A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Modern Plagues LP by The Whistles And The Bells. If we can all agree that many of the best, most interesting albums are those which convey a particular image of its maker, then there’s little doubt of Modern Plagues‘ quality. From the very outset of The Whistles And The Bells’ sophomore album, listeners are presented with the image of auteur Bryan Simpson toiling gladly and madly in some fantastic underground fortress...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Blau Sang Vermell Cel LP by CRIM. The catch, when it comes to working within any pop music-based form (and, as inconvenient as it is to say, punk rock definitely falls into that category), is that language plays a key role in the music’s accessibility. Simply said, if a band’s not speaking the mother tongue of the country they’re playing to, they’ve already alienated a fairly an impressive portion of its...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Tackle Box LP by Hamell On Trial. It might sound a little ridiculous, but the truth is that some musicians need to have something which genuinely pisses them off – something they find truly abhorrent – before them in order to produce their best work. Take Ed Hamell, for example; Hamell has been a politically-minded songwriter since he first appeared in 1996 but his best music has always appeared when either...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl reissue of Born In The Echoes by The Chemical Brothers. After over a quarter century of holding dance clubs hostage with some of the most well-known club-pop ever to also grace radio airwaves, the question has become how The Chemical Brothers have held the the venerable position they have. They are some of the most visible purveyors of dance club music and culture after all and, in a form which...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of Into The Great Wide Open by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Abraham Lincoln once said (to a delegation from the National Union League who were urging him to be their presidential candidate) that, “It is never wise to swap horses in mid-stream” and, after the popular breakthrough that his solo album made in 1989, Tom Petty clearly took that adage to heart when it came time to...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty. There’s no way to say for sure if the reason Tom Petty elected to launch his solo career with Full Moon Fever was because the singer felt like he had a surplus of songs that he didn’t want to bring to the Heartbreakers, or if he was just trying to make a point. If it was because he didn’t want to...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Twelve years after they started, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers found themselves in a fairly unique position in pop music: they’ve been working long enough and had been influential enough that radio waves were beginning to get crowded which artists who cited the band as an influence – or at least seemed like it. On...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of the Pack Up The Plantation: Live! 2LP set by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It’s far a far less common occurrence now (when virtually every band in the universe releases a live album and, thanks to digital technology,is able to “fix” every flaw in the show in post-production) but, at one time, the release of a live album meant that the band in question was confident enough...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of the Long After Dark LP by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. In the first half-decade of their association together, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had already hit some pretty spectacular highs and lows on a condensed timeline. Virtually from day one, the group established that they had some great potential to write hits (see “American Girl,” “Here Comes My Girl” and “Rufugee” as easy and fantastic examples),...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of Hard Promises by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. When it comes to making a follow-up for a career-defining release, the catch is that whatever comes can often feel like a diminished return no matter how good it might be because the new music simply does not have the same spark which ignited the breakthrough of the previous album. It’s kind of heartbreaking to concede that possibility, but...