Music :: Feature :: Label 11 Dec 2008
Finbarr Bermingham: Rising from the ashes of Creation Records' demise in 2000, Wichita was the brainchild of Mark Bowen and Dick Green. Both had been at Alan McGee's side since day dot. “To me the crucial thing about Creation was that almost without exception, all t...
Music :: Live Review 22 Oct 2008
Ryan Drever: The last time Bloc Party played Glasgow they hit the cavernous SECC, so seeing the band and the sold-out crowd crammed into the refurbished Barfly is quite some rarity. The band kicks off this date on the MTV Two's Gonzo tour with a much appreciated Ha...
Records :: Album Review 08 Sep 2008
Ally Brown: You've got to give credit to Bloc Party for making a real effort to progress their sound when Silent Alarms II and III would've sold them enough records to continue a lucrative career. But - and you knew there was one - third album Intimacy, like A Wee...
Music :: Live Review 08 Sep 2008
Ally Brown, Nick Mitchell, Colin Chapman: The Connect Festival – this year renamed Hydro Connect thanks to a sponsorship hook-up with Scottish Hydro Electric – has got everything going for it, in theory. The location – and the journey to get there – is absolutely gorgeo...
Heads Up :: News 19 Aug 2008
Chris Buckle: In the wiki-torrent age of infinite information updates, it's always nice when a record (or two) appears like a curveball and manages to announce itself seemingly out of the blue. First Los Campesinos! unveiled plans for an impending second album mere...
Music :: Travel :: Preview 14 Aug 2008
Ally Brown: 1. The Location - It's in the grounds of a castle on the banks of Loch Fyne. If you can't appreciate that you must be a blind man who lives in a castle. You're not though, are you? 2. The People - There's no easy way of putting this: everyone at Hydro...
Records :: Single Review 29 Jul 2008
Finbarr Bermingham: It’s a risky business reviewing new Bloc Party material, given the slow burner that Weekend In The City revealed itself to be, but Mercury, I am confident, will still be the worst single they have released even if I locked myself in a room with i...
Music :: Preview 18 Jun 2008
Nick Mitchell: A funny thing happened last year: people started using the word "boutique" to describe a music festival. Now, according to ye olde dictionary, a "boutique" is "a fashionable, usually small shop, especially one selling clothes". The first Connect Festiv...
Music :: Preview 07 Dec 2007
Emily Foister: After screeching on to our television sets providing music for such teen cult viewing as the OC and Skins, Bloc Party have become a name no credible drainpipe toting pubescent would have missing from their iPod. With NME's best album of 2005 and a wago...
Records :: Single Review 11 May 2007
Nick Mitchell: I Still Remember is the second single from A Weekend in the City and a rare break from that album's prevailing left-wing anger and post-OK Computer urban angst. Whereas first single The Prayer was Bloc Party pulling on their skinny t-shirts and natty s...
Records :: Album Review 12 Mar 2007
Ally Brown: From the first few seconds, Bloc Party's sophomore album is already setting itself up for a fall. "I am trying to be heroic in an age of modernity" is a jolting opening line in a time when other bands would rather boast about their sloppy laundry habit...
Music :: Live Review 16 Apr 2006
Jasper Hamill: Planned as an opportunity to showcase the new songs recorded for their second album, Bloc Party couldn't resist playing a few golden oldies, sending the crowd into an orgiastic frenzy and nearly collapsing the floor in the excitement. The usual world-r...
