reviews
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Focus track: “Gang Signs” Our Rating: 7/10 THUMPER have always understood impact. Density. Volume. The physicality of sound. But Sleeping With The Light On suggests something more interesting than just noise. It suggests discipline. The album opens with “The Rip,” and the name is apt. It does not ease you in. It arrives with crunch…
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Our Rating: Nostalgia I have always considered Daft Punk to be one of the rare acts who understood mythology as well as melody. Their split five years ago felt less like a breakup and more like the end of a chapter in modern electronic folklore. They exited quietly, deliberately, without reunion bait or nostalgia merch…
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Our Rating 7/10 Soda Blonde – “Suit & Tie” I have always considered Faye O’Rourke to be one of Ireland’s finest and most undervalued vocalists. How a voice like hers has not travelled globally is something I will never fully understand. Perhaps it speaks less to talent and more to the chronic inability of Ireland’s…
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Our Rating: 10/10From the forthcoming album It’s About Time (March 6, 2026) There are entire stages of women’s lives that popular music still refuses to name. Peri-menopause is one of them. With “Young One,” Ndidi O does not just name it, she sits inside it. Quietly. Unflinchingly. Taken from her forthcoming album It’s About Time,…
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Our Rating: 9/10 From the forthcoming album People Are Mad (April 17th) There is a particular dignity in songs that do not try to impress you. Sean Griffin’s “Be My Girl” does not posture. It does not modernise itself for algorithmic approval. It does not chase nostalgia either. It simply stands there, scuffed boots planted, and tells…
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Our Rating 10/10 Let’s talk about Euro Country properly. First things first. This is not cosplay country. This is not Nashville dress up with a TikTok filter. This is Irish melodrama in cowboy boots and it absolutely knows what it is doing. Euro Country feels like someone fed classic country music through an Irish wedding…
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The UK grassroots music landscape is not just under strain — it’s structurally fragile. The Music Venue Trust’s 2025 Annual Report reveals troubling facts that should alarm anyone invested in the future of live music. The charity reports that over half (53%) of grassroots venues made no profit in 2025, with a shock 6,000 jobs…
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Our Rating: 7/10 Some artists chase reinvention. Olivia Dean chose refinement. The Art of Loving is not an album built on shock or spectacle. It is built on emotional steadiness. On craft. On the decision to explore love as something complex and negotiated rather than cinematic and chaotic. From the first track, the tone is…
The Industry Review 