Category: Review

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

Klingonz – live in Audio, Glasgow with Thrown Away, Three n Eights and Numbskulls

April 18, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Another epic night thanks to Shrunken Head Promotions in the company of Thrown Away, Three n Eights, Numbskulls and the mindblowing Klingonz, along with a cast of hundreds!

A Shrunken Heads night guarantees several occurrences… a great mix of musical genres; punk to rockabilly, ska to psychobilly and a melting pot of ages and styles, all coming together in a pit instigated by the usual suspects, alongside a huge grin on everyone’s  face and a feeling of being part of something bigger, and this occasion was certainly no exception.

Thrown Away kicked things off with their rollicking in yer face punk tunes, unfortunately work and life got in the way and I only caught their last two songs but there was plenty there to tempt me back for more.… 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

Three n Eights – Leopard Print Hearts – Album launch gig – Audio

March 24, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Photographs of Corrupt Intentions, Rudebeard and Three n Eights courtesy of Chris Hogge Photography

Yeah, yeah, I know the old cliche, when that gig you’ve just been to is brilliant, nay, the best ever because it’s the one that’s on the forefront on your mind. When you’re on the way home and the memories are still fresh, the adrenaline is still pumping through you and the dopamine high is real, you feel like you can take on the world. We’ve all been there, and we’d all agree that feeling is palpable. All too often though that it is a fleeting feeling, the moment is gone after a short while and, boom, you’re back down to earth with a bang the next morning as reality hits and the vagaries of life return with a vengeance.… Read the rest

Water Machine Single Launch – with comfort and Count Florida

March 16, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

It’s been a long time since I last saw Water Machine, with, pardon the pun, a lot of water passing under the bridge in everyone’s lives in the interim. It’s been all going the last couple of weeks though, with Water Machine playing a gig recently in Stereo, releasing a highly danceable new jangle-pop indie single Tiffany and announcing their debut album release (and accompanying gig) in June. Having unfortunately missed the Stereo gig due to a clash, tonight’s single launch gig was one not to be missed.

Before I got to witness the Water Machine live spectacle again, it was down to Count Florida to open proceedings followed by a band I’ve been excited to see for some time but the stars had not aligned up until now, comfort, whose 2023 album What’s Bad Enough was a triumph.… Read the rest