" I ‘ave no truck with nostalgia freaks " - M.E.S. Following on from the 'Container Drivers' Grotesque album and his aural assault on Kay (Older Lover, Slates), Hex Enduction presented the finest collection of Fall tracks from the pre-Brix era. The Classical was lost on me to begin with until it proved itself to be more addictive than chips, an album that punches with a different level of invention compared to what went before. You can hear the remaining members maturing from

Re-release of the Angelic Upstarts debut album 'Teenage Warning' is available in feisty orange for a reasonable £23.99 from Rough Trade Records . Late night, October 1978, a single ear piece under the covers, holding off sleep, Peel played the band's first session for his Radio 1 show. ' We Are The People', 'Student Power', 'I'm an Upstart' and 'Youth Leader' were unlike any punk I'd heard before - a totally different sound to the art school bands and McLaren poseurs. It wou

From the clack of the tracks to the brooding and soaring loops, this album is a masterpiece.   First side, a deep, instantaneous love for the work. What is most striking is that this was a punt in the dark purchase. I’d never heard of Craven Faults or listened to a single track prior to the double album/postcard/photo booklet landing. I saw the imagery, I read the descriptor for the colour of the vinyl, I knew where this was going.   Back in 2013 I enrolled on a fine art cour

I love a new album. I love it like I love cuddles, sea spray on my face and fried tomatoes & Marmite on fried bread. Like Marmite, ‘Not Like Everybody Else’ by The Damned is going to divide opinions. Let’s start off in a positive fashion. It’s a tribute to Brian James and the songs by other bands that he held dear. And, to that end, The Damned go through their paces in accomplished style. As covers go, the band has history as tracks on the early albums or B-sides: ·      “I F

Life can come at you funny. The sun is out, children are smiling, the dogs are making content noises on the floor and then some madman decides he wants Greenland on a stick. Other things, like Jason Williamson's acerbic humour, remain consistent. "You're not a large, you're a tedium - waist down, waist size feeding them" Reviews of Planet X in the media tread a predictable line. " A potty-mouthed bystander, baffled and infuriated ," says Dave Simpson in The Guardian , a compa