Warriors 58!

Hello Warriors,

Back from perhaps the last festival of the season, we spent a few hours on the train returning from the Lakes after a wonderful weekend at Krankenhaus Festival.  Held in the grounds of Muncaster castle near the glowing droning Sellafield nuclear power plant, it is the event put on by Sea Power with all the idiosyncratic extras you would expect from such an engaged band. The lineup of bands was, of course, great but add to this all manner of talks and nature trials or trails and steam engine rides and you get a very different festival experience from the usual palaver!

Few festivals remain now in the autumnal glow, and as the leaves start to turn to golden brown with a texture like sun the venues open up again for the bacchanalian rush of gigs that define the autumn season. Fear not! the LTW team are primed and ready to go, complete with ear plugs and notepads to scour the nation’s venues for the continued hunt for new noise!

Just one caveat in this turn the seasons turn…crimble cromble time to buy a Womble! September has sneaked in and no one notices apart from the xmas ghouls who are already prodding us with their guilt trips to fill their coffers of their chain stores. Meanwhile, in the world of showbiz for ugly people AKA politics…Mick Jones from the Clash’s cousin Grant Shapps has become a one man sideshow hopping from job to job - a veritable jack of all trades and master of none as the country quite literally crumbles around him.

Recharged by the summer’s gallivanting, we return to the LTW office, and all manner of stuff is going on. The next big album that is just on the horizon now comes from The Coral and it's a wonderful affair - it could be their best and that's saying something with such a long list of great releases. We interviewed James Skelly from the band about the mighty new salt-stained and sea-tinged opus and his idiosyncratic creative process and it was a fascinating affair…

Six years on from their amazing comeback album, the self titled Slowdive which was one of our albums of the year, the Shoegaze pioneers present album number five and it’s a thing of beauty, says Wayne AF Carey. ‘Everything Is Alive’ is still one of the most read pieces on the site in the past few weeks and anticipation is high!  The band are an example of how to return to the frontline with all guns blazing and sound mightier than their youthful endeavours and the album is their best yet.

Drinking tinnies, smoking stolen tobacco and snogging random blokes in the park – I feel like a teenager again says our reviewer who obviously had quite a day at All Points East festival. With The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs soundtracking antics on Friday night it was an evening of teenage debauchery ensueing as nostalgia reached an all time high. Read our review here.

Prince Stanislas Klossowski de Rola has led a life! The ultimate rock n roll dandy, son of the notorious French-Polish artist Balthus – he wooed Nico, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg saw Syd Barrett lose his mind on acid in the Welsh black mountains, was best friends with Brian Jones and the Beatles and got busted for drugs with the Stones. Stash is now a TikTok sensation!

Wreckless Eric indeed seems to be wreck less! Remarkably returning to the music world with a fab new album and interviews full of nuggets of wisdom. His new album, ‘Leisureland’ is a great conceptual work that shows that the Eric is far more than that one wonderful hit and also the Cliff Richard song he once wrote. Like a fine wine he saunters into older age with creative guns still blazing,

Keeley is one of the best new names on the scene - with her snappy, idiosyncratic songwriting and cutting edge music she is a startling standout and is over in the UK to tour.

Come Together! Adventures on the indie dancefloor is an interesting release spotlighting a generation of indie dance crossover and innocent times when a shuffling backbeat married to a bunch of guitars and whiff of sixties psych that made for blissed out dancefloors in the post acid house come down.  Paul Clarke takes a trip down memory lane to a heady time when indie embraced dance to create some iconic remixes that have stood the test of time.

Forty years ago, Tom Waits released Swordfishtrombones, a masterpiece that freed him from the shackles of his early wild years and set him off on a new path, one that he still continues to tread, one that would cement him as one of the most influential artists of our times. Nathan Whittle revisits the album and reflects on the impact that Tom Waits had on his own musical journey.

At last a documentary on perhaps the most intense and creative explosion of a band to ever exist - The Birthday Party…this is something to look forward to as anyone who ever saw them play live will know!

VLURE: Live Review of Glasgow techno punk that thrills. More than just a band, soon to be a cult with thousands following with a state of mind shot through the heart of those belonging to its rightful ranks, https://louderthanwar.com/vlure-night-and-day-manchester-live-review/ (Opens in a new window)