Showing posts with label Abbe May. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abbe May. Show all posts

Monday, October 3, 2011

Abbe May

Although most of you know Abbe May for her new album cover where she's in a bra wearing a steer's skull (and looking pretty damn good at the same time... odd) she does excellent female led blues/in your face rock.

It's quite refreshing.


Normally whenever I hear of a female releasing an album under her own name, I just think it's going to be the normal singer-songwriter fare. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but it can take me a while to listen to it or even distinguish it from the rest. I wish I hadn't waited with Abbe May. Her rock and roll style is refreshing for a solo artists and her new album, Design Desire, is just bloody great.

You can catch her November 20 at the Tivoli

Here's another good song of her latest album:


Monday, September 5, 2011

A musical tribute to god

When I say god, it's obvious I mean the god of Australian music, Mr Nick Cave.
I'm pretty sure if there were some sort of statistics about the song most people commit suicide to in Australia, this would be number one. Heck, it even featured in He Died With A Felafel in His Hand as the suicide scene.

He's been one of our country's best performing artists for almost 40 years, across everything from his early post-punk music, his sad singer-songwriter stuff, his movies, his books and even some gospel and pop music. This man is good at everything he tries. Right now he's kicking ass with the garage rock band Grinderman.

It's good to see that I'm not the only person that thinks this, as Triple J are putting on a Nick Cave tribute concert to celebrate his career. The artists performing in the tribute includes:
Abbe May
Adalita
Alex Burnett (Sparkadia)
Ben Corbett (SixFtHick)
Bertie Blackman
Dan Sultan
Jake Stone (Bluejuice)
Johnny Mackay (Children Collide)
Kram (Spiderbait)
Lanie Lane
Lisa Mitchell
Muscles
Tim Rogers (You Am I)
Urthboy (The Herd)
I'd pay money to see a lot of those performs together, but with the musical catalogue that is Nick Cave's entire career? This will be one spectacular night.

November 20, the Tivoli.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

One sentence album reviews (#16)

Here's some more one sentence reviews. I've got to say, it's really hard to condense my feelings down to 144 characters without just saying "I like it" over and over again. Especially when some of these band names/album names are just way too fucking long.

Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys (2011): Ben Gibbard shows off his amazing songwriting with their most accessible album yet 4.3/5

The Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction (2011): Reminds me of the firstime I heard Buckethead: crazy non-sensical songs of metal awesome 4/5

Fireworks - Gospel (2011): Nothing as catchy as their old song Detroit, but they are evolving to sound a lot like early Fall Out Boy 3/5

Flogging Molly - Speed of Darkness (2011): My favourite Irish-folk-punk band have moved away from punk to a folk style that I'm unsure of 3.6/5

I Exist - II: The Broken Passage (2011): Not the best production, but excellent Australian hardcore/sludge with some amazing acoustic work too 3.7/5

Boris - Attention Please (2011): Their 2nd album this year sees them make stripped back, yet bloody catchy, J-Pop, still with overtones of heavy rock 4.7/5

Boris - Heavy Rocks (2011): their only album of the 3 this year that channels their older metal sound, but with a garage rock twist 4.3/5

Abbe May - Design Desire (2011): Australian whose album starts as a blues-rock explosion, but slowly becomes regular female singer-songwriter affair 3.5/5

Adolescents - The Fastest Kid Alive (2011): Although an old punk band, this album still sounds rather childish and thrown together 2.5/5

Cults - ST (2011): The ultimate hipster-indie-female-singer-lofi-pop album, but Christ it's good 4.5/5

Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones (2011): It's hard to imagine this almost British-folk album is the work of a former hardcore man 3.8/5


Arms Exploding - Ruminari (2008): Amazing post-hardcore/noise band that reminds me of the glory days of post-hardcore in early 2000s 4.5/5


Mr Big - What If (2011): The original lineup returns to show us how to make a good rock album, in an 80s style that doesn't feel dated 4.1/5

Sharks - The Joys Of Living (2011): a punk album by a band that really misses the 70s style of the Clash, Buzzcocks, etc. 3.4/5

Taking Back Sunday - ST (2011): The old lineup sounds great at the start of the album, but it drops off rapidly 3.7/5

Foster the People - Torches (2011): Definitely flavour of the month Triple J "indie" music, but it's kind of damn catchy 3.5/5

Kaiser Chiefs - The Future is Medieval (2011): Novel idea, make your own album from 20 songs. Too bad only about 3 of them are good songs 2/5 (What sucks about Kaiser Chiefs is that their 1st album was so awesome, every other one sounds as if they're as bored as I am listening to it)

Memphis May Fire - The Hollow (2011): Title of this album should be "generic metalcore album of 2011 #69". But it's still reasonably good. 3/5

Monument - Sweat Pants Fever (2011): An excellent, heavier 90's style midwest-emo album. The four covers on it are just amazing 4.7/5

Panda Bear-Tomboy (2011):he must be the guy that writes the stretched out & boring Animal Collective songs. This album droned me to sleep 2/5

Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers-Rare Bird Alert (2011):the comedian makes an accessible bluegrass album with plenty of wit 4.3/5
(Who knew he was such a good banjo player?!)

Of Mice & Men - The Flood (2011): Perfect combination of really heavy music, with clean parts and just the right amount of breakdown 4.3/5

Thee Oh Sees - Castlemania (2011): lo-fi pop music, sounding as if those surf bands of last year decided to do drugs and write psychedelia 3/5

This Will Destroy - You Tunnel Blanket (2011): Cinematic instrumental post-rock that in my head is the perfect soundtrack to a thriller alien move 3.5/5