Category: Album/Single Review

Son of the Right Hand – Pscenic Root – EP review

November 10, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Not since Deer Leader released their album We’ve Met Before, Haven’t We? have I been as intrigued as I am by the new EP from Son of the Right Hand. To take the play on words of the EPs title, Pscenic Root, the band have created a sonic soundscape that takes a journey through genres borrowing snippets along the way and pairing them with found sounds and other intriguing instrumental arrangements to create an overall sound that despite the references I’ll make, is a sound all of their own. I could listen to these five songs a dozen time and hear something different each time that will delight, confuse and intrigue me in equal measures.… Read the rest

Singles… so far…

November 10, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

November is still in it’s infancy but by the end of last week, there was a flurry or singles that were on my radar. I’ll leave my favourite until last, but let’s kick things off with Death Valley Girls who have already left Halloween behind and have their minds on the next holiday season on the sublime Season of Dreaming, a swoonsome Christmas offering shrouded in atmospheric tenor saxophone, with the addition of bells to give it that Christmas vibe. As Bonnie Bloomgarden sings of “dreaming of the year you will make” and the “season for dreaming and believing” they do feel like the perfect band to bridge the seasons, with plenty of their spooky psych-goth remaining, and just enough festive spirit to start the feels.… Read the rest

Fiendz YT – Unfortunately Live with… EP review

November 7, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Hot on the heels of their double whammy of August singles in the form of the suitably unhinged Mad Men and high octane rush of Do What I Want the riotous garage rockers present their tongue in cheek titled EP. I say tongue in cheek as anyone who has been fortunate enough to see Fiendz YT live will know just how utterly rowdy and joyful that experience is, a life affirming opportunity to chuck everything in the fuck it bucket and let yourself go with reckless abandon. The six tracks on this EP are representative of that live experience and have the band revelling in their natural environment, with furious garage punk kicking things off on Vote For Me, “vote for me or you’re fuckin’ brain dead” is the message… or should that be threat as the vocals reach a pinnacle of blood vessel bursting rage as the fuel injected punk goes full-on nitro.… Read the rest

Shinlifter – Other Conspiracies – EP review

November 5, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

The debut three track EP, Other Conspiracies, from the raucous rising stars of Auld Reekie, post-punk noiseniks, Shinlifter is out now. Other Conspiracies kicks off with Close Encounters, a song that has the band high on adrenaline, musically launching themselves headlong at your jugular with a furious urgency, the lyrics spat out rant-like with an unbridled venom. The driving fuzzy guitars change mid-song to sharp angular riffs that match the pointed lyrical barbs. I do hope you’ve never got on the wrong side of vocalist Olivia Furey, as you’re definitely on her shitlist, “I want to list them name by name from primary school to the present day.” … Read the rest

Quad 90 – debut album review

October 31, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

The debut album from the talented duo of Amelia Lironi and Naomi Mackay, who met while studying music at Riverside College, is an exquisite masterpiece with its stylish melding of 1970s styledisco and funk with 1980’s post punk, their perfectly syncopated dual vocals playing off the sweeping synths, disco handclaps and funk/punk guitar riffs and creating an overall sound that is elegantly suave and coolly sophisticated.

This album has feel good written all over it, the infectious nature of the music, and it’s laidback geniality has a way of catching you unaware, enveloping you in it’s warm embrace until you feel invincible, like you don’t have a care in the world and nothing really matters anymore, apart from the music.… Read the rest

Pick of the Gigs for November AND October’s Singles Round Up

October 30, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Two birds, one stone and all that… November in Glasgow has some inviting offerings large and small, with the usual amount of gig clashes. While we’re here October served up some juicy morsels on the singles front…

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start… Another multi venue offering comes Glasgow’s way in the 1st of the month, with Scottish Music Collective serving up a smorgasbord of some of the best young talent Scotland has to offer. Fheadain takes place in Stereo and The Old Hairdressers, and the festivities kick off in The Old Hairdressers at 2.30 in the afternoon with Lint Bin, followed by Vacant Pavements, Awful Eyes, Puppy Teeth, Milange, PVC, PSweatpants, Straid and The Froobz, with Roller Disco Death Party winding things up at 10pm.… Read the rest

Station Nord – Mind Control Radio – album review

October 28, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Station Nord is a project by what could be described as a Scottish supergroup, even though some of its members are now divided by oceans, the core element of the band originate from the hotbed of musical talent that is North Lanarkshire. Readers of these pages will recognise some of the names and the dulcet tones of the roll call – guitar wrangler for The Scottish Sex Pistols and Johnny Cash tribute Jericho Hill, Joe Whyte, Jonzip of the first wave of punk band The Zips, Peter Lacey of God Fearing Atheists (whose album I discovered I had two copies of recently…), Walt WXYZ of Tarbeach Records and Thee Effits, jazz bassist Iain Wyper and Dominic Gallagher on all sorts of other “sonic wizardry.”… Read the rest

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