Another album from a female singer moonlighting from her day job.....


This time Brittany Howard takes time away from the Alabama Shakes to bring is the self title Thunderbitch album


It's an excuse for her to indulge in some raucous garage rock, shout fuck  and show a bit of Ramones style attitude. (half the songs are under 2 and a half minutes).  Titles such as Wild Child and I Wanna Rock n Roll suggest this isn't going to win prizes for grammar or originality


A great improvement on the last Alabama Shakes album and sounds like the those taking part are enjoying themselves but it's hardly an essential purchase.

A mini review for a mini album.....


The self titled album from Sexwitch is really Natasha Khan on leave from the day job from Bat For Lashes whilst she explores the world.


There are 6 covers from around the globe and this is real world music rather than the bland Peter Gabriel version


The opening Ha Howa Ha Howa is an atmospheric joy..... Images abound of the vocalist whirling round an open fire in the Saharan night summoning Djinn from the darkness. A propulsive, rhythmic beat, north African sounding drones and some evocative chanting make this a highlight of the musical year


Other tracks add Arabian flavours or tribal drumming before it all ends on a woozy psychedelic take of a Skip Spence track


A really special morsel from a very interesting singer

So there I am in Cardiff at Spillers Records and I decided to go native..... The album is by Gwenno and called Y Dydd Olaf (which should give you a clue where this is coming from)


It's a concept album based on a book from the 1970's involving feminism and dystopian totalitarian regimes but as it's all sung in Welsh it's fairly irrelevant. I forgot, one track is sung in Cornish but I haven't being able to identify which !!


This is not welsh in vein of say Catatonia with a heavy accent and lots of rolled R's.... Gwenno has a more pure pop voice (think St Etienne or the female vocalists in the Human League) with hardly a trace of accent which makes the lyrics almost more unsettling


The music is a sort of electronic soup with a sort of krautrock propulsion with enough electronic squelches and bleeps to bring Hawkind to mind occasionally but all with a pop sensibility.


It's all a bit odd but there are some fantastic tunes, personal favourites being the opening Chwyldro and Fratolish Hiang Perpeshki


It's always worth taking a risk on something different every now and then

Last year Nerina Pallot chose to release an EP a month and it's really paid off on the new album. The Sound and The Fury is a classy collection of mature pop songs but not of the sugar coated version

Opening with There is a Drum (about the death of Lee Rigby) and ending with Longest Memory (about the death of Maggie Thatcher) this is a lyrical tour de force.

If I had a Girl is the feminist anthem the Spice girls would have loved to have written... sounding like 'hit the road, jack' it's all hand claps and chorus with some withering observations about the lack of dicks on page 3

Four of the songs were re-recorded from the EP experiment with Rousseau being the catchy highlight

The lead single Roads sounds like Lorde with added eastern flavour and shows off Nerina's deeply warm voice superbly

Really this lady should be huge......

I'm not that knowledgeable on the Scandinavian black metal scene but the full length debut from Myrkur, simply titled M, feels like something special in the genre. 

It's brutal in places with all the black metal staples of blast beat drums and buzzsaw guitars but the majority of the all female vocals are almost choral. There is also almost folky feel at times with what sound like traditional instruments being used on the opening track, Skøgen Skulle Dø. 

At time this is like listening to Clannad being mixed with early Ulver - which is very appropriate as the producer here is Garm, the leading force behind Ulver. 

Side 2 opens with Nordlys a pretty 2 min track of just piano and vocal leading into the ferocious Mordet which is bolstered by guest guitars from Arch Enemy 

This is a very concise album at only 37 mins over 11 tracks but that just means no filler and could just be the most important (black) metal album of the year