Juno Recommends Rock / Indie / Folk / Metal / Punk / 50s / 60s: July 2023

Review: I Inside the Old Year Dying is PJ Harvey's tenth studio long player but a first in some seven years. The last, The Hope Six Demolition Project, was a UK number one on the album charts and this one was again recorded with long-time creative collaborators John Parish and Flood. It is a vast sonic universe that is located "in a space between life's opposites, and between recent history and the ancient past." There is plenty of biblical imagery, Shakespearean references and lots of profound songwriting, as you would expect.

Review: Hull shoegazers bdrmm scintillating second album I Don't Know is another great showcase of their controlled yet chaotic sound. The four-piece from East Yorkshire had plenty of plaudits following their debut record and so quickly rode a wave to notoriety back in 2020. But then the classic difficult second album fever struck them and so did lots of conversations with labels. Finally, they got to work on this record and it is a thrilling divergence, a new mix of new influences with lyrics rooted in social consciousness and themes including addiction and mental health struggles. A huge tour is to follow, as will many more new fans and plaudits.

Review: The Fall's Mark E. Smith was having a rather torrid time even by his own standards when the band made The Marshall Suite in 1999. He was fresh back from a US tour on which he had been fighting with fellow band members on stage and was later arrested after carrying on the shenanigans back at the hotel. The album itself builds on the techno sounds The Fall had explored on the preceding album Levitate but also with something of a return to the rockabilly-influenced sound from earlier Fall line-ups. Cuts like 'The Crying Marshal' are as strange and complex as they come with thumping jungle drums powering it along.

Review: Happy Man are not two words you would usually associate with The Cure frontman and emo poster boy Robert Smith, but this live album is named after their 1984 track 'Happy The Man', naturally enough included here. This selection was recorded while the group was on a third tour of the US having already made a big name for themselves off the back of their recently released 1984 studio record The Top. The fan based turned out (and then some) and got to hear classics such as 'Let's Go To Bed', 'Boys Don't Cry' and a live version of 'Killing An Arab', which closes out this set. A crucial one for diehard fans and curious listeners alike.

Review: The seminal and controversial debut - and ultimately, only - album by the notorious punk rock band Sex Pistols, originally released in that fateful discontented year, 1977. Never Mind The Bollocks... features 12 raw, loud and provocative punk rock numbers, with lyrics that challenged the establishment, the monarchy, the media and society at large at the time. 'Anarchy In The UK', 'God Save The Queen', 'Pretty Vacant' and 'Holidays In The Sun' all come as undeniable punk rallying cries, songs which should still be used as such today. Impeccably timed on its first release, it's no wonder this album touched a nerve, sparking the seismic cultural shift we feel right up to the present day.

Review: The Beggar is a mightily impressive 16th studio album from Swans. It is founding member Michael Gira who has written and produced it with some fine contributions from both current and past Swans members, plus members of Angels Of Light a guest spot from Ben Frost. This record emerged from the lockdowns of 2020 onwards and the sense of isolation that brought. The songs came easily, says Michael, once he came to terms with that and were informed by the fact that he worried these might be his last new writings. I they are, they are some of his best.

Review: .It's late-May 1991, and Smashing Pumpkins have just released their debut disc, Gish, to widespread critical acclaim. Confusing some with its open-to-interpretation themes (many believed, incorrectly, it was a political album, but as frontman Billy Corgan explained, "it's a personal album... about pain and spiritual ascension"), nevertheless the reception was significant, marking the arrival of a new force in the grunge-tinged, stoner-hued, alternative rock landscape. 32 years on, Smashing Pumpkins return to their source material and present the session recordings that led to that finished first album - a relatively brief run-in period that lasted just 30 days. Pushing members to their limits (Corgan would later admit to suffering a nervous breakdown in the process), this archival release pays tribute to the artistic process.

Review: There's an enduring wholesomeness to Khruangbin which is extending to the way their approaching documents of their live shows over the years. Their Live At album series has already taken in a show from September last year at Stubb's in Austin - a homecoming show for the world-roaming band, and it featured a host of their support acts and fellow performers too. Now they're presenting a fully-fledged split release with London's premier modern jazz explorers Nubya Garcia, capturing their performance from Radio City Music Hall in New York in March 2022. With a side of wax each, both bands sound utterly captivating in the live setting, and being placed next to each other helps bring the spirit of the evening itself to life in so many ways.

Review: The unique voice of Arthur Russell was taken away from us all too soon after he was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, but it was in that year that he also dropped his career-defining classic 'World of Echo'. That's the only solo album he produced but he managed to make plenty more music in his final years. This album, Picture of Bunny Rabbit, features nine previously unreleased performances recorded during that same special era and have been taken from two unique test pressings. These are dramatic, exceptional cuts as you would expect from this cult hero.

Review: This new grey vinyl double album is a celebration of the musical influence of the great singer-songwriter Nick Drake on the many musicians who came after him. Over 30 of them in all got involved with The Endless Coloured Ways, a collection of songs of his performed and recorded from a whole mix of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences. Each of them brings their own perspective and a timeless take on the original material with the likes of Fontaines D.C to Guy Garvey as well as many more all making the cut.

Review: Guerssen Records specialise in reissuing obscure psychedelic music from the past, and here they home in on two early British psychedelic bands, Hopscotch and Andwella. 'Look At The Lights Go Up' is Hopscotch's contribution, with the band made up of former members of the Eyes and Tomorrow, and the track comes as a rare and unreleased demo of melodic trip-sat illumination and lyrical nonsensicality ("This lady from the forest of Manhattan...". Andwella's 'Felix' comes to the B-side, and is a formerly unreleased outtake from their second album World's End.

Review: Sharleen Spitteri was always rather at odds with her pop chart stardom, it seemed. Her stylised voice and slightly edgy emo look always adjacent to many of her peers but that never stopped her Texas band become behemoths of the 90s and early 00s. Their glittering and hit-littered career now gets looked back upon with this 24-track selection of their best moments. They produced ten albums in all - including a clutch of tunes with Wu-Tang Clan, RZA and Method Man, one that spawned five Top 10 singles, one with an Alan Rickman video and one inspired by Al Green. Brand new single 'After All' is included next to the best bits from those records, all ahead of the band playing Glasto this year.

Review: As one of the quieter mainstays of the Factory Records phenomenon, The Durutti Column have a cult quality which draws attentive listeners in close. Vini Reilly's distinctive approach to shimmering, repetitive guitar playing was instantly mesmerising from the debut album in 1980 through reams and reams of albums over the years. 1997's Time Was Gigantic When We Were Kids is a firm favourite among the many albums Reilly recorded over the years and now it's receiving its first-ever vinyl pressing with five bonus tracks included, as well as expanded artwork and extensive sleeve notes to take you deeper into the album.

Review: .Coldplay - where on Earth do you start? On the one hand, snubbed by 'real musos' for their broad crossover appeal and uncanny ability to make every song feel like it was written for the next Richard Curtis movie. Nevertheless, when a band achieves such levels of success, you have to accept there's definitely something in their water. In this case, a deft knack for penning arrangements that invoke feelings as big as the stadiums the tracks themselves were built to fill.
Prospekt's March is a great example, but also spotlights the fact that Coldplay isn't just shorthand for rousing chart-friendly soft rock anthems. Originally released in 2008, and taking plenty of almost-made-it tracks from the studio sessions that led to preceding album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, this eight-song offering spans everything from hands in the air sing-a-long hits ('Life In Technicolour', 'Lovers In Japan') to achingly beautiful piano solos ('Postcards From Far Away'), sombre brass balladry ('Now My Feet Won't Touch The Ground') and - wait for it - high-production hip hop ('Lost+').

Review: Experimental electronic supergroup Creep Show are certainly a dream team, with the band made up of various members of certain timeless acts: John Grant (of Hercules & Love Affair), Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), Benge (Wrangler) and Phil Winter (Tunng). The album is a mix of darksynth, industrial funk and experimental noise, with vocals by Grant and Malinger providing a surreal, vocoded oeuvre. The titular 'Yawning Abyss' is ploddy and skeletal enough, but then we move into the real meat of things with the likes of 'Bungalow' and 'Moneyback', which carry on the album's extant deathly techno-dysoptian vibe with an increasingly post-punky effect.

Review: This is a vinyl release of the original soundtrack for Joe 90, a 1968 British science-fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. The soundtrack was composed and conducted by Barry Gray, a prolific British composer who worked on many of Anderson's shows, such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. The soundtrack features Gray's distinctive style of orchestral music, blending classical influences with jazz and pop and electronic elements. The release includes 24 tracks selected from the show's score, pressed on two LPs with orange and blue vinyl, and also features new artwork by illustrator Eric Chu, depicting the main character Joe McClaine and his many eccentric gadgets.

Review: Much-hyped Swedish rock band Ghost re-present their fourth studio album, following an original release in 2018. The masked, formerly anonymous supergroup made an initial splash as progenitors of modern heavy and doom metal, amping up the theatrics and rampaging lyrically through such themes as the plague, apocalypse, demon sigils and the antichrist. Prequelle continues the charge, bolstering their Anti-papal image by streamlining their creative process and concluding on a Faustian theme of eternal life.

Review: This is a vinyl reissue of the fifth studio album by Alkaline Trio, Crimson. With the band first forming in 1996, the 2005 LP marks the 10th Anniversary of their formation, and is as celebratory as the occasion invites, with 13 original songs in their own brand of gothic punk influenced by The Misfits, The Cure, and The Smiths. Highlights like 'Settle For Satin', 'Sadie' and 'Your Neck' sustain a consistent energy across the LP, recalling a bleaker My Chemical Romance. The album is widely regarded as one of the best albums by the band, with its emo and goth elements shining through but not dominating overtly.

Review: First released on Soul Jazz in 2011, we now hear a welcome 2023 edition of this curatorial country gem. Delta Swamp Rock compiles and explores the musical and cultural links between the cities of Memphis, Muscle Shoals and Nashville in the 1960s and 70s, where country, rock and soul met at the crossroads in what could only be described as an unholy sonic explosion. Tracks by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joe South, Bobbie Gentry, Area Code 615, Duane and Gregg Allman, Cher, Cowboy, The Allman Brothers Band, Link Wray and Boz Scaggs all appear. There's also 8-page booklet with notes, history and information about the South and its music scene.

Review: Critically acclaimed artist The Japanese House has finally dropped a long-awaited second album, In the End It Always Does. Fans will already know it for lead single 'Boyhood', and might know that the record is all about contradictions - beginnings and endings, falling in and out of love, the mundane and the obsessive. It is four years since the hugely venerated debut and finds Bain not only one in more on her signature sound but also heading into more of a pop realm away from the indie and rock she emerged playing. This exclusive version comes on limited yellow vinyl.

Review: They may have taken their insanely catchy punk rock to the top of the charts, but The Offspring started out in the underground like any other band. This collection of demos takes us right back to the beginning, when they were some snot-nosed SoCal thrashers with everything to prove. That's why you get treated to the likes of a cover of Sweet cover 'Ballroom Blitz', but even in their rawest state the band were no joke. The track 'Tehran' from 1988 is an interesting precursor to their subsequent 1991 single 'Baghdad', where the political climate clearly shifted from one Middle Eastern crisis to another. Balancing hardcore energy with their sharp melodic sensibility, this is a fascinating insight into the roots of Dexter, Noodles et al.

Review: .Originally released unofficially in 1994, just two short years after Radiohead's stellar debut Pablo Honey landed and introduced the world to Thom Yorke and co, the great new hope of gritty garage-y but epic and immersive alternative rock, Stop Staring At Me is at once a relic from a bygone era for the band, and evidence as to why everyone was so very excited when they landed. A collection of live recordings including some of their most powerful and - to this day - fan favourite tracks ('Creep', 'Prove Yourself', 'Ripcord'), it's hard to decided what stands out most. On the one hand, this is Radiohead in full voice-of-a-generation, youthful energy and angst mode, paying louder and more aggressive than you'll have heard them in years. On the other, there's clearly something utterly unique, sophisticated, stadia-filling, almost operative and thought provoking happening here.