Gallo ron

Their 13th LP, and, luckily, it's rather good

Daniel Craig's James Bond returns for revenge

QUANTUM OF SOLACE HHH DIRECTED BY Marc Forster STARRING Daniel Craig, Matthieu Amalric, Olga Kurylenko OPENS October 30 CERT 12A 105 MINS Cumbersome title aside, it would be churlish to underestimate the amount of goodwill directed towards what, for brevity’s sake, we’ll stick to calling Bond 22.

As is always the way, I suppose, I finish one compilation of newish psych acts, then a load more records start turning up. For a good 30 minutes now, my new favourite band has been some shady punks from Long Beach who allegedly travel in “a vegetable oil-powered school bus”, and have a percussionist called, well, Sexual Chocolate.

Much as I like a fair bit of hardcore, there’s a slightly dim earnestness surrounding some contemporary bands on the scene (like the musically quite interesting Gallows, I suppose) that can sometimes be irritating. Obviously I can sympathise with the ideology, but I guess I’ve reached a point in life where I don’t need to be lectured on the multifarious iniquities of the music business - or the iniquities of life, come to that - in such artless terms.

Troubled Dark Knights of metal return to form

After a mystifying diversion, Arizona duo return (in part) to familiar, dusty territory

When Klaus Dinger died a few months ago, I mentioned in an obit here that I had an unpublished interview with Dinger and Michael Rother, from when they briefly reunited to promote the Neu! reissues in 2000.

Tonight is the second night of The Great Escape festival and, of course, the second night of Uncut's selection of bands at the Pressure Point, tonight featuring Edinburgh's Broken Records and Brooklyn boys Yeasayer.

No irony. No significant changes. No problem!