I first heard Ostraca just a few months ago with the release of their single ‘Song for a Closed Door’, an absolutely pummelling screamo/post-rock hybrid that reminded me of the very best the genre has to offer. So, even though I hadn’t yet delved deep into their back catalogue, when I saw they were coming to Japan – and playing alongside three other great bands – I knew I had to be there.

Couch Slut are a unique band. . . they are a group that merge noise rock and sludge metal together, into something that has a coherent sound and vision. . . They make “unkind music”, but they sure are kind and welcoming people. That feeling was reciprocated as they took to the stage to make their first audio levelling of London to date.

Bear Stone Festival is a psych, stoner, desert rock festival set in the idyllic surrounds of Donje Primišlje, a village in Central Croatia. And it’s difficult to imagine a more perfect location to spend three days enjoying this kind of music.

It’s just past 8pm on a Thursday and outside the sun is still screamingly bright, but inside Sextile have conjured an instant rave – powered and activated by the crowd’s collective perspiration. It’s apparent that everyone here is experiencing the same joy and release that I am – the sense of community is as palpable as the bass vibration in our chests.

Once again, twelve years down the line, Desertfest still delivers a wonderful weekend, balancing the safe, solid and predictable with plenty of surprises along the way. And it’s one of the few festivals to which I know I’ll be returning next year regardless of line-up: the atmosphere is that good.  

Here were three bands all with a slightly different take on the post-rock genre and were fun to see in a tiny, intimate venue. Civil Service are a band developing their craft and one to keep an eye on; Overhead, The Albatross gave a wonderful performance and added a bit of something extra to their recorded work; and Midas Fall rounded things off perfectly.

Ministry’s Seattle performance was more than a nostalgic trip; it was a vital resurrection. By fearlessly embracing and powerfully re-contextualizing their synth-pop roots, Jourgensen and crew delivered a night of immense fun, cathartic energy, and undeniable relevance.

Has it been a good weekend? Hell, yes! Has it been ‘tenth anniversary special’ good? Yes, I believe it has. Lots of good new bands, and some quality returnees. It’s hard to see how it could have been better. Stewart and the team have, I think, outdone themselves this year.

How blessed those of us at EartH were to witness it. Over two decades in the game, CocoRosie deserved a larger audience in London, but what a gift they gave to those dedicated enough to turn out on a sunny Tuesday.

To rapturous applause, Anika concludes her set with an encore of two older songs. The first is Yoko Ono’s ‘Yang Yang’, a call for revolution and peace. The last is ‘I Go to Sleep’, played on guitar without her bandmates – a lullaby to end the night, she explains. It’s a beautiful rounding-off, sending us off softly into the warm late evening.

You always come away from FOCUS Wales thinking how on earth can they top that yet every year the organisers find new ways to keep the festival growing. It’s quite simply one of the best festivals out there right now. Until next year!

The new line-up brings some amazing vocal harmonies and puts the sax up front and centre. Less cosmic journey and more raucous rock ‘n’ roll dance party. It’s melodious and bold, not jazz or atonal skronk. The overall effect is very 70s in feel though, amped up rock ‘n’ roll, proto punk. Strikingly unfashionable but undeniably tremendous fun.    

The way they have arranged themselves on the ample stage creates a kind of physical spotlight on each member – a halo of space around them. Though this distance isn’t felt in their performance. Like their vocals, their instrumentation is as tenderly interlocked as fingers in held hands.

Chaos Theory Music, the London-based promoters, are celebrating fifteen years of curating “new music for open minds” by bringing together a suitably eclectic selection of bands to fill the sacred subterranean chambers of the Camden Underworld on this unseasonably hot winter day. It’s the second day of their big annual bash, which kicked off last weekend at Signature Brew in Walthamstow.

Well, there it is. I said at the beginning that I was going to take a close-ish look at the first StrangeForms, and then just wing it from there, and that’s what I’ve done. . . I think you should seriously consider spending a relatively small number of your Earth Pounds on a ticket, or tickets, for StrangeForms 2025.

STRANGEFORMS FEST will be 10 this spring. That, I think, deserves some kind of retrospective thingy. A look back, if you will. I have no idea whether or not anybody else is going to do it but somebody has to, even if that somebody is me. So, yeah, here it is.

With cat-paw softness, she conquers the world, not by storm, but with whispers… A review in haikus. . .

At their best, as tonight, Wardruna gigs are far more than a concert – they’re a celebration of nature imagined and remembered; a rendition of an urgent body of work that shows us, through the power of song, another way.

At one point, he reaches into the belly of the piano with one hand to pluck the strings, whilst the other hand remains on the keys, rippling. The light on the underside of the piano lid exposes these plucked guts to the audience; it’s intimate and deeply connective.

The thing is, Alabama 3 are true believers, in their radical politics and loose outsider stance but most of all in the healing and transcendent power of music. Cynicism just doesn’t get you this far down the road, they’re just not earnest, or solemn. Because acid house and country music aren’t either.

Over the course of more than a decade, Spirit of the Beehive have often been many an underground indie fan’s favourite band’s favourite band. They have been remarkably prolific, too, with five albums, three EPs, and a few digital only singles and remix …