Gretta Ray released her sophomore album this past Summer, it’s called Positive Spin, and it is adamantly a pop record in all caps. And it completely deserves that very description. This album has catapulted Ray’s career into new heights, it’s already seen her play her biggest headline shows yet in her home country of Australia […]
October has rolled in, and this can only mean one thing for music lovers in Cardiff: Sŵn Festival is back. Fully back on its feet after the interruption of the pandemic years and following a successful run in 2022, the beloved multi-venue festival is set to bring one of its most ambitious line-ups yet to […]
Perfectly timed on a rather sunny Bank Holiday weekend, Live at Leeds’ annual outdoor gathering in the park returned to the Temple Newsam estate for a day filled with music, food and fun. In the event’s second year running the organisers have taken onboard what worked last time and also added to it, with a […]
Going to a Billie Marten show feels like a comfort. There’s something innately easing about the way Marten carries herself and the way in which this translates across to her audience. Enough so, that on this night, people sit crossed legged on the venue floor (like one would in school) before the show starts, waiting […]
Last year’s all-dayer in the park was a roaring success, so it returns again, this May, for Live at Leeds: In The Park 2023. A festival bursting with feel-good energy and a satisfying array of indie’s best and brightest. Happening on Saturday, 27th May, in Leeds’ Temple Newsam park, this is where summer (technically) starts. […]
It’s been a whirlwind of a comeback for James Bay, after a few years of not being able to travel and tour, 2022 has seen the show back on the road in many more ways than one. Never to rest on his laurels, the multi-hyphenated musician released his long-anticipated third studio album (it reached top […]
It may have been a rainy and stormy weekend in Cardiff, but Sŵn Festival brought its own brand of sunshine to the Welsh capital, with three days of quality music taking over the city centre. The multi-venue festival, the biggest of its kind in Wales, has finally returned in its full-scale incarnation, and in spite […]
False Heads have been setting the UK on fire on their recent tour, supporting the release of their second studio album, Sick Moon. Seeing the Essex trio live always comes with a promise of a thrilling experience; they most certainly don’t hold back when they climb the stage, and together with the remarkable amount of […]
Summer may be over, but festival season most certainly isn’t, and we have yet another welcome return to celebrate after the lengthy drought imposed by Covid restrictions. Sŵn Festival, the largest multi-venue festival in Wales, is coming back with a bang and taking over the clubs of Cardiff with three days of events celebrating alternative […]
After the end of the lockdowns and the return of live gigs there has been a number of new bands making waves in the alternative rock scene, and Manchester’s own Pyncher are among those leading the charge. With a debut EP seeing the light in July, following a serious of successful shows in their home […]
Almost four years had passed since the Las Vegas, Nevada group had played a show in the North West, until they brought their Imploding the Mirage tour to Manchester, at the Lancashire County Cricket Club grounds, in Old Trafford. The Killers’ star continues to rise with each new tour, since 2017 when they played Manchester […]
The weekend festival is a staple of the summer season, coming in hot with their first-ever staging outdoors, Live at Leeds gave us their In the Park edition. For one incredible day of live music, they took over the grounds of Temple Newsam—a Tudor-Jacobean-era estate hemmed by rolling hills and sprawling vistas of the West […]
Festivals are back, baby. Throughout all of this uncertainty over the past couple years, music has remained high on the mind and a longing for live performance has never faltered. So… good news for all music fans: Live at Leeds, in 2022, has not just one event planned, but two—and first up is their outdoor […]
“I’m an introvert, I swear” reads the caption of a recent social media post by Foxes — but how are we to know? When met by Louisa Rose Allen, aka. Foxes, the signs aren’t that clear: a bubbly, vivid image is displayed and danced around the room for all to see, one wouldn’t naturally pick […]
Independent Venue Week rolls in around this time every year, where the breaking yawns of a new year are gifted some sweet relief by the comings of a celebration, of the UK’s grassroots music venues. Together with the great Can You CIC It? and local promoters and venue owners up and down the country, IVW […]
At this point in late October, in 2021, the Deaf Institute has been reopen for a number of months after a grueling year of uncertainty. Standing resilient after a near closure, not just due to a global pandemic, but a change of hands in ownership. The venue, more than ever, stands as a beacon of […]
Partly because of the later relaxation of COVID rules in Wales, partly because of a series of personal circumstances, this early-October serving of alternative rock was my very first live music event in Cardiff in nearly two years; it felt odd, comforting, and slightly tense to be back queuing outside the familiar door of Clwb […]
Bitter Sweet Symphonies was founded on the basis of two elements: music and community. The want (but more accurately, the need) to share good music with more than just oneself, to foster a collective space in order to start conversations, to spread the word about underground gems and celebrate this communal medium.
After five years on the scene, October Drift released their largest body of work yet, with January’s drop of long-awaited debut album, Forever Whatever. A high octane melange of grunge, hard rock, pop hooks and shoegaze; the songs enclosed offer a focussed lens on the band’s career to date: from the revelrous ‘Oh the Silence’ […]
Meg Markwick and Lily Somerville met at University in the early 2010s, it was there that pair formed a kindred alliance that would later transpire into a musical project called IDER. Soulful sensations of R&B and electronic pop serpentine to create a scintillating burst of new wave pop, contemporary and current but also reminiscent of […]