If you’ve been looking at the singles charts and thinking to yourselves, ‘What we really need is a sweeping Arcade Fire-flavoured pop epic about how we should cast our prejudices aside, throw open our borders and our arms to the recent influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe’, then British Sea Power have answered the call. [...]

Ah yes, you always know exactly where you are with Funeral For A Friend. 2001, that’s where. This is mainstream rock by numbers, but no less enjoyable for it - catchy hooks, buzzsaw guitars, loud bits and quiet bits, crystal clear production etc etc, you know the score. If you’re into that sort of thing, [...]

I am well aware that my entire remit as a writer for Is This Music? is to go and watch bands and then summarise the performance in a couple of hundred words, but I must confess I’m at a loss when it comes to conveying just how incredible this performance was.

You know those ‘intimate acoustic shows’ where it’s so quiet, and you find yourself sitting so uncomfortably close to the stage, that you become incredibly self-conscious and are afraid to move for fear of disrupting the ambience of the room, not to mention the mood of the performers?

Neverheed is a promising debut album from Newcastle trio Les Cox (Sportifs), showcasing a band with a nice line in pithy observational lyrics, and more than a couple of catchy hooks in its arsenal. It’s all very knowingly lo-fi as the band sound like they’re playing cheap guitars through broken amps, while the drummer bangs [...]