This month the cover stars are Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys, who talk to RC about their past, present and future: their 40 years (they released their first ever single, West End Girls, in April 1984) as Britain’s foremost pop duo, about their brand-new album, Nonetheless, and about the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the pair…
There’s a fascination around Deep Purple that doesn’t linger around any other band from their specific 70s demographic. Uriah Heep have it to an extent, but they were always smaller, weirder, more “big in Eastern Europe” than Purple. Maybe it’s because Purple are the last of the original three heavy rock acts, Led Zeppelin having called i…
Transition, transmission. Between the late 90s and their last full studio album, 2005’s Tender Buttons, Broadcast finessed an enigmatic mix of electronica, 60s psychedelic tropes and often eerie samples, earning them an obligatory mention every time somebody discussed hauntology. Which for a brief while everybody did. Hauntology involved retrofut…
So constant they remain eternally themselves even at their most restless, Elbow stretch out confidently on the fulsome follow-up to the restrained Flying Dream 1 (2021). Things I’ve Been Telling Myself For Years sets a playfully digressive tone, ribbing self-delusion over brash beats. Lovers’ Leap shifts gears like a Bond theme too frisky for…
The advance PR for the Crowes’ first album of new material in 15 years claims it sees Chris and Rich Robinson “leaving their bullshit behind”, celebrating the past but looking to the future. That plan manifests itself in a record that regularly touches base with the stripped down urgency of their earliest releases, but with a little more wisd…
