Album Review: Biffy Clyro "Only Revolutions"

In these days of short attention spans and homogenized musical gunk, it's reassuring to see the Scottish alt-rockers get within t...

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Live: Loud Park 2010, Day Two

DAY TWO As day two dawns, I realize that I have now used up most of my heavy metal clichés. But metal, if anything, is the willful...

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Album Review: Sofie Livebrant, "From Here to Here"

The cover art strongly hints at Swedish songbird Sofie Livebrant’s musical talent. Looking like death warmed up (and in dungarees!), she’s o...

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Live Review: Little Barrie, Daikanyama Unit, Tokyo, 10th December, 2010

Daikanyama's Unit turned out to be a strange venue in which to hear Little Barrie, the rock trio from Nottingham, England. Descending ...

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Live Review: AC/DC, Saitama Super Arena, 12th March, 2010

Hell Ain't a Bad Place to be and neither is Saitama tonight with the biggest rock band on the planet in town. Opened around ten ye...

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Preview: Firewind 2011

Heavy metal groups are notorious for their complex genealogies, as members switch bands and moonlight for other outfits. Greek metal wa...

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Live Review: Lady Gaga, Yokohama Arena, 17th April, 2010

Lady Gaga is having a sweet, intimate moment. Perched on a piano stool tinkling the ivories in her underwear, she expresses her emot...

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Live Review: Carl Barat, Studio Coast, Tokyo, 26 November, 2010

When I spoke to Carl Barat a few weeks back, he talked about, "stepping away from the big guitars" to create the music for h...

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Album Review: Alice Cooper, "Welcome 2 My Nightmare"

From Michael Jackson's zombie dancing in Thriller to Slipknot's famed alter egos, and the psycho-clown affectations of the J...

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Album Review: Yeasayer, "Odd Blood"

One of the great strengths-slash-weaknesses of American music vis-à-vis its British rival is a relative lack of irony. It's hard to ...

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Interview: Carl Barât

The ex-Libertine is finally free to step away from the big guitars Thanks to Japan's often surprising interest in the British ...

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Album Review: Nazareth, "Big Dogz"

OK, the sleeve looks a bit like four Scooby Dooz from Hell, but because Nazareth have taken trouble over the contents, this daft-lookin...

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Live: Loud Park 2010 Day One

DAY ONE Kicking off at 11am and closing around 10pm on two consecutive days, Loud Park 2010 offered up a grand total of about 22 hours o...

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