Tool

App-loaded mother of all concept albums from Icelandic myth-maker...

Bit of a hack through the backlog today, beginning with a mild disappointment, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks’ “Mirror Traffic”.

Kind of out of practice with blogging, I’ve been so distracted by other stuff these past few weeks. I have a long list of stuff to cover, though, and this album by Weyes Blood & The Dark Juices seems a good place to start.

Will Sheff’s apocalypse! Raucous, anthemic and their best album yet...

Fans get a surprise in some copies of new album 'Wasting Lights'

As some of you have probably deduced, I’ve had a copy of Bill Callahan’s excellent “Apocalypse” for a couple of months or so now. It’s a lovely perk of the job, getting an album like this so early, compromised a little by Drag City insisting I didn’t mention its existence on the blog for what seemed like an age.

Strange to think that, when the first UK White Denim single turned up, they seemed to be more or less like a garage rock band. I was just re-reading my blog on their UK debut, “Workout Holiday”, and was amused to see some discussion in the comments about their relationship or otherwise with The Hives. Not much chance of that happening nowadays, especially with “D”.

I don’t mean to suggest “Let England Shake” is anything other than excellent, but I can’t help thinking that one supplementary reason why PJ Harvey’s latest album has had such laudatory reviews (better, mostly, than the equally good “White Chalk”) is that offers journalists so much to write about. “Let England Shake” is so full of imagery, content, allusion, it offers up boundless possibilities of meaning. Reductively, it has been called a protest album. Expansively, you can parse (or, maybe, project on) it for all manner of ideas about war and nationality.

OK we're downloading "King Of Limbs" now, and I think we're going to have a go at liveblogging it as we go. Join in,won't you?

Weller plays at memorial concert