Articles by Jared Dix

The Lovely Eggs hit the stage with little fanfare, blasting straight through four tunes from their last album I Am Moron before stopping for breath. It’s been two years since the album came out. Two long years that this show has been kicked down the ro …

‘Growing Up’ is a good record, varied and accomplished. There’s hope for their future. And that’s a pretty rare feeling these days.

Yeah, sure, it all sounds the same, the first album is rockin’ an’ reelin’, the second one all squallin’ an’ squealin’ but you can most definitely eat both in one sitting with no unwelcome bloating or drowsiness.

While The Body paint the bleakest picture of life, their contradictory appeal is still in making you feel less alone in your misery.

They bristle with ideas and mischief, playing an overheated mix of ugly electronics, widescreen guitars and crackling percussion.

There is pain in these songs but healing in her voice. Human frailty and beauty. Magic and sorrow and loss.

Blends Dawson’s remarkable storytelling abilities with Circle’s quicksilver music to delirious effect.

It’s prime stuff, two hefty ‘Pyroclasts’ cuts and a full half hour long version of ‘Troubled Air’ to float in.

The Ritz’s famed sprung dancefloor is doing its bouncy thing beneath a leaping pit of bodies and the air is pulsing and expanding with energy and excitement. Up on stage, Girl Band are tearing the roof off, firing out great chunks of sound that explode …

So delicate and effective it sometimes feels as if they left the tape running and it came out of the night air, an elegy from the past.

a grim assessment of the current state of things, it may be a bit stark for that, but we really shouldn’t take her continuing greatness for granted

Maybe less a heartbreak album than a dark night of the soul, but it finds its way back to the light.

A brilliant album, Last of the Better Days Ahead draws on the strengths of an impressive career and still expands the scope of Parr’s music.