Benefits - Constant Noise
Stylistic reinventions are getting rarer and rarer. If something has worked, artists are either encouraged to continue to give the people what (they think) they want or, more likely, do so at their label’s request (insistence).
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Especially if it makes money.
Thankfully, Benefits purposefully operate outside the mainstream music industry.
Not only that, from the outset their guiding principles have demonstrably been about integrity, honesty and purity, and for that we should be grateful.
Where debut album Nails was a vital, powerful but unrelenting body of rock work full of visceral aggression, for Constant Noise, Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major have recalibrated their sonic approach, creating an album that retains its uncompromising energy while expanding into immersive, electronic landscapes.
From the outset, Constant Noise establishes itself as something new; the title-track opens with Hall’s spoken-word lament, ‘I’m looking up in awe at a mountain of shit’, setting the scene while replacing sheer sonic fury with a creeping dread, blending ambient textures and industrial rhythms to amplify its social and political commentary.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/benefits-constant-noise-review/
The Horrors - Interview
Image by Sarah Piantadosi
After nearly two decades in music, few bands have built a catalogue as consistently innovative and critically acclaimed as The Horrors.
They burst onto the scene in 2007 with their garage-goth debut Strange House before taking a bold turn with their Mercury-nominated follow-up Primary Colours.
From the start, they have moved freely between genres, reinventing their sound with each release. Their sixth album, Night Life, once again sees The Horrors transform, embracing a fresh musical direction and a new lineup centred around vocalist Faris Badwan and bassist Rhys Webb.
It marks The Horrors’ first album without all five original members; after their 2017 album V the band found themselves at a crossroads, a feeling intensified by lockdown.
Drummer Joe Spurgeon departed early in the demo process to focus on his family, while keyboardist Tom Furse stepped back from touring and eventually left.
Guitarist Josh Hayward contributes to the album but has been in and out of the sessions, making this a new chapter for the band in many ways.
“It was quite a gradual and natural thing, especially with COVID happening in that time,” Badwan explains while speaking to Live4ever.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/the-horrors-live4ever-interview/
Peter Doherty - The Trinity Centre, Bristol - 16th March 2025
Who would have thought that Peter Doherty would become a national treasure?
It’s been a long and troubled road, but midway through his set in Bristol on March 16th, he brings out his wife Katia de Vidas as a member of his live band to (briefly) accompany him.
Doherty now lives what we understand to be a life of peace and tranquility in France with his family, his prolific work rate undimmed but his addiction problems (hopefully) behind him.
It’s a heartwarming sight that proves, against all the odds, his love for music won out. Not only that, but at little cost to his performances which are – as ever – intimate, unpredictable and deeply engaging.
Eschewing any grand entrance or elaborate introduction, he takes to the stage (early!) in darkness, his voice just about cutting through as he opens with ‘She Is Far’.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/peter-doherty-live-bristol-review/
Interview - Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty - Becoming Led Zeppelin
Becoming Led Zeppelin, the first official documentary sanctioned and approved by the legendary band, has surpassed all expectations. The film includes never-seen-before footage and new interviews with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones. Best of all, it includes unearthed interviews from the late, great drummer John Bonham, and it’s a wonderful, loving tribute to one of the greatest bands of all time. And the box office agrees.
“The first week was mad in IMAX in America,” the film’s director Bernard MacMahon tells CLASH. “It was completely sold out. It was made for IMAX, and that run sold out and by the end of the first week it was IMAX’s biggest music film of all time. Now it’s broken Sony Classics biggest music film of all time.”
“It’s absolutely incredible,” agrees producer and co-writer Allison McGourty. “I’m blown away and absolutely honoured. I’ve met people who have seen it, two, three, four, even five times. We worked really hard on this film but it’s just surpassed all our dreams and expectations. It’s mind-blowing.”
“The feeling of connection with all these people we’ve never met is extraordinary. By them going again and again, it tells us we were right to put all this work on. You have all these people who look at the world the same as you do,” Macmahon adds.
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/becoming-led-zeppelin-is-the-years-must-see-music-documentary/
Courting Interview
Barely allowing the dust to settle on their second album, Liverpudlians Courting are back with a third effort fourteen months later. (Deep breath) Lust for Life, Or How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell A Story is a culmination of the band’s fusion of indie, experimental rock and electro pop, formed across their seven-year career.
CLASH spoke with lead vocalist Sean Murphy-O’Neill to discuss how the new album came about, his songwriting process and what’s next.
Andy Bell - Pinball Wanderer
This is getting silly now.
For fans of Andy Bell’s work, the past few years have been a thrilling ride, marked by a steady stream of releases across his various projects. In just the last 18 months, he has delivered two GLOK albums (one live, the other a collaboration with Timothy Clerkin), the excellent Interplay with Ride, and now his third solo album, all alongside the ongoing Mantra of the Cosmos project.
While The View From Halfway Down was something of a smorgasbord of finger-plucked folk and psyche-pop, Flicker added floods of reverb, but on both albums, Bell’s vocals were discernible at the usual volume in the mix. However, on this third offering, the former(?) Oasis man is happy to let the music do the talking, with his voice more of an additional instrument which adds to the timbre of the song, rather than the focal point.
https://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/andy-bell-pinball-wanderer/
Kele Okereke - Live at Thekla, Bristol - 20th February 2025
Kele Okereke’s solo output now eclipses his work with Bloc Party. As such, and given his prolificity, a show by the Bloc Party frontman can draw on a hefty back catalogue.
However, the three most recent albums (The Waves, The Flames and The Singing Winds, otherwise known as The Elements) all fall under one banner and form the core of tonight’s gig.
It’s a show (and indeed a tour) in which Okereke exemplifies ‘solo’, with no band and no traditional instruments aside from two guitars (one of which is barely used).
Instead, he plays a stoic rhythm on the guitar, appropriate for the songs, and utilises an array of looping devices.
Although the setlist is obviously pre-planned, it adds a spontaneous feel, as if the audience is watching the creative process unfold.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/kele-okereke-live-at-thekla-bristol-review/
bdrmm - Microtonic
Things are undeniably grim.
As 2025 unfolds the state of the world looks as precarious as it has done for some time. The temptation to uninstall all the apps on your phone and turn away from it all has never been stronger.
Dance your troubles away or face the depressing state of things head on. Those seem to be the choices.
There is, however, a third way, which bdrmm have excavated on this fine third effort: bury the despair as deeply as possible in club euphoria, but refuse to hide from it, looking outwards to acknowledge the bleakness of reality.
Interview - Doves
For a quarter of a century, Doves have been masterfully balancing euphoria and darkness, weaving rich soundscapes across five well-received albums. Now they’re back but – as has been well reported – in altered form. Lead singer Jimi Goodwin will not be accompanying brothers Jez and Andy Williams on the forthcoming tour in support of sixth album Constellations for the Lonely, just as he was unable to engage in the campaign for previous album The Universal Want in 2021.
“It was a massive blow, the tour,” Andy explains to CLASH. “We had two tours which we really looking forward to doing, our first tours in – then – ten years. It’s fifteen years now! It getting cancelled, firstly due to COVID, then second time Jimi not being well enough, was a real blow for both of us. We were desperate to play live. The future was so uncertain.”
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/the-future-was-so-uncertain-doves-interviewed/
Interview - Andy Bell
Andy Bell’s hot streak continues, with his third album in twelve months arriving at the end of February. Marking another new creative direction, Pinball Wanderer features eight brand new songs, differing from previous solo works The View From Halfway Down (2020) and Flicker (2022), which featured songs compiled over several years.
The album blends psychedelic melodies and hypnotic grooves with a veritable smorgasbord of other influences, the Ride guitarist doffing his cap to the Stone Roses, Neu! and Arthur Russell among others. Bell recently took time out of his (very) busy schedule to tell Clash a little bit more.
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/sonic-wanderer-clash-meets-andy-bell/
Doves - Constellations For The Lonely
Overcoming adversity isn’t a new experience for Doves.
After a studio fire curtailed their first incarnation as Sub Sub, Mancunian trio Jimi Goodwin and brothers Jez and Andy Williams returned as the new millennium dawned, taking the electronic mindset into dusky indie anthemia to great success and acclaim.
After another three albums, the trio took a break before returning in bombastic form with 2020’s The Universal Want.
Unfortunately, after delaying the tour because of the pandemic, the campaign was definitively cancelled when Goodwin’s health and well-being concerns became apparent.
Yet beauty has come from sadness, with Constellations For The Lonely arguably their best album yet.
The Murder Capital - Blindness
After broadening their sonic palette on second album Gigi’s Recovery, The Murder Capital very nearly burnt themselves out on the subsequent tour and opted for a fresh approach for the recording of their next album.
Decamping to LA to work with producer John Congleton, for the first time in their career the quintet had few ideas or song titles, instead referring to scraps of ideas recorded on their phones.
In their typically combative fashion, the band fell out on the first day, nearly splitting up but fortunately reconvened to deliver a barnstorming third effort.
No strangers to intensity, by stripping away the extant timbres The Murder Capital found a new strand of it; Blindness purveys an almost claustrophobic sound, truly feeling like the band are in the same room at the same time.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/the-murder-capital-blindness-rev/
Kyle Falconer - The One I Love The Most
Despite the nuance of their work, The View have perhaps struggled to shake their initial reputation of scallies, detailing escapades and encounters with characters in their music. But beyond the galivanting, lead songwriter Kyle Falconer has always had the muse of someone who’s had their heart broken. Even on ‘Hats Off To The Buskers’, tracks like ‘Face For The Radio’ and ‘Claudia’ stood out from the boisterousness.
In his solo work, Falconer has been free to pursue that side of his songwriting, culminating in the deeply confessional and reflective No Love Songs For Laura in 2021. Now, as if to prove the point, just in time for Valentine’s Day, he’s compiled his most personal selection of songs, reworking them to showcase the essence of the music without production or heft.
https://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/kyle-falconer-the-one-i-love-most/
The Verve - This Is Music: The Singles
Richard Ashcroft was right all along: History does have a place for The Verve and given that he will performing a clutch of their songs to stadium audiences this summer, it seems an appropriate time to re-evaluate their fearsome back catalogue.
While they were never a singles band as such, with their sonic wizardly and density better found in the corners of their four albums, this compilation (originally released in 2004) represents them well. The Wigan four-piece were dubbed as shoegazers when debut single ‘All In The Mind’ was released in 1992, yet the ominous, bone-rattling power of the song generates more of an acid-flecked vibe, complete with Cure-esque bassline.
Later the same year, they released eight-minute opus ‘Gravity Grave’. Listening today, it’s a piece that feels ripe for a remix by some brave soul, all seductive bass and meandering guitar. Thankfully, this new edition includes second single ‘She’s A Superstar’ (cruelly truncated in 2004) in all its majesty. The twinkling verse gives way to a turbine engine of a chorus before an extended coda where guitarist Nick McCabe winds in every possible direction. Sublime.
https://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/the-verve-this-is-music-the-singles/
Bilk - Essex Drugs And Rock And Roll
Say what you like about that album title; it knows exactly what it is.
Three-piece Bilk (guess where they’re from) released their self-titled debut album in 2023, consolidating their grassroots following through a clutch of EPs and incendiary live shows since their formation five years earlier.
Their no-frills approach to music continues on this second album. Following in the veins of early Arctic Monkeys (certainly not the current iteration) and The Streets, these are tales of life in modern Britain, brutally unpolished and unrefined.
As such, it’s designed to have mass appeal, speaking to a disenfranchised youth. Opening track ‘RnR’ proudly and shamelessly lifts the spirit from ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ by Oasis, an aspirational song about aiming for stardom (‘Forget about the bullshit outside my room’) but fused with boisterous glam rock guitars and incessant vocal delivery.
At the other end of Essex Drugs And Rock And Roll, ‘Band Life Blues’ outlines the story of Bilk to date, detailing the meagre pay new bands receive, offset by the joy of living their dream.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/bilk-essex-rock-and-roll-review/
Pastel - Souls In Motion
The Spirit Of Spike Island label has gathered pace over the last few years.
Though Afflecks Palace, the band led by label head J. Fender, has built up an impressive fanbase, anticipation for the debut album by fellow Mancunians Pastel could lead to their biggest statement yet.
If you’ve ever wondered or hoped to hear The Verve fronted by former Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan, Pastel have the answer. Unsurprisingly, the answer is big – very big.
Their debut album has been a long time coming; their first single, ‘She Waits For Me’, was released just as the world went into lockdown (mercifully, nearly five years ago), followed by a procession of singles over the preceding two years.
In 2022, they played to a crowd of 85,000 people at Liam Gallagher’s Knebworth show and built on it with further singles.
So, there is a certain degree of expectation on Pastel’s shoulders. They kept a low profile last year, burrowed away in the studio, but now the fruit of their labour is here and, in keeping with the band’s attitude and output so far, it’s a boisterous body of songs.
Interview - Stella Rose
After releasing her debut album in early 2023, Stella Rose follows it up with EP Hollybaby, released on Friday (December 13th). A marked step on for the New Yorker, the songs both finetune and expand her sound to take in more contrasting influences.
The daughter of Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, the musician is no stranger to moody, intense sonics, and the EP consolidates her position as one of the most exciting new talents around. Recently, she spoke with CLASH, having just returned from a support tour with A Place To Bury Strangers followed by her own headline tour.
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/in-conversation-stella-rose/
Interview - Fran Healy
Having been a staple of the mainstream for 25 years, the perception of Travis is probably ‘timeless songs delivered by nice boys’. Not exactly the most rock and roll description, but it could be worse. Yet to assume it’s a description they readily accept is dangerous.
‘We’ve always been bashed for being nice, and I always find that quite amusing,’ says Fran Healy. ‘I would say to people: don’t confuse nice with weak. It’s the wrong thing to do, especially if you’re talking to someone from Possilpark. I’ll fucking rip your face off, you c**t. People look at us like, ‘Ahhh’. You don’t even know me. Fuck off.’
When CLASH speaks to the Travis frontman, he’s suffering from jet lag having landed in the UK to prepare for a short but condensed run of shows. Yet one senses that his riposte is not because of tiredness, more a flash of rarely-seen inbuilt Glaswegian steel.
‘It used to annoy me,’ he says of their public image. ‘But what can you do? You can’t do anything about it, it’s just the perception of a few people. The fact is, in a hundred years from now, we’ll all be dead and maybe there will be a couple of songs floating around. That’s kind of it.’
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/ive-still-got-unfinished-business-travis-interviewed/
Live4Ever - Our Year In Review 2024
2024 was billed as the biggest year ever for democracy, with more than four billion people casting votes to elect leaders and governments.
Inevitably it was a mixed bag; while the UK is finally free of Conservative rule after 14 years, the United States has regressed eight years and brought back Donald Trump to oversee what will be a turbulent four years at home and abroad.
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine may be the first consequential decision of Trump 2.0, yet all eyes are on his actions (if any) regarding the increasingly worrisome situation in the Middle East.
Oh, and Mother Nature continues to push back at speeds that humanity continually fails to comprehend, let alone manage, but we don’t talk about that, do we?
In our safe space, the Oasis reunion will likely dominate discourse next year in the same way it has the last four months of this, but for those not of a Gallagher persuasion 2024 has been another year of evolution in music.
Now it has been normalised, AI has been embraced by the likes of Grimes and The Weeknd, introducing software into their craft (although, obviously, The Beatles did it first), despite reservations from their peers.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/our-year-in-music-english-teacher/