The Daily Growl

People use words like ‘legend’ a bit too loosely in this business. Does being able to play an instrument really well, or releasing loads of albums, or having cult appeal really make someone a legend? How about actually creating your own type of music,  inventing your own musical instrument, and being the main man of [...]

Or to give it the full title Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age.
The new Broadcast album isn’t really the new Broadcast album. It was 2005 since we last heard from Trish Keenan and James Cargill, and their fourth ‘proper’ long-player arrives next year. But in the meantime we have [...]

Here’s the second part of the track-by-track rundown on Balletesque, the new album from The Young Republic, by lead singer Julian Saporiti. Here he tells us more about the Nashville band’s second (or first proper) album, including how to pronounce the title, how they found their groove and how you might find yourself in some [...]

Today’s a long-awaited one. It finally sees the release of The Young Republic’s Balletesque. Not that I’ve been waiting all this time though; I’ve been lucky enough to had a copy for a while, and long-time readers (are there any of these?) will have heard me enthusing at various points this year. But it’s out [...]

Fans of Micah P. Hinson, those who have loved his three albums of powerful, melancholic, soulful, country-tinged rock, may have been a little surprised by his latest record. Instead of baring his soul to us, he’s channeling his energies into interpreting other people’s music. Yes, it’s a covers album, and a double album at that. [...]

A new Richard Hawley album is always a big event in the Growl household. We’re both fans, but Mrs Growl especially so. She was the one who ran to the main stage at End of the Road when Bob Lind announced that Hawley and Jarvis were to be backing him up on a few songs. [...]

Scruffy, hirsute young hipsters making melodic Americana can be found on every street in Brooklyn, so it’s a feat for any of them to stand out. Forest Fire do, because they ply an impressive trade in ragged, soulful countrified rock, where blissed-out grooves meet gorgeous harmonies, achingly melancholic melodies and sometimes startling lyrics (like “tonight [...]

If you were releasing an album called At Breakfast, Dinner and Tea, you would do some sort of meal-releated promo for that album, right? That seems such an obvious thing to do, not only because it’s a nice cheesy tie-in with the title, but also because it combines two of the best things in the [...]

Their album hasn’t even been released yet, and already there’s chat about a Mercury Prize nomination next year for South West London four-piece The xx. How’s that for a big up for your new record? Although such talk is cheap, if it did actually happen, it would show the Mercury judges with a rare lapse [...]

I love the radio. In this, the Age of the Internetz, it’s always a pleasure to discover good new music through old-fashioned means. Even if it is digital radio. Last week was particularly good. Just when I was doing a ‘Scottish week’ (which became more of a week and a half) on this blog, I [...]