Nite Songs

Okay, time for the big hitters - we did the first half of our Top 100 albums yesterday and now it's ten a day from now until the New Year. Settle down and let's see how the first part of our Top 50 unfolds, shall we?... *** 50. THE KUT - "Grit" Grit  saw the Kut deliver an album more than worthy of their commercial step up in the world, ironing out their old inconsistencies to deliver a well-rounded effort packing plenty of variety and some great tunes and hooks to boot from the driving riff of Not Here For Love  to the shameless power ballad of Satellite . The sound of a band very much arriving. *** 49. CINDY LAWSON - "New Tricks" Something of a local legend in her home state of Minnesota thanks to her '80s band the Clams, New Tricks  is an album that deserves to take Cindy Lawson to a wider audience. Mixing spiky pop-punk, Runaways style gang chants and even the odd bit of grunge and shoegazing for good measure, this is an album with its fingers in man...

  Kirk Brandon's certainly a man who likes to keep himself busy. Not content with taking both Spear of Destiny and Theatre of Hate out touring this year as well as heading up punk/post-punk supergroup Dead Men Walking, he's now signing off 2022 with the first SOD album since 2018's underrated Tontine . It'd be easy for a band who've been around on the scene as long as SOD have to phone it in at this point but thankfully Tontine  showed that they were doing anything but and I'm happy to report that Ghost Population  carries on this good run of recent form. It gets off to a bit of an odd start with Shine  almost sounding like a bit of a requiem with its mournful piano-led feel leading into a soaring chorus but it definitely works. The sinister Clarion Call  and the almost funeral march style Pilgrim  take things back into more familiar Spear of Destiny territory while the tribal drums of Neolythic By Design  and Waster  are suitably unsettling backi...

  Kubix Day 1 Review here And so on to Day 2 of Kubix. While yesterday was a fairly slow-paced opening day to the festival, today proves to be a lot more busy with several stage clashes. In the interest of covering as much as possible, please be aware that for quite a few of the bands I've reviewed here, I didn't catch the full set due to hot footing it to/from the other stage. But hopefully I've done this justice... It's weird how a nice sunny day (a stark contrast to yesterday which alternated between clouds and rain) can make even bands you weren't a fan of first time out seem pleasant enough and Republica , who open the Main Stage today, are a case in point. Back when I was 18, I generally found their Essex girl techno-Britpop about as much fun as root canal surgery without the anaesthetic but today they're enjoyable enough with an energy and enthusiasm to their set that means you'd have to be a bit of a miserable bugger not to enjoy it. They play the hi...

  Formed as a supergroup, initially under the stewardship of Mike Peters, Billy Duffy and Kirk Brandon, Dead Men Walking have been through a few line-ups in recent years with the current incarnation consisting of Brandon, Stiff Little Fingers' Jake Burns and the Ruts' rhythm section of Segs Jennings and Dave Ruffy. This is their belated first album and, as per the group's live shows, it's a mainly acoustic effort consisting of some new songs and a few re-recorded numbers from the various members' main groups. It's to those involved's credit that they haven't leaned back too extensively on their better known material with the only three selections that could arguably be described as obvious ones - SLF's Wasted Life , Spear of Destiny's Never Take Me Alive  and the Ruts' Staring At The Rude Boys  held back for the end of the album and DMW manage to do all of them justice. Aside from the new tracks, the majority of the other selections are from ...