Category: Album/Single Review

Gutterblood – Good Dogs Will Never Die – Album/EP review

October 26, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Gutterblood first came to my attention with the release of their single with political commentator Bonnie Prince Bob, the excellent anti-monarchy rant that is Gardyloo and their excellent Hard Ghandi EP from whence it came. I’m glad to note that the outspoken Bob is back alongside Tom with some hard hitting vocals and lyrics when you pair that with founding member Andy MacVannan whose thunderous ground-shaking bass lines form the solid backbone of the bands sound, complemented by some heard hitting heavy riffing by ex-Gin Goblin Dave you have a band who are in fine fettle angrier and more forthright than ever. … Read the rest

Brògeal – Tuesday Paper Club – album review

October 21, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

There are a couple of old schools of thought, one that says you should start as you mean to go on, and another that says you should go big or go home…

Falkirk folk-punks Brògeal clearly live by both of those adages, laying their cards in the table and going massive from the off with their hugely addictive anthem in the shape of the album’s title track. As a single I had rarely been able to listen to the song just once, this is a sign of the infectious nature of the songs across the rest of the album, and a solid guarantee of the pressing of the restart button at the end of the first listen…and the second…and…

The Tuesday Paper Club melds traditional celtic instruments with electric guitar and a melodic bouyant drinking song lyric to create a joyous singalong footstomper of gargantuan proportions.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 5

April 24, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

If it was down to me, I’d listen to and write about music 24/7, but unfortunately, that doesn’t pay the bills, it only adds to them! So work has to take priority which doesn’t help when you have to burn the candle at both ends just to stand still…

Anyway if I don’t change the way I do these singles round ups it’ll be July before I’m done with February.

So here goes…

All the way from Brazil, Signo 13 served up another slice of moody gothic post punk with Onironautus while The Faint revival continued apace with an unreleased single, Brokers, Priests and Analysts, from their reissue of Blank-Wave Arcade.… Read the rest

This Questionable Life – Exquisite Torment EP review

April 22, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Exquisite Torment is the second EP from This Questionable Life following up their debut, The Softest Heart, from 2022.

The EP’s gloriously named title track is the opening song of the three on show. It just takes a glance at the names of the songs to give an indication of what you can expect musically. With Exquisite Torment and the closing eponymous song bookending the self-deprecatingly titled Car Crash of Me, it’s glaringly obvious that these aren’t going to be happy go lucky pop songs. Thankfully. Yeah, OK, maybe sometimes you need those throwaway songs that wash over you without touching your soul but, arguably for me, I need music to make me feel.… Read the rest

Dead Pioneers – Post American – album review

April 20, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

If there is any justice, this album is destined to be on album of the year lists across the globe for 2025. Dead Pioneers are out to set the record straight, a band not afraid to raise their heads above the parapet and tell it like it is. These songs reveal the true account of American history past and present, a much needed adjustment of the white-washed “American as apple pie” version of the USA that Presidents present, and past, and the genocide denying lies of the silver screen will have you believe. 

Apart from redneck Amerikkka, those of us with our sanity intact around the rest of the US and beyond are looking on in shock and disbelief as the future takes on a dystopian slant with the orange one m, and his brainwashed cronies in charge.… Read the rest

House Guest Festival 2025 – Review

April 14, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

In 2024, the inaugural House Guest Festival was such a roaring success, I had high hopes and expectations for this years event. My hopes were most definitely not dashed as Scottish Music Collective & Crowded Flat pulled off another cracker of an event, planned perfectly and executed with a pinpoint precision, with timings being a major factor in events such as this, everything flowed as gracefully as as a swam gliding across water, but I’m sure this meant no end of unseen frantic exertion behind the scenes. Kudos to all involved.

Count the Days


The Sankaras opened proceedings in Sleazys, but my starter for 10 for the day was a furiously energetic Count the Days.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 4

April 9, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

The Gorgeous Pouting Mr AR ft. Carla J Easton – Hands in the Air

Hands in the Air feels like a dancefloor smash akin to a Scottish Murder on the Dancefloor, or along the lines of a banging Moloko track, whatever the comparison I may be trying to make, the song has a huge sound, with a real (showing my age here) disco sound, and when you cap that off with the distinctive vocals of a distinguished Ms Carla J Easton, you’re onto a winner.

The Gorgeous Pouting Mr AR

Second City Sin – Morose

Morose has a strong driving rhythm with plenty of intensely ardent riffs, paired with a suitably passionate and earnest vocal delivery befitting of a song with such a title.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 3

March 29, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

The Mushroom Club – Afraid

Trippy psych sounds abound on February single Afraid from Glasgow based garage rock band The Mushroom Club.

The Mushroom Club

Pales – Uppercut

Uppercut comes from French alt-rockers Pales latest EP, Crush. Both the title of the EP and single are appropriate adjectives to describe the sound of the band, the crushing intensity of the guitar riffs and the layering of vocals and instruments on the single coming together in a glorious melee and rising to a knockout crescendo

Pales

Self Esteem – 69

Perhaps not one to add to your workplace playlists, as Self Esteem celebrates every sexual position imaginable but draws the line at….… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 2

March 28, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Mark W. Georgsson – Tripping With You

Mark W. returned in February with this boisterously energetic slice of cosmic psychedelia, Georgsson will play his first gig since 2022 supporting Brownbear in Coatbridge.

Mark W. Georgsson

flinch. – i heard monogamy and the patriarchy are best of friends (and Tennyson wrote that poem about his best friend)

Winning the February prize for longest song title is the always wonderful flinch. I heard… is a prime example of what flinch. do best, making their point quietly and assertively, thought provoking lyrics paired with gentle guitar riffs and sung in the familiar hushed tones are interspersed with excerpts of an interview with Avril Lavigne.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 1

March 27, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Dead Pioneers – Post American

Another incendiary single from the new album from Dead Pioneers, in the form of its title track. Post American is huge attitude fuelled attack on white nationalism and a swipe at “giant toddlers with demands” and the country “built on genocide” and “slave labour”, in a year which beggars belief where one of the first acts the orange one took was to take rights away from just about everyone who isn’t a white cis male. Powerful stuff.

Dead Pioneers

benefits- Divide

Closer to home benefits have plenty to say too, with another attack on nationalism and “patriots” and the divide that continues to grow within British society.… Read the rest