Category: Music Feature

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

pedalo – live in McChuills

October 25, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Walking into a busy McChuills from a crisply cold Friday evening in October, I was  immediately plunged into darkness as my glasses steamed up, so apologies to anyone I blanked on the way in… Alan. The bar was packed with a mixture of Friday night revellers and Psychedelic Furs fans stopping by for a few liveners before heading to Barrowland, a place where I could very well have been heading if I wasn’t staying put in one of Glasgow’s best bar-come-venues for a triple bill of three up and coming young Scottish bands.

First on the bill was Sick Pay, purveyors of indie anthems which pick up the baton from the Pixies school of loud quiet loud, blending poignant quiet moments with raucous frenzied guitar noise.… 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

Panic Shack – Live in Glasgow, The Garage

October 17, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

All Panic Shack photographs courtesy of Chris Hogge Photography

Panic Shack were re-visiting our Dear Green Place as part of their powerhouse of a debut album tour having slayed a packed King Tuts in May prior to the album release. Having had the pleasure of being part of the sweaty mass on that occasion, the anticipation was great, and expectations high.

First up it was Punchbag and, having been introduced to the excellent duo The Pill on Panic Shack’s previous outing, then enjoying their return to Glasgow later in the year in Nice n Sleazy, I was hoping for another impressive support band.… Read the rest

Tenement Trail 2025

October 15, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

I’ve not written a blog/review since April… and reading that one back now, the negativity in my tone probably said as much about my state of mind at the time as it did about the event itself.

Maybe I should have noticed the slow decline from then until a few months later when things came to a head and my brain, for want of a better word, imploded and became my worst enemy once again. but hindsight is a great thing isn’t it? Slowly getting back on track means revisiting the things that bring a bit of joy and relief into an insane world and try to regain some sanity and balance, it means bringing some conscious positive habits in to replace all the unconscious negative habits that insidiously creep in.… Read the rest