Fat Possum Us Vinyl & CDs

Review: Al Green's 1974 long player Explores Your Mind has been fully remastered for this reissue - including the cover art, too. It was his eighth album and by this time he was already one of the most notable soul voices in the world, his legacy long since assured but his creativity still flowing. Some of the biggest hits on this one include the lovely 'Sia-la-la (make Me Happy)' and the original version of his seminal 'Take Me To The River.' His inimitable voice conveys such realness and rawness that even today few have come close.

Review: Los Angeles hardcore punk supergroup, OFF!, return with their first full-length in almost a decade, and follow up to 2014's blistering, Wasted Years. Originally formed by Keith Morris (formerly of Black Flag and Circle Jerks) and Dimitri Coats (of Burning Brides), the band have seen a shift in their rhythm section with the addition of new bassist Autry Fulbright II of seminal art-rockers, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, and outlier drummer Justin Brown, who's previously worked with the likes of Thundercat and Herbie Hancock. Prepare for an entirely new batch of chaotic, effortless bangers from a group who only emerge when they have something vital to accost their listeners with. Please, be sure to not mistake the title, Free LSD, for false advertising, though.

Review: When Soccer Mommy dropped 2022's Sometimes Forever, we made the rather painful dad joke that the third album represented a hat trick for the band with a football-influenced name. Let's start by offering another apology to you and the group for the cheap penmanship, and move on. Now presenting LP number four, let's avoid the temptation to us words like 'haul' (or, considering these guys are US-based, 'hambone'... oops) and cut straight to the chase. Or at least the tunes.

Another year, another great collection of alternative rock stunners that are at once spiky yet easy going, disaffected but hopeful, sparse but musically packed. 'Blossom', for example, pits the ever-incredible voice of Sophie Allison with gliding, mournful strings, and a background quiet so powerful you can hear fingers sliding down the guitar neck. Next in line, 'Last Girl' ushers in an uptempo, bouncing rock 'n' roll vibe, before 'Skin' looks to shoegaze for at least some of its inspiration. Excellent stuff, we could go on.

Review: Watch out for the upcoming Spiritualized album - aka. Jonathan Meades' musical journey through poor self-confidence, narcissism and doubt. In his words, contained and condensed into the sonic foundries of this album are all the attributes of your bog-standard musician: "paranoia, vanity, egoism, selfishness, sycophancy, resentment, moral nullity and more idiot than idiot savant". This LP comes as a standard black vinyl edition, as well as a premium pink vinyl edition; the latter contains a pillbox in the sleeve, revealing a strange Braille-embossed figurine - or "little thing" - as a keepsake.

Review: There's nothing like taking time with something. Take this record, for example. While many bands may have felt a compulsion to get their first long form out and heard ASAP - especially given the hype surrounding Spiritualized at the time - Lazer Guided Melodies, the outfit's debut LP, only landed in shops two years after recording started. Proving very much worth the wait, although it would be a few albums until the group really defined their niche, this was as good an inaugural adventure as anyone could ask for.

Setting the stall out in the space rock territory, while still keeping one foot rooted in the baggy-trousered indie rock attitude of the day, Spiritualized's debut long form foretells of the lush, cosmic vibes that would become cornerstones of their work, incorporating elements of Kraut, folk, and rave, all of which ensured we took notice then, and are still paying attention three decades on.

Review: The Spaceman Reissue Program from Fat Possum Records and Spiritualized now gets the last in the series with Let It Come Down, the band's epic fourth album. This record was the first from a rather new-looking lineup for the band after the previous members melted away following intensive tours around Ladies And Gentlemen.... John Coxon's studio is where the band laid down the initial framework for these tunes before a total of 115 different musicians were reportedly enlisted down at Air and Abbey Road Studios to hone what ended up as these 11 songs. They have always been a widescreen band, but Spiritualized outdid even themselves on this one.

Review: Originally intended as a second companion disc to the And Nothing Hurt album in 2018, Everything Was Beautiful became its own beast and now marks the latest step on for Jason Pierce's long and winding travels as Spiritualized. Pierce took the bits and pieces from that intended bonus disc and developed an album which has become one of the band's most emotive, engrossing works in recent times, perhaps responding to the universal changes the world has gone through in the past few years. It's still very much the band you've loved since the 90s, but there's a sense of space and maturity in the songwriting which seems set to lodge this as one of the classics in Spiritualized's mammoth oeuvre.

Review: RECCOMENDED
It might have been the album that made us all realise just how incredible the combination of Jason Pierce, Kate Radley and Sean Cook were. Spiritualized's difficult second is easy to fall in love with, produced by Pierce himself and centred around three core members, with previous bandmates Mark Refoy and Jonny Mattock also involved alongside contributions from The Balanescu Quartet.

This vinyl reissue may not glow in the dark like the original CD copies, but it's still an illuminating experience. Huge, commanding, stadium filling tracks like 'Medication', floaty and deeply transient work like 'Let It Flow', and cacophonous masterpieces such as 'These Blues', it's any wonder the troupe didn't go on to become one of most treasured and revered in English rock history. Oh, actually, hold on a second...

Review: Recorded in a kind of homely hibernation - namely the shed in the yard of Nathan Williams' family home in San Diego - despite the title, Hideaway isn't backwards at coming forwards. It's an upfront and muscular, riff-y but not too heavy rock 'n' roll record that benefits from some real creative titans at the helm, specifically the aforementioned Wavves lynchpin and Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio fame. Suffice to say, then, it's one of the most polished sounding shed rock albums you will hear all year.

While for the most part it's an uptempo, top down convertible, wayward road trip, chaotic montage type sound, the instrumentation betrays some pretty (and typically, for Williams) thoughtful songwriting. It's an ode to the restless feeling we all experience at times, the possibilities of the other and the need to embrace the potential in the world. Messages that resonate with us all in 2021.

Review: Tamara Lindeman was at a real transition point in life when What Am I Going to do With Everything I Know was first unveiled. A six track strong EP, here the moodiness and tangible sense of isolation, loneliness, and hopelessness that had once emanated from her voice dissipates into equally tender and gentile thoughts on an impending marriage and all that may come with it. For some, an equally troubling time in their lives, for others something to truly work towards and - when it finally arrives - celebrate, either way it's a subject ripe for emotional songwriting.

But in actual fact, Lindeman, her fiance and troupe treat the concept of matrimony with something close to apathy, or at least lackadaisical 'might as well'-ness. The culmination of this record, 'Almost Careless', sees her ask the question 'what if', but in a way that's neither excited nor nervous, but simply filled with inquisitiveness and a matter of fact consideration.

Review: Let's face it, we loved the early work by Tamara Lindeman, AKA The Weather Station, but it was 2017's self-titled album that really saw the parts slot into place, with the artist switching instrumental focus from acoustic guitar to piano. You could just call us suckers for ivories and have done with it, but our bias towards the most mournful and reflective keys imaginable is only part of the reason we fell in love with her so much deeper on later outings.

How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars is exemplary of how staggeringly effective the combination of that voice and that instrument actually is. Recorded live in March 2020, while clarinets, lap steel, and organs do factor, ultimately it's the vulnerability of this album's minimalism that really shines through - a work of such personal quality it almost feels as though you're in that room with her as the world outside begins to fall apart.