I really don’t like this policy of only covering things that you feel positive about said someone or other, did tell you this last time, apparently it is a “rather cowardly way of doing things” and yes maybe so but it does save a hell of lot of our time and yours and none of us have spare change to waste on any of the negative stuff. As we said last time, if we did throw the policy out of the window, it might read something like this athough, I think we’ll probably go back to doing it the way it has always been done around here, it wasn’t broken, well no more broken that things have always been, here’s some more album reviews…

The Pale White – The Big Sad (End of the Wall) –  It would be very easy to just dismiss The Pale White as little more than politely middle of the road slightly alternative song driven indie rock band. This new album has something about it though, big songs, hopeful songs and maybe not quite so obvious as before? “The Big Sad: an album born from the ashes of dark times,” shares frontman Adam Hope, “but representing a beacon of light for the future. An album of honesty and purity, one that our current fanbase sonically may not be expecting. The sound of a band that got tired of slamming on the fuzz pedal to tick the ‘rock’ box and dares to try something new, dares to shock, dares to be great.”

Kind of breezy, kind of easy on the ear, touch of quality in their simplicity thought, dare we say a touch of Beatles brightness? The Big Sad sounds harmlessly fresh, alive enjoyable songcraft, classic melodies, surging now and again, the Newcastle Upon Tyne band are sounding kind of grown up and well, rather harmlessly good for those times when that’s all you really need. The artwork, from Joe Hope, deserves a mention. Links / Bandcamp

Fir Cone Children – Gearshifting (Blackjack Illuminist Records) – The label talks of “highspeed dreampunk (shoegaze and garage punk) swinging in between the joys of being alive and a young teenager’s first signs of world-weariness. Puberty is here!” and that seems fair enough, “it might be something for listeners who like Bad Nerves, My Bloody Valentine and Cloud Nothings” hint the label. It sounds little off-kilter, a little wonky, colourful, urgent at times, it certainly is rather quickly played. if any of that has you curious then we’ll sit up here on the fence and give you the link to the Bandcamp

Bruit ≤ – The Age Of Ephemerality (Pelagic) – We’ve shared tracks from this Album a couple of times already, as stand alone pieces they do work rather well. It is very much that big instrumental symphonic widescreen heroic filmoid post rock big big bigness thing that tends to go to the same place every time once you let the whole album play out and unroll itself a few times. The French instrumental experimentalists as they are described as are all Explosions in Sigor’s Godspeed epicness, you know the score, and that’s the problem, you really do know the very big score. They do do it rather well though, there is a dark undercurrent and a moral question or two and they do bring a touch of there own identity, there is light and shade, not sure if that is quite enough though, as much as they do do it rather well, it is all maybe a little too repetitive and predictable? You kind of feels, as good as they are at their thing, they could maybe do a lot more. Here’s the Bandcamp and other links

“It’s a vast album, where ancient pipe organs, strings and modern electronics collide, and a furious warning as society inches ever closer to totalitarianism and deference to the algorithm. Powerful stuff indeed”.

Mark Fredson – Company Man – “Mark Fredson’s musical journey spans more than two decades, marked by a dogged commitment to the pursuit of making music for music’s sake. Hailing from Port Angeles, Washington, Fredson was just a sophomore in high school – when he signed his first record deal. As a frontman, songwriter, pianist, and producer, his body of work is vast, from the outlaw country of Margo Price’s “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle),” which he co-wrote with Price, to the theatrical pop anthems that have defined his solo career. But it’s his latest album, Company Man, arriving in the Spring of 2025, that marks a a new chapter in Fredson’s artistic evolution. The album explores the tension between chaotic beauty of youth and the mundane realities of growing older, all while refusing to let go of a life in service to music, even if it’s sometimes more labor than love”.

Well there’s a letter u in labour and well he is American so we’ll let the ‘sophomore’ pass, and well this is a very very 80s soft rock kind of album, I believe the beard growing hipsters talk of somthing ridiculously known as Yacht Rock? It is mostly some guy singing about getting old, it is mostly very slick rather cheesy 80s sounding (very very 80s sounding) very soft pop rock, like a whole load of theme songs used in 80s feel-good movies. The press release talks of Haim, Warren Zevon, Tame Impala, and Tom Petty, none of whom mean that much to me and that bit there sounds like Dire Straits, I always though Dire Straits to indeed be dire, never liked the Eagles much either, the Dude was right on that one, I guess if you’re in a watching Days of Thunder kind of mood… It is a very very polite album and I am trying to be polite about it here, he says he’s finally giving up on being cool and “get me out of here”, which is what I’m kind of thinking about this album as I wonder why someone has even bothered to send it this way? See now, the policy around here, is to not take up time and space with the hundreds of albums, singles, bands, artists, art shows we’re not that bothered about and really, normally the e.mail would have just been deleted after a quick listen and we’d have (politely) moved on to the next thing ages ago without saying anything for this really really (really) is not what we’re about but then that policy is getting criticised more and more and well do you really want to waste your time reading reviews like this or so I want to waste my time writing them?

El Chico Fuendre – Ragas for City Dwellers (El Chico Records) – They say this is “Dedicated to the seekers of sound those drifting between club culture and spiritual longing, this album is an offering of connection, movement, and deep listening”. They’re from Vilnius, Lithuania, it is indeed a rather hypnotic journey where Krautrock, drone, and modular synthesis merge into an evolving soundscape. “Ragas for City Dwellers draws inspiration from the improvisational spirit of Indian ragas, reinterpreting them through pulsating analogue electronics and electric guitar. Recorded entirely live – no sequencing, no computers – each track unfolds like a ritual, shaping raw voltage and organic textures into meditative, immersive forms.”. it is subtle, mellow, not too mellow though, there is that Kraut edge in there at times, early Tangerine Dream flavours, Motorway Cities, Eastern ones, modal minimalism, never too minimal, sometimes very mellow, reflective, warm, always warm. Warm instrumental pieces that feel right, that come with a little bit of identity and a finger print of their own, a little bit of depth, they do their chosen thing rather well. Recommended.  

They have themselves a Linktree here and a Bandcamp there

Planning For Burial – It’s Closeness, It’s Easy – Planning For Burial – It’s Closeness, It’s Easy (The Flenser) –  It does sound big, it sounds weighty, and If, as it says here, “Below the House was about returning home, following in the footsteps of your father and joining a union, and leaving behind youth’s wild days, It’s Closeness, It’s Easy embraces what comes next”, this does feel like an album that’s about the weight of life, the reality that comes with age, the changing shape of things, it does kind of feel like “the reckoning with what remains”, it does at least feel very emotional, thee kind of album you might, in your youth, have spent a lot of time alone with. It is a slow moving thing, a big sounding thing, is does stretch out the idea of time, of those walls, the unnoticed shifts in those big riffs, the moody guitar drift, “the creeping changes in mental health, the quiet pull of addiction, the kind of grief that settles in the bones rather than announces itself”. It is an album that, without really saying anything says rather a lot.

“Planning for Burial is the solo project of Thom Wasluck, emerging from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, his fourth album, arrives on May 30th. It’s Closeness, It’s Easy is the long-awaited follow-up to 2017’s Below the House” and if it is about is about stepping into middle age and taking stock, if it is confronting the reality of living with the hand that’s been dealt, about searching for meaning in what remains then I’m not sure if any of the answers are here, but then why on earth would there be? of course no one is expecting answers, no one is expecting anything other than maybe some emotion shared. I guess those who have grown up while waiting the seven years since the last album are going to be hanging on the expression found here…    

Bandcamp