Author: Admin
Hastings’ finest celebrates his blessed musical life in typically classy fashion.Jason McNiff is such a regular on these pages that the usual artist background story that accompanies a new album seems surplus to requirements here. Firmly established in Hastings since 2019, his regular Friday Sundowner sessions, with a myriad of guests from around the world, have become the stuff of legend.For Ten Blue Songs though, it is his Saturday Coffee House Sessions, featuring Matt Armstrong on double bass, alongside local players including Richard Moore (violin) and Bjorn Dahlberg (clarinet) that inspires the album. McNiff’s meticulous guitar work is as present…
Credit: Rob BlackhamLondon-based singer-songwriter Jack Browning will release his sophomore album, Painted Skies, on September 16th via Too Fine Records. The twelve-song collection follows Browning’s signing to the Nashville label earlier this year and arrives after two years of growing momentum on both sides of the Atlantic. Produced by Browning and Dan Lucas and recorded at The Joplin House in Kent, it deliberately allows the songs to retain the immediacy and character of the room in which they were recorded. Outside of music, Browning has also earned recognition as a fine artist. His paintings have been exhibited internationally, including at…
Correspondent and promoter Oliver Gray recommends an attractive festival that will entertain rather than overwhelm. It’s called Found, and it takes place this August Bank Holiday and is attracting some very classy acts indeed. “The band and I are very much looking forward to finding ourselves at the Found Festival this summer. We love how you Brits throw a party.” So says one James Felice, and Kate Stables of This Is The Kit adds her thoughts, “I can’t wait to head to Found festival this August. It’s such a decent festival run by decent folks who are genuinely passionate about…
Photo by SandyMacStop Draggin’ My Heart Aroundis a Tom Petty and Mike Campbell composition originally earmarked for the Heartbreakers’Hard Promisesalbum.The fact that a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers track ended up featuring on the Stevie Nicks debut solo album Bella Donna was largely due to Jimmy Iovine, producer on both albums. Campbell recalls that when working on the Heartbreakers album Iovine suggested that the song may play better coming from a female perspective and asked Petty if Nicks could try it. “We cut the track as a Heartbreakers record and when she decided to do it we used that track,…
The next Americana Story comes from one of our own. Rick Bayles escaped the UK to live in the Dordogne region of France, and from there he reports back through his monthly Vox Continental column, sharing americana goings on in mainland Europe. In creating the cover image, he also shared with us that ChatGPT is known as ‘Cat, I have farted’ in France.The Little Shop Of Hollersby Rick BaylesIt all started with Kurt Stormsinger feeling a little perplexed. Kurt never felt perplexed. John Barrowclough, or ‘Johnny’, as his Mum still called him, had often been more than a bit discombobulated,…
Metal Hammer has teamed up with Merseyside avant-garde metalcore crew Loathe to put together an exclusive bundle.Available exclusively via the Louder webstore, it features the new issue of Metal Hammer with a cover not available in the shops, as well as a t-shirt designed by the band’s bassist, Feisal El-Khazragi. Order yours now while stocks last!Inside, the four-piece talk all about their brand-new album A Stranger To You: their first studio release in more than five years. They also open up about their story so far, from the British underground to the forefront of modern metal, touring with Korn, Gojira…
Inspired by her own first experience of heartbreak, “Red Velvet” explores the bittersweet reality of becoming strangers with someone who once meant everything. Small everyday reminders, from favourite foods to familiar places, become symbols of a love that’s faded, while the song reflects on memory, regret and the tendency to romanticise the past. Since returning to the UK from a tennis scholarship in the US to pursue music full time, Essence has steadily built a reputation for emotionally rich songwriting, earning praise from artists including Rachel Chinouriri, Mahalia, SZA, Troye Sivan and Demi Lovato. Fresh from supporting the likes of…
SBTV is marking its 20th anniversary with its biggest celebration yet, taking over London’s O2 on 11 November for a landmark event honouring the legacy of founder Jamal Edwards MBE. Organised in partnership with Ernest Promotions and supporting the Jamal Edwards Self Belief Trust, the one night only show will bring together some of the artists who helped define the platform alongside newer names inspired by the path Jamal created, celebrating two decades of one of the UK’s most influential music platforms.The first wave of artists already promises a huge night, with Wiley, Chip, Lady Leshurr, Big Narstie, Dappy, Tinchy…
Bleecker Street has released the first full trailer for Victorian Psycho, Zachary Wigon‘s upcoming gothic horror adaptation of Virginia Feito‘s novel of the same name. The trailer follows the film’s debut at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it reportedly received a seven-minute standing ovation, and arrives ahead of its September 25 theatrical release. Maika Monroe (It Follows, Longlegs) stars as Winifred Notty, a governess whose polished manners conceal a deeply disturbed and murderous side. Drawing comparisons to both Jane Eyre and American Psycho, the story unfolds at the secluded Ensor House, where Winifred is hired to care for the…
Slowdive ended and Mojave 3 began in Neil Halstead’s flat in Acton. In 1994 he crafted most of the former band’s Pygmalion in his room, working around the schedules of his housemates to create sample-based soundscapes that alienated their label. Creation Records promptly dropped the band around the time the album was released, although half the group had already split. By then, the remaining players – Halstead, Rachel Goswell and Ian McCutcheon – were holed up at Halstead’s to record demos that were very different from anything they’d ever done. Atmosphere and mood were still important, but the music was…
This review was originally published before Simon revealed her Parkinson’s diagnosis As unlikely as it sounds, Carly Simon’s first paid gig was singing jingles for her uncle’s company: one of the pre-eminent singer-songwriters of a generation not short on pre-eminent singer-songwriters cutting her teeth on adverts for cold cream, household mops and local banks. Fast forward a few years and she’s winning her first Grammy for Best New Artist with a debut single, “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be”, which dared to question the preferred currency of popular music: love and romance. Jac Holzman, initially her sole…
For years, Bizarre Fae – the artistic alter-ego of (now) Glasgow-based (by way of Hull) artist Andromeda, embodied that rage completely. The songs were serrated and unflinching, born from trauma, political fury and the echo chamber of the internet during some of its bleakest years. When we speak now, it’s clear something profound has shifted. The anger is still there, but it’s tempered by reflection, by distance, and by a newfound softness that they’re no longer afraid to show. “It started out as me being angry in an attic bedroom,” they recall. “I didn’t have anyone to talk to because…