.
Having taken electro pop nihilism some distance past its logical conclusion on their unnecessary Evil Heat album – a bored rehashing of the landmark XTMR, with less tunes and more vowels. – the Scream throw a swerve ball with ‘Country Girl’, a lazy slice of Stone-derived country pop. It’s a tune with the air of something cobbled together from a garage sale yet, all the same, scrubs up a treat. You could bring it home to your mum.
She’s a sweet gal – and no, she won’t mind us describing her as such – with a voice that could raise blisters on a corpse. Still, the Rilo Kiley singer’s solo foray into bruised country-rock is several emotional scars short of convincing. You need to have lived through real pain to get away with this material. Lewis’ travails are, one suspects, strictly of the first world ‘mocha or latte grand? – being top of the Starbucks queue is SUCH a dilemma’ blend.
Dublin band most likely Delorentos whet appetites with this thrilling taster for their debut album. ‘The Rules’ posits a sweetly naive collision of swaggering riffs and almost but not quite emo choruses. Too much hype may already have dulled their appeal – it’s ominous when you’re sick of a band not yet on their first record. For now, though, Delorentos are bright young things to watch.
Second let-down in a row from a London band who are genius at sound-bytes – they twigged the Fleetwood Mac revival six months before there rest of us and may just eke a career out of it. With its dreamy melody and furtive chorus – which sounds like a verse that’s been left out in the rain – ‘Fill My Little World’ tells a story of good intentions unfulfilled.
Oh, how we adore Phoenix, high-priests of Parisian easy listening and a band that recognizes the difference between louche and sleazy. Word was that, after the comparative failure of their last record, the newie would cleave to a conventional indie aesthetic. Well, the guitars are a little bit more fizzly. In all other respects: as classy as high tea at served on a silver tray.
Are you, like me, just not digging Delaware’s The Spinto Band? Why such a fuss over five petrol pump attendant-types peddling Pavement/ Yo La Tengo indie-folk, only with all of the interesting loser conflict leached out. Also, singer Nick Krill’s whine achieves what we’d all considered impossible – it’s more irritating than the bloke from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
Hot Chip are marvelous and I don’t care what you think. The world suffers a disgraceful shortage of indie-rock bands who wish they were techno heroes (Soul Wax...erm...) and Hot Chip are a welcome addition. One itsy-bitsy criticism – the song suffers a threadbare chorus. Window-lick beats and a yammering melody mean we’re prepared to forgive a lot, however.
Apparently Coxon’s latest LP, Love Travels At Illegal Speeds was a leap forward in so far as it contained songs that you can hum. Sheesh – what a sell out. Oh, and the thick-rimmed specs – isn’t it time Graham got over the late ‘90s dork chic thing? Nice chorus, though.
Another Antipodeon rock band attempting to simultaneously reference the soul of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and the blues-era musicians those artists were cribbing from in the first place. It rocks, of course, but torn between the impulse to descend into post-prog psychedelia and straightforward meathead metal, Wolfmother are the sound of compromise, albeit compromise writ in large capitals with a string of exclamation points at the end.
She’s New Zealand’s biggest musical star. For her new album, Bic Runga retreats from sunny pop songs in favour of an introspective sound inspired by the death of her father.
Playing a rare Irish show (the first since their ‘Erase/Rewind’ era pomp) the Malmo outfit had the air of arriving superstars – a necessary deception fans were happy to play along with.
The Charlatans throw a curve ball on their ninth record, which sees the former baggy heroes go reggae. Frontman Tim Burgess talks revealingly about the record’s difficult gestation.
Self-confessed musos and manic Hall & Oates devotees, The Feeling might be the most exciting band you’ve heard all year. Just don’t call them a ‘guilty pleasure’.
Give praise for obnoxious guitars. Without them, Semifinalists' wistful, precious debut might be too much to take. As it is, a patina of unruly powerchords and blowsy bass riffs saves the day for the London-based American/Indonesian three-piece.
Kaiser Chiefs and Hard-Fi may have sold more records, but they’re mere also-rans in the tabloid fame game compared to Sam Preston. Ed Power finds out how the Ordinary Boys frontman is coping with life post-Big Brother.
For ‘With Strings’ (a tour captured truthfully, more or less, on the 20-track sprawl of Live At Town Hall) Everett appeared bent on contradiction, at once stripping down and expanding Eels’ sound.
His dreamy electro-pop is winning Ulrich Schnauss an international fanbase. In his native Germany however, they’re still not convinced. Maybe it’s something to do with all those guitars.
Hearts And Unicorns opens as it means to continue, with a dreamy blast of feedback and blizzard drifts of melody. There are cooed vocals and weird dissonant surges – think ‘90s college rock pin-up Tanya Donnelley warbling over a My Bloody Valentine fade-out.
Traffickers in happy/sad alt.pop, Guillemots are one of the year’s hottest contenders. But don’t believe all that nonsense about them performing with vacuum cleaners.
Like the album that immediately preceded it, Ringleader Of The Tormentors is a record of extremes. Extreme bitterness, extreme joy. Above all, extreme guitars – they chug and howl, burying the Moz whine beneath vast drifts of fretwork.
Watching so many acts in sequence, the audience may have discerned a hierarchy. Those on the cusp of mainstream success played with a cocky disregard for the actual event.
His tearful acoustic ballads have become a phenomenon. In a forthright interview José González discusses his terror of writing lyrics and meeting Craig David and tells of his parents’ flight from oppression.
Russian born, New York reared, Regina Spektor writes songs that seem to inhabit their own dark little world. No wonder she’s been compared to both Tori Amos and the anti-folk movement.
A problem is that, as Belle And Sebastian, begin a two night, sold-out run at The Ambassador, the album has not yet been released. A clutch of journalists and downloaders aside, not many are in on the secret.
Drive By Truckers can lay claim an unfortunate honour – they were the last band to play the French Quarter before Hurricane Katrina transplanted half of Lake Pontchartrain onto downtown New Orleans. This, their fifth album, was actually recorded before the disaster. Yet its muted, regretful air feels like an appropriate elegy for a ravaged metropolis.
Steafan Hanvey’s debut is a rare delight, a singer-songwriter record which eschews introspection and deals in sparkling, dare one say it, feel-good, melodies.
They’ve turned their back on breezy pop production and embraced a soulful, indie groove. Belle And Sebastian talk about the making of what might just be their finest record to date.
Thanks to internet fueled word-of-mouth, Brooklyn’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are indie-rock’s latest sensation. But they’d much rather you compared them to Hall & Oates.
What happens when post-rock becomes merely post? This is a dilemma confronting Mogwai, once frontiersmen of sonic extremity, now your third favourite band from the ‘90s.
A dark, dank melancholy drifts over Broken Social Scene, the latest in an unfortunate series of Canadian bands lumbered with the ‘new Arcade Fire’ tag. In truth, the Toronto group traffic in sounds far stranger and more otherworldly than that of their Montreal compatriots.
Her political lyrics and aggressive rapping have made Ms Dynamite a singular presence in hip-hop. In an exclusive interview, she talks about her troubled family background and explains why she took three years out to have a baby.
Carlos Santana is not afraid to share the spotlight. On his 38th album, the Latino virtuoso adopts a revolving door policy, roping in collaborators as though in mortal terror of being left alone. What results sounds like a sprawling salsa jam, frantic yet fatally devoid of a unifying mood or style.
A the Zutons prepare another visit to these shores, saxophonist Abi Harding talks to Ed Power about their hugely successful debut album, the not very difficult follow up and how she can spot a creep at a distance.
Forget Liam and Nicole and Pete and Kate, the hottest rock 'n' roll couple in town at the moment are The Subways' Charlotte Cooper and Billy Lunn. The female half of the duo tells Ed Power about the highs and lows of making beautiful music together.
Jarring, discordant, awash with uncomfortable blasts of tuneless guitar, For Screening Purposes Only follows in the tradition of great unlistenable records such as Big Black’s first LP and Throbbing Gristle’s early work.
Bacharach’s pop instincts clearly tug in both directions at once. This conflict is at the heart of At This Time, an extravagant, confused solo LP which cannot seem to decide whether it wishes to fetch up in a hipster coffee shop or in the background as your bank puts your call on hold.
Ms Dynamite may have found common cause with the international pop Mafiosi, but this is an LP rooted in specifics, the grime and grey of London’s inner-city.
The presence of Madonna feels almost incidental, as Price deals in back-beats and a pounding glib electro-clash. What comes out the other end, sparkling yet full of post-modern grit, is a Madonna song for people who don’t like – or even are actively hostile towards – Madonna.
This sounds absurd and, in practice, proves nearly unlistenable. As Sarantos dribbles and coos, guitarist Matthew Friedberger drops discordant non-song fragments and sister Maria sings in a semi-coherent whisper.
Torquil Campbell, singer with Canadian indie achievers Stars, is a thoroughly nice guy – when he’s not plotting to put photographs of his naked, crucified, Spiddal-born wife on his album covers.
It’s a long time since they graced the stadium circuit, but Simple Minds are still thinking big. Jim Kerr takes time out from sunning himself in Sicily to tell Ed Power their plans.
From balmy folk revivalist to angst-rock totem, there are many Neil Youngs. Sometimes, you wish there was only one: the feckless, snarling fallen angel of On The Beach and Rust Never Sleeps.
Takk, their major label debut, comes across almost as conventional. There are proper songs! With names, and lyrics – conveyed in Icelandic yet recognizably of this universe. Have Sigur Ros gone normal on us?
Raised in the Bible belt, Kings Of Leon have fallen in love with the devil’s music. In an exclusive interview, they explain why rock ‘n roll is just like preaching and reveal what’s in store on their next album.
They may have started out as avant garde indie noisemongers, but The Flaming Lips have matured into one of the greatest and most musical bands on Planet Earth. Plus, they do an utterly magnificent live show!
The damaged licks and feedback-fattened melodies of LA’s Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have always suggested a karaoke riff on your favourite avant-pop outsiders.
Sharp suits, a global fan base, his own luxury recording studio - David Gray has certainly come a long way. On the eve of the release of his latest album, he talks about the dark side of success and explains why he wants to leave the singer-songwriter tag behind
Stereo MCs 1993 breakout album, Connected, was the record that suggested indie and hip-hop could enjoy a beautiful friendship together. Since then, they, and the rest of the world, have struggled to find anything else to say on the topic.
Fans of Alfie, a waifish Manchester four-piece, like to fete the band for their ‘dependability’. This is a polite way of saying you adore something because it isn’t completely dreadful.
Supergrass are survivors and don’t we just hate them for it? This has nothing to do with their music, a blokey psychedelia informed by a flair for everyman pop, and everything to do with cosmic justice.
Covers albums have traditionally ranked among pop’s most pointless pursuits. Frequently, they are flippant and lacklustre, offered up in fulfillment of contractual obligation or as a reminder to wavering fans that a band still exists.
Some performers wish you to know they can sing like angels and howl like banshees. In fact, so proud are they of their foundation-shaking vocals, they hesitate to allow anything as trivial as a song get in the way.
The twisted dance-punk of Hard-Fi is inspired by the angst of suburbia. But that hasn’t stopped them reaching for the stars – or breaking into an airport.
Extreme heat can provoke strange reactions. People lose the ability to fret over pointless dilemmas. Such as: do I watch New Order or the Super Furry Animals? Or, when are Audioslave on and is there time to visit the loo first?
Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo is one of rock’s great eccentrics. In an exclusive interview he talks about meditation, chastity and why ego is the enemy of art.
What is it about this mob that fails to persuade? Their steel peddle revivalism comes on like pastiche, yet it’s subtle, tender pastiche, delivered with intelligence and reverence. There are hints of Beck, glimpses of vintage Nick Cave and tremors too of music that is older, sadder, wiser.
Most bands ache for the mainstream but Cane 141 crave something murkier: the adoration of the underground. Steeped in glitches, swaddled in concise bursts of digital weirdness, the third album from the Galway avant-pop three piece politely pleas for the love of an outsider.
In 2005, what is the point of REM? At times even they seem to be grasping for an answer.
For nearly a decade now, the music of Stipe, Buck and Mills has told a story of wavering attention spans. Over that period, fans have cheered rousing, reflective echoes of previous glories – ‘Leaving New York’ might be their best stab at an unapologetic anthem since the mid 1990s – yet endured reams of disinterested dross also.
The forensic pop-visions of Brian Eno frequently feel dredged from places alien to human emotion. How, his music seems to ask, can the vapid and random flutterings of the heart compare with technology’s unblinking perfection?
For such reasons, Eno’s first album of five years, strikes a curiously retrograde note.
The music of Bodyrockers, a DJ/producer collaboration that wants to see your panty line, is creepy and shudder-inducing. One is put in mind of sweaty, sleazy nightclubs where the air is taut with soured lust and simmering aggression.
The comeback trail has, in its time, thrown up some far-fetched candidates. The highly inconvenient fact of John Lennon’s death didn’t prevent him appearing on a new Beatles single; Thin Lizzy’s busy touring schedule suggests they have long overcome the speed-bump of Phil Lynott’s passing.
Few rebirths, though, have been as unlikely as that of The La’s, a Liverpool band undone by the tortured brilliance of its leader, Lee Mavers.
Ghostly, synthetic and smeared, possibly, in charcoal eye-liner, Billy Corgan’s first solo record throws a bleakly affectionate glance towards the ‘80s and the decade’s parade of sombre new-wave groups.
The suspicion that The White Stripes are a conceptual prank masquerading as a rock group intensifies with each outing.
For their fifth dispatch, Jack and Meg contort their beaten up, gut-bucket blues into wrenching, subversive shapes. A feral heckle as much as a pop record, it flaunts its weirdness gleefully and capriciously.
Self-contained, intelligent, and far from the pouting princess of her stage persona, Natalie Imbruglia in person is a cool customer. The singer here discusses Kylie’s recent illness, her hit album Counting Down The Days, being the face of L’Oreal and forthcoming movie projects. “I couldn’t just do the one thing. I’d get bored,” she tells Ed Power.
Personal catastrophe invites two possible responses – surrender or quiet, dignified resistance. Eels, the American indie-pop band who flaunt their private traumas like couture fashion, have stumbled upon a third way. They’ve learned to laugh at the grisly comedy that is life.
Not that you’d know it from their records, which are awash with avant-garde moroseness. Their most celebrated, 1998’s Electro Shock Blues, recalled the protracted death from cancer of the mother of singer and group leader, Mark Everett.
In Istanbul as a "curious neutral observer" of the Champions League Final, Ed Power was unimpressed by the Irish contingent’s putatively genuine support for Rafael Benitez’s Liverpool side.
Paul Wilkinson of widely touted Coleraine duo, The Amazing Pilots, on the making of the group’s Dave Odlum-produced debut album, Hello My Captor, joining artists like Jarvis Cocker and Evan Dando in paying tribute to Lee Hazlewood, and surviving a visit to the real-life Twin Peaks.
Gorillaz are, in many ways, the pub conversation that went too far. On the back of a beer-mat, it’s certainly a perky conceit: a comic-strip band whose songs muddle genres with cartoonish chutzpah.
In execution however, Damon Albarn’s pet endeavour has too often tended towards debilitating smugness. Toxically pleased with itself, Gorillaz’s self-titled 2001 debut felt like an open-top tour of Albarn’s ego.
With The Coral’s third album, The Invisible Invasion, set to seal their reputation as one of Britain’s foremost indie bands, guitarist Billy Ryder-Jones here discusses their desire to make a classic album, collaborating with Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, and why their reputation as Liverpool chavs is entirely ill-deserved. “We’ve never nicked anyone’s stereo,” he explains.
Sometimes it feels as though Ireland is suffering an overdose of bed-sit earnestness. For a generation of songwriters, elegant mooching has acquired the character of a national pastime.
Amidst the apparently bottomless onslaught of weepy self-consciousness, Paddy Casey cuts a solitary figure. Although no less gushing than his peers, the Dublin singer boasts songwriting chops to match.
Juliette Lewis always seemed too visceral, too wantonly scuzz, for Hollywood. Troubled stars are no novelty but Lewis paraded her confusion like a gunshot wound. Her perma-sneer and ragged complexion glowered in defiance of the dream factory. Frantic and feral , she stank up the screen like a noxious perfume.
Understandably, it’s been a while since she was asked to front a rom-com. In the hiatus, Lewis has plumped for a career in guttural punk-pop. The question posed by You’re Speaking My Language, her frantic and debauched full length debut, is this: does she really mean it?
Not content with corrupting the youth of America with his music, the God of Fuck has diversified into painting, acting and writing. Plus: the singer’s encounters with literary outlaws JT Leroy and Hunter S. Thompson.
The musician crippled by pathological introversion is a familiar trope of indie-pop, a hackneyed pose long since drained of artistic potential. Yet the Amazing Pilots, a Coleraine act built around the songwriting partnership of brothers Paul and Phil Wilkinson, eke fresh possibilities from the stereotype of tortured shyness.
The latest wave of right-wing attacks on US musicians is likely to have a knock-on effect here, with the words and actions of our own artists coming under increased scrutiny. In a special hotpress report, Ed Power enlists the help of Marilyn Manson and a number of major Irish players to pick his way through the censorship minefield.
Exclusive: The new Coldplay album, X & Y, is set to finally hit the stores next month, and Hot Press has been granted a special sneak preview. Ed Power here gives a track-by-track guide to one of the most anticipated albums of the year.
Having departed from Suede in acrimonious circumstances a decade ago, Bernard Butler is now back working with his artistic soul mate, Brett Anderson, this time in The Tears. And as Anderson tells Ed Power, the duo feel their best work is still ahead of them.
There is a tendency to regard Bill Callahan, the morose Kentucky songwriter who trades as Smog, as a sort of bargain-basement Will Oldham, a rural malingerer perched perpetually on the brink of an emotional fault-line.
For all its starkness though, Callahan’s oeuvre is tinged with a cautious beauty. Beneath the artist’s pained snarl – he’s one of those live performers who seems in constant distress – one begins to detect the hint of a rueful grin.
For his 12th record, Callahan retreats from the mannered melancholia of his recent albums. Here, the ominous tranquility of nature is Callahan’s obsession. Where most see a tranquil lake, Callahan senses the sinister undertow.
10,000 Things' songs have a brutalised air, as though they were bullied into existence. Fitful guitars prowl the mix in search of a melody or, failing that, a purpose, while front-man Sam Riley yelps in a manner that suggests he’s about to have his throat slashed.
For such reasons, their self-titled debut feels less like a statement of intent than an obstacle course through the muck. Opener 'Self Destruct' is as tired and tattered as an old denim jacket; a putatively anthemic 'Titanium Boxer Shorts' suffers delusions of tunefulness.
Six months ago, Kaiser Chiefs were complete unknowns. Now, they’re making appearances on the Ant and Dec show, playing Letterman, being saluted by Damon Albarn and heralded as the spearheads of “the new Britpop” movement. The group here give the lowdown on what’s been a hectic 2005 to Ed Power.
Kicking off in a ferociously derivative swamp-rock squall, Exhibit A initially goes out of its way to confirm your misgivings. Couched in zinging guitars that evoke a backwoods ZZ Top and melodies which could have been cadged from a Nashville pawnshop, the record comes on like the work of efficient, but disengaged , forgers.
Perhaps The Features, whose semi-prominence is owed to a Kings Of Leon support slot last year, feel obliged to return the favour through the only means at their disposal: by offering up a misshapen hillbilly-metal pastiche. The gambit seems cheap, as though the group considers such shtick beneath them.
It gets better though.
Blink’s return is an engaging tale of hard work and honesty triumphing over indifference but, close up, the story feels less compelling. For while ‘The Tiny Magic Indian’ touts engaging emo theatrics, its ambitions in the direction of skater-punk anthemia fail to convince.
Mullingar’s The Blizzards have struck upon an appealing FM-rock schtick, buoyed up by optimistic swirls of piano and a bouncy chorus that seems to clamber down from the stereo and deliver a great big slobber of a hug.
The all-girl punk trio Fair Verona flaunt their influences like chunks of gaudy jewelry. There are flashes of The Pixies, a glint of The Breeders, and a saucy wink in the direction of The Donnas. The formula has an overly familiar ring. However, Fair Verona, who are from Tipperary but dress like escapees from a Seattle charity shop circa 1989, work it with chutzpah.
The ‘around and ‘around’ of the title refers presumably to the opening riff, which the Dublin quintet enjoy so much they hang onto it for the rest of the song. Elsewhere, we find a sweaty indie-bloke bellowing about the pain of being misunderstood while the remainder of the band try to figure out who forgot to bring the tune.
Where The Killers and Interpol play karaoke with Joy Division’s legacy, BSP pay closer attention: ‘It Ended On An Oily Stage’ is a funereal romp that would make marble weep. That’s a recommendation, by the way.
Laika’ seems a peculiar choice for single, being the track where Arcade Fire’s debt to Talking Heads is at its most blatantly obvious. Better is the b-side, ‘My Buddy’, a cover of 1940 big band number by Alvimo Rey, great grandfather of AC frontman Win Butler.
The urban Tom Cruise sounds so in love with himself a dissing would seem appropriate if only for the sake of balance. ‘Switch’, it turns out, isn’t entirely hateful – the novelty of a rap single devoid of misogyny or words that rhyme with ‘glok’ incline one to forgive its hammy exuberance.
The Galway singer So claims Sonic Youth, Pink Floyd and Neil Young (“with or without Crazy Horse”) as inspiration, but the only discernible influence here is Dylan-esque folk-pop. On the EP’s lead track, ‘Just For You’, he evokes sweeping vistas but forgets to include a chorus.
What rescues ‘I Can Do Nice’ from the ranks of singer-songwriter orthodoxy is its beguiling melody, delivered with the fretful strokes of an acoustic guitar. The song has the delicateness of spun sulk, the weird beauty of candlelight in pitch darkness.
The sun-dappled territory between chill-out electronica and gentle acoustic rock is the destination of Halfset, three Dubliners who wish life meandered at a more elegiac pace.
Opening with a languid banjo loop that sounds like a dragonfly negotiating a marijuana haze, Dramanalog, Halfset’s mannerly and agreeable debut, casts so slight a presence you sometimes forget it is there.
Neil Young that is. Up and coming Dublin rockers Hal are earning serious kudos for their winning take on classic ’70s rock sounds. And despite dark murmurings of artistic plagiarism, they sure as hell aren’t about to apologise for it, as they tell Ed Power. Photography by Emily Quinn.
It is Tom Vek’s curse that his music evokes nostalgia for our favourite trailblazers. The ramshackle indie-blues he peddles reminds you of a younger, more daring Beck. Those funeral-bell rhythms and caffeinated vocals offer traces of Talking Heads and Franz Ferdinand. His penchant for the odd mouth organ solo, meanwhile, has seen him tagged as “the new Dylan”.
The flamboyant torch songs of Rufus Wainwright feel like jetsam from a dazzling alternative reality.
In Wainwright’s rococo otherworld, Busby Berkeley and Tin Pan Alley cast a languorous and lingering shadow. Overwrought emotion is respected artistic currency. And the Golden Age of Hollywood – the era of high-camp and brash musicals – abides in perpetuity.
Hailing Annie Berge-Strand, a Norwegian former DJ and sometime Royksopp collaborator, as the saviour of sussed chart music is possibly an unfair prognosis. Yet halfway through Anniemal, her cheeky and eloquent debut, you almost start to believe it.
Guero (Spanish for ‘white boy’) represents then is an attempt to reconnect with the slacker who went away. Having downplayed the legacy of Odelay for nearly a decade, Beck has retrieved his baggy trousers and tie-dye accessories and gone back to work.
