Music
Interview: Editors
Monday 23 November, 2009Raditude Weezer
Monday 23 November, 2009Embryonic Flaming Lips
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
Ola Sawicka heads to Wolverhampton to investigate the Editors’ transition to bolder, darker realms
An examination of Weezer’s back catalogue reveals a band struck by some kind of music schizophrenia.
As they should, they did it different. The Flaming Lips’ latest is a turn away from the increasingly glossy symphonic-pop of their post-Soft Bulletin work, and yet it isn’t a …
Features
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How I learned to love the Beatles
Tuesday 13 October, 2009
Dave Toulson remembers the days when he only associated the Beatles with middle-aged English teachers.
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Out with the old and in with the new
Sunday 4 October, 2009 - 1 comment
Since the university’s establishment in 1965, its union had played a welcoming — and seemingly auspicious — host to some of the most prominent bands in the music hall of …
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All That Glisters Is Not Gold…
Monday 22 June, 2009
…sometimes it’s copper. Jess Colman reviews the opening of the Union's long awaited club, the Copper Rooms.
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Memory Lane
Monday 22 June, 2009
With the release of their latest album, The Eternel, Adam Fraser takes another look at Sonic Youth's back catalogue.
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Tommy, Can You Hear Me?
Tuesday 28 April, 2009
This May marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Tommy, the first of two rock operas by English rock icons The Who. Widely acclaimed by both critics and fans …
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Write, rehearse, tour, repeat
Tuesday 21 April, 2009
Caitlin Allen meets the Maccabees, and they all get a little upset…
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Will they or won’t they?
Tuesday 21 April, 2009
A Stone Roses reunion is top of Dave Toulson's wish list.
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A win for Warwick
Tuesday 21 April, 2009
Are you a member of The Fanclub's fanclub?
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Last Chance Saloon
Tuesday 10 March, 2009
Michael Sinclair brings us the penultimate instalment of BOTB action.
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Can I get a drumroll please?
Tuesday 10 March, 2009 - 1 comment
In a last minute coup, Club Silencio take the grand title of BOTB Winners 2009.
Albums
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Prince of Truth Evangelista
Monday 9 November, 2009
Carla Bozulich's muse is deadly: with every release since 2006's disturbing, fractured Evangelista, the record that gave its name to the project she's since piloted, it's assumed a more ferocious, …
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Cosmic Egg Wolfmother
Monday 9 November, 2009
When I first heard Wolfmother several years ago I knew that they were more than just another seventies revivalist hard rock band. In 2005, the Australian hard rock trio of …
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Unmap Volcano Choir
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
So this is the story of Justin Vernon, of Bon Iver fame, so far: guy plays in a few bands in the Wisconsin indie scene for a couple of years, …
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Fingerprint EP Stylusboy
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
As most students will have discovered, Coventry isn't exactly the musical hub or fiery core of culture that we all wish it was. Amongst the dreary high rise buildings, ever-stretching …
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Horses Patti Smith
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
Few albums can boast as beguiling and startling a start as Horses; that distant piano and the cold androgynous voice declaring “Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine” and …
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In This Light And On This Evening Editors
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
Editors are something of an enigma for me. I profess, I’ve never been an avid fan of Editors, pigeon-holing them as a small time indie band, lauded with the admiration …
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Robots In The Orchestra I Am Your Autopilot
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
I Am Your Autopilot are a self-professed ‘Electronic/Folk/Experimental’ group, and the debut album from this Manchester-based trio, Robots in the Orchestra has received much praise for its simplistic, effortless and …
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The Resistance Muse
Wednesday 14 October, 2009 - 4 comments
Once upon a time, a fearless trio from Teignmouth embarked on a mammoth journey through space-rock, metal, rage against the machine, synths and Rachmanenov; now, ten years later, MUSE have …
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Fabriclive 47 & 48 Fabriclive
Wednesday 14 October, 2009
Fabric was my dream-club. As a small-town sixth-former, I imagined moving through its claustrophobic tunnels, identity dissolving into the egoless swarm-patterns of the technofied crowd. I'd already been to Filthy …
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Truelove’s Gutter Richard Hawley
Wednesday 14 October, 2009 - 1 comment
If this was a fair world, which the continued existence of Akon suggests otherwise, Richard Hawley would be huge. A veteran of the Sheffield indie scene, although in all fairness …
Archive
Live
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Muse Birmingham NIA
Monday 23 November, 2009
Raj Bhatoa explains why Muse are the act to see before you die
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Bowerbirds Cargo, London
Monday 23 November, 2009I had the opportunity to indulge in my ever-so-grating-and-patronizing tendency of forcing bands so new they’re practically foetal onto my friends the other week when Bowerbirds came to London. After …
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Kings of Convenience Warwick Arts Centre
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
My first brush with this Norwegian duo was in a friend’s shed five years ago. There they trampled out a path in my memory so distinct that on hearing them …
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The Cribs The Assembly
Tuesday 27 October, 2009
The Assembly in Leamington was the latest stop on The Cribs current nationwide tour, which has sold out at almost every venue. The band has been through a bit of …
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St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra
Tuesday 27 October, 2009The first international performance to test the acoustics of the Arts Centre’s all-new (doesn’t seem to have changed that dramatically) Butterworth Hall was many things; subtle wasn’t one of them. …
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Bombay Bicycle Club O2 Academy, Birmingham
Tuesday 13 October, 2009Inspiration for band names comes from all over the place these days. Belle and Sebastian named themselves after a French children’s book, the Maccabees allegedly found theirs in the Bible, …
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Metric Kasbah, Coventry
Monday 22 June, 2009
In the last issue of the Boar I wrote that only taking one support band on the road with you is a show of confidence. Now not having any support …
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Maximo Park O2 Academy, Birmingham
Monday 22 June, 2009When Maximo Park come to town there’s usually a surprise or two to be had, but when the Noisettes pulled out of their support slot, Bombay Bicycle Club was not …
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Camera Obscura The Assembly
Tuesday 28 April, 2009Having only one support band is a show of confidence - the main act are informing the audience that their set will be enough to satisfy them for the evening, …
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And So I Watch You From Afar Mandela Hall, Belfast
Tuesday 28 April, 2009When I got home to Northern Ireland, to the inevitable rain and grey skies which we have come to accept with the same tacit melancholy with which a patient dog …
